Your Recruiting Metrics Suck- Here’s Why

If you are not tracking the right recruiting metrics, you will never win the talent war. Securing top-notch talent isn’t just an advantage—it’s crucial for an organization’s long-term success. Recruiting isn’t just about plugging holes in your staffing; it’s an intricate process aimed at identifying candidates who will actively contribute to your organizational culture and objectives. The role of recruitment metrics in this process is irreplaceable. They offer tangible data that informs your recruitment strategies, making the process more efficient.

Recruiting metrics serve as yardsticks that gauge the quality and effectiveness of your hiring activities. In today’s labor market, where there’s fierce competition for skilled individuals, the reliance on data-driven metrics will only grow.

This post explores the facets of successful recruiting, commonly examined metrics, and why traditional metrics might not be comprehensive enough. I’ll also introduce high-value recruiting metrics for a more complete understanding of your hiring process.

What Does Successful Recruiting Look Like?

Success in recruiting is a nuanced affair. It involves attracting quality candidates and guiding them smoothly from the application stage to successful onboarding. Signs of success can include shorter times to fill jobs, lower new-hire turnover, and positive feedback from hiring managers.

For optimal results, an organization should develop a holistic recruiting strategy aligned with broader business objectives. This entails building a skilled, diverse, and engaged workforce for long-term success. Finding and implementing the best recruiting software is crucial, especially as Generative AI technologies become increasingly integrated into the recruiting landscape.

Common Metrics in Recruiting

Time to Fill

This metric counts the days between posting a job and filling it. While valuable, it has limitations such as lack of full control by the recruiting team, being a lagging indicator, and complicated calculations involving various factors.

If you have followed this blog for any period of time, you know my complete disdain for this metric. If you haven’t, check out why I think time to fill is a stupid metric.

Number of Hires

This is simply the count of new hires over a set period. It’s a basic measure and does not truly reveal hiring velocity without considering leading metrics that affect hiring. Sure, you can deduce that one month you filled more roles than the previous but it’s doubtful you can show why. It’s why this is one of the weaker key recruiting metrics.

Number of Open Roles

This metric provides a snapshot of the hiring workload. However, the implications of a high or low number can vary depending on factors like company growth or turnover rates. Again, it’s more of a necessary recruiting metric versus an impactful one.

Why Common Recruiting Metrics Fall Short

Traditional metrics like ‘Time to Fill’ can be misleading. For example, a shorter time to fill may not necessarily mean higher-quality hires. Relying only on these metrics can lead to short-term actions that may not align with long-term organizational goals.

High-Value Recruiting Metrics

Average Days Open

This measures the average duration a role stays open, providing a general view of efficiency over time. Categorizing jobs based on this metric can offer more actionable insights. I like to use the following:

1. Less than 30
2. 30-45 days
3. More than 45 days

Displaying this information as a pie chart shows me what percentage of open roles is in which category. If I have 400 jobs open and 60% of them are in the less than 30 days or even less than 45 days, I feel good about how my team is performing.

This metric is also powerful when you can review it by department or even hiring manager. If you notice that two managers in the same division have differing average days open, it is a good opportunity to dig into why. This may mean one manager is overly particular or causes issues when trying to get interviews scheduled. This recruiting metric allows you to ask the right questions and help remove obstacles for your team.

Points Won During the Sprint

One of the principles in Sprint Recruiting is prioritization of roles using points. This allows recruiting teams to focus on the key roles of a sprint in sequential order. It also provides an easier view of what’s important to the client, allowing recruiting leaders to allocate resources appropriately. Here’s an example of a job sheet with points added:

At the end of every sprint, you have a Points Won versus Points Allocated metric. This is one of the key recruiting metrics because it defines performance against what your client deemed as important. Rather than simply reporting how many roles are filled like traditional recruiting, this recruiting metric redefines performance and shows a percentage over time of how often your team meets the definition of success set by your client.

Reviewing this key recruiting metric each sprint in your retrospective meetings allows you to iterate each sprint to become better. It’s one of the reasons prioritization in recruiting works and will make your team a recruiting engine.

Photo by Stephen Phillips – Hostreviews.co.uk on Unsplash

Candidate Funnel Statistics: A Deeper Dive

In the context of recruiting, the candidate funnel is a conceptual model that illustrates the various stages a job applicant passes through during the hiring process. Just like a sales funnel in marketing, the candidate funnel helps to map out the journey from the initial point of attraction to the final stage of hiring and onboarding. Understanding the metrics associated with each stage of this funnel can offer actionable insights into the efficiency and effectiveness of your recruiting strategy.

Stages of the Candidate Funnel

Here is a simplified outline of the stages most candidates go through:

1. Awareness: At this stage, potential candidates become aware of your company as an employer. Metrics to track could include source tracking, brand impressions, or even engagement rates on job ads across different platforms.
2. Interest: Candidates actively seek more information about your company and the roles available. Metrics at this stage often include website visits, clicks on job postings, and time spent on career-related web pages.
3. Application: This is the stage where candidates formally apply for a role. The number of applications received for each posting can be a critical metric here.
4. Assessment: Candidates are assessed through various methods like interviews, tests, or background checks. Metrics could include the time taken for each assessment and the ratios of candidates moving on to the next stage.
5. Offer: A job offer is extended to the successful candidates. The offer acceptance rate is a key metric at this stage.
6. Onboarding: The new hire begins work and goes through the onboarding process. Metrics here may include new hire performance indicators and onboarding satisfaction scores.

Why are Candidate Funnel Statistics Important?

1. Identifying Bottlenecks: Understanding where candidates drop out can help pinpoint areas in your process that may need improvement.
2. Quality vs. Quantity: By tracking how many candidates make it from one stage to the next, you can assess whether you’re attracting the right kind of talent.
3. Cost and Time Efficiency: Knowing how long candidates spend at each stage can help you streamline the process, thereby saving both time and resources.
4. Improving Experience: Monitoring metrics like time-to-respond to applications or candidate satisfaction during interviews can help improve the candidate experience, which in turn can make your organization more attractive to top talent.
5. Data-Driven Strategy: With the funnel statistics at hand, you can make data-driven decisions to tweak your recruiting strategies for better outcomes.

Examples of Funnel Metrics

• Application to Interview Ratio: This metric shows the percentage of applicants who move from the application stage to the interview stage.
• Interview to Offer Ratio: This shows the percentage of candidates interviewed who receive a job offer.
• Time-per-Stage: Measures the average time candidates spend at each stage, offering insight into the efficiency of the process.

Candidate Funnel Statistics offer a comprehensive way to evaluate and improve your recruiting process. By tracking metrics at each stage of the funnel, you can gain actionable insights into the effectiveness of your strategies, helping you to make informed decisions and ultimately secure the best talent for your organization.

Conclusion

Relying solely on traditional metrics is no longer sufficient for a truly effective recruiting strategy. Metrics like ‘Average Days Open,’ ‘Candidate Experience Scores,’ and ‘Average Reply Rate’ provide a more comprehensive view. Understanding and leveraging a wider range of metrics can elevate your recruiting process from good to great, ensuring alignment with your organization’s long-term goals and culture.

If you would like to preview my dashboard and what I measure, you can find a demo dashboard here.