Top 4 Recruiting Metrics to Use in 2017

If recruiters spent their days analyzing and reporting on every metric out there they would have absolutely no time to recruit. Trends like social recruiting are only useful if recruiters know exactly what works and what doesn't. Big data and the use of metrics has become increasingly more important as companies are looking to save not only money, but time.  

Businesses are already using high-impact data programs to understand consumer behaviors. By giving your recruiting program a data-focused approach you will be able to understand candidates, both active and passive much better. Using data and analytics will allow you to better understand which channels to recruit on, how to identify which passive candidates are best to target, and a whole host of other things.  

Since we won't cover each metric a recruiter should be looking at – we'll cover the top four. If you have others that are useful, leave us a comment and we'll add it to the post as a bonus metric!   

Source of Hire 

This metric isn’t new but you’d be surprised how many recruiters and recruiting leaders don’t make the effort to accurately calculate it and then use it to adjust their recruiting strategy. It may also be one of the most important to understand going into 2017 as candidates continue to utilize more and more digital channels to research your company and search for job opportunities. Smart recruiters are always sourcing from multiple channels whether it be an advertisement from a job board, LinkedIn, social networks, or direct contact with passive candidates, it's important to understand which of these channels are most effective.  

There are a few pieces of information you'll want when it comes to understanding the source of hire:  

1. How many applicants came from each source 

2. Out of those that came, how many were qualified (got to interview stage)? 

3. Which reqs are you filling from each of these sources? 

These questions are easier to track when it comes to source of hire if you take the effort to create tracking codes from your ATS (this is possible in most modern ATSes like iCims, Greenhouse, and Lever as well as many others). Before posting you would create a tracking link for each source you are posting your jobs to (candidate email, niche job board, etc). Also, making sure your job boards are integrated with your ATS for distribution and tracking is automatically passing through to the ATS or that you are utilizing a recruitment marketing platform on top of your ATS to automatically capture source traffic as candidates come into your jobs via an analytics layer over you career site (For example, Clinch, SmashFly, and many others on the market).

This is probably the best way to ensure you’re getting the most accurate source data. Why use automated source tracking to tie applications back to the source? Because relying on the candidate to select the source from a drop down menu in the apply process just doesn’t cut it when it comes to data integrity.  

The benefit of using this metric is you're able start understanding quality and efficiency of your recruiting spend and able to shut down ineffective channels and have real data behind the reasoning. Better yet, by measuring the performance of various channels you spend recruiting dollars on such as job boards, social advertising, etc and adjusting your investments given the data, you can save yourself a lot of time and your company a lot of money. At the same time, when you find a channel performing above others, you can make a better case to spend more budget or resources on it.  

Cost of Hire 

This one will be found on every list about recruiting metrics out there – and it's for a good reason, too! Understanding your cost per hire allows companies a host of options when it comes to filling open job requisitions. This one was added on the list because companies seem to forget costs outside basic items. When calculating this cost you should look at the following examples in conjunction with all the basics associated with cost per hire:  

1. Cost of recruiter's time (whether that be internal or external recruiters) to source, recruit and hire candidates as well as promote the job  

2. Cost of a manager and other employees on the interview team’s time interviewing candidates 

3. Administrative costs that are associated with setting up new employees 

When dealing with cost of hire it's important to base it off your own company's benchmarks. The cost per hire for a VP of Marketing at Company X is and will be much different for Company Y. There are several factors that determine this metric and it's important to understand it to keep costs low when replacing employees. Look at all the costs associated with hiring an employee for each type of position to understand ways that cost can be reduced through tracking what efficiencies can be made in the hiring process without impacting candidate experience or quality.  

Time to Hire 

As the war on talent rages on it's important to capture the most qualified talent before your competition. When a candidate rejects a job offer it's most likely because there is a better one on the table. By prolonging the process candidates are more likely to jump ship for a better offer. Understanding time to hire will also allow companies to find faults in their hiring processes and create quicker more efficient processes around hiring candidates. Notice, we didn’t say time to fill.  

When calculating time to hire as a metric for recruiter or recruiting team performance make sure you are measuring things that are within the recruiting organization’s control. For example, tracking time to offer may be a better metric for time to hire than time to fill (start date) because there are many factors the recruiter can’t control from the time an offer is accepted and the candidates starts.  

Retention Rate 

This is also a given when it comes to recruiting metrics. Understanding how long and employee stays at a company is crucial to finding any type of flaw in the lifecycle of your company. Do some teams have lower retention rates than others? If so, is it the work or is it the manager? Understanding retention rates opens the door to a whole host of issues within your company from measuring employee engagement to calculating hiring plans.  

While we know this is just a snippet of information about recruiting metrics – our friends at ERE have come up with an entire list that will help you in your journey to use data as a means to understanding your candidates.  

What did we miss that you use everyday? What metrics do you use and find most effective? Let us know in the comments below and we'll share with other readers.