Have you ever reached the end of the recruiting process with a rockstar candidate just to have them reject your offer?
Or, maybe you’ve hired someone who had a stellar interview process but started to fall flat after becoming employed.
These mistakes happen; while they’re frustrating, they can teach us crucial lessons when it comes to the hiring process. Where did your process fail? Do you know how to find out?
If you’re looking for the right recruitment metrics to measure the success of your hiring efforts, then keep reading.
Why Are Recruitment Metrics Important?
If you’re putting a tremendous amount of effort into your recruiting, don’t you want to know how it’s really paying off?
Of course, you do — that’s why looking at recruitment metrics is crucial.
These data points can help you identify the strengths and weaknesses in your recruitment process. Whether you’re running HR for a small business or a million dollar corporation, no system is perfect; and, each one always has room for improvement.
Read on for our top seven recruitment metrics to measure the success of your hiring process!
1. Application Drop Off Rate
The first recruitment metric you should take a look at when analyzing your hiring process is the application drop off rate. This metric represents the percentage of applicants who start the application process but end up not completing it.
Candidates could drop the application process for a variety of reasons. However, it’s valuable to take an objective look at your application as a whole and question any flaws you may find while doing so. Is the application too lengthy? Are there redundant questions?
By improving your application drop off rate, you will open the door to the best talent that’s out there. If someone knows they’re qualified for a job, they’re not going to want to waste an hour with a flawed application.
Make each step valuable. If they aren’t, you may lose opportunities for great candidates.
2. Time to Fill
How long does it take you and your team to fill a position? If you don’t know, you should.
Time to fill is a recruitment metric that measures the time it takes to identify a candidate and fill an open position. If your time to fill is high, you may also have unsatisfied candidates and low acceptance ratios.
What is making your process sluggish? Is it internal communications? Do you require too many interviews? Are you slow to make decisions?
Whatever the reason may be, focus on cutting your time to fill down significantly. There are plenty of ways to take your hiring process to the digital world, and in return, they can cut down your time to fill significantly.
3. Satisfaction of Candidates
Have you ever had to deal with a candidate who voiced their opinion about your recruiting process online? Or, have you checked out your company’s GlassDoor reviews lately?
With the expansion of the internet and social media, it’s easier now than ever for candidates to express their thoughts and feelings toward specific companies. Web sites that include details about hiring processes can become muddled with terrible reviews and accounts of experiences.
The satisfaction of candidates is one of the most important recruitment metrics. You want your company’s reputation to be upheld in every aspect possible, and that includes the ones that involve outside connections. Furthermore, potential candidates will take a great amount of time researching your company while it’s going through the application process — is what they’re seeing positive, or negative?
Higher candidate satisfaction is something that will help you attract the best talent possible. No one wants to interview with a grumpy recruiter or have to wait for their interview because someone is running late!
4. Cost to Acquire
One of the recruitment metrics that is particularly important for smaller businesses is the cost to acquire. Analyzing the cost to acquire a candidate can help HR teams determine just how efficient their hiring process is.
If your hiring process is lengthy, your cost to acquire may be high. Slower hiring processes mean more people have to take more time out of their day to interview someone — which is time away from their actual job!
If you’re looking to lower your cost to acquire, be careful as to where exactly you are cutting costs. Cut them in the wrong place and you may end up with poor candidate satisfaction.
5. Offer to Acceptance Ratio
After all of your hiring efforts, how many candidates are accepting your offers?
The offer to acceptance ratio is a valuable recruiting metric. This ratio can tell you if your company is offering competitive enough packages. Is your acceptance ratio low? Then you may not have the best offer out there.
Take a realistic look at what you’re currently offering, and what you think you can do to improve it. While you may not have a ton of wiggle room when it comes to salaries, perhaps you can offer other perks, like a work from home day or floating holiday.
6. Retention
Of the candidates you do hire, how many of them stay for a prolonged period of time? If it’s not long, then you have a low retention rate.
Considering the hiring process can be involved and expensive, HR teams should focus on building strong retention rates. That way, they are getting their return on investment when it comes to hiring.
7. Training Efficiency
Hiring a candidate is only half the battle; after they come on board, businesses must give them the proper training to set them up for success.
Are your new hires getting the swing of things after a few weeks, or are they still asking basic questions after a month? Do they seem to be excelling in their new role, or are they struggling?
Every company wants their employees to excel; not only is it beneficial for their own personal development, but it boosts team efficiency and moves your company closer to its goals. Spending the money up front to build a solid training program can help keep everyone on track.
Conclusion
Overall, data is key when it comes to analyzing your recruiting process. By taking a deep look at specific recruiting metrics, you can see exactly where your process is doing well — and where there’s room for improvement.
If you work in HR and are looking for more tips on how to set your team up for success, visit our blog here.