Data-driven recruiting 101: How to improve your hiring process

Companies are unable to hire quickly enough to meet the expectations of their workforce, and competition is tough for those high-potential employees who can produce creative solutions or go above and beyond for your customers. The key to recruiting and retaining the appropriate personnel to accomplish corporate objectives — and employing them at the right price — is to use data-driven recruitment. 

The recruiting process is a gold mine of data that, when correctly mined, exposes crucial information about whether or not a candidate will be the high-performing employee your company requires. 

When to use data in your hiring process 

Here’s how to make the switch to data-driven recruiting: 

Select the appropriate data and metrics.

Begin by identifying a few key hiring metrics to monitor. Measuring quality of hire is beneficial to all businesses since it demonstrates the overall success of your hiring operations. Other often used measures are: 

1. Cost-per-hire  
2. Time-to-hire 
3. Source of hiring 
4. Skills match of candidates 
5. Scores for candidate experience (e.g. application conversion rates, candidate feedback) 
6. Acceptance rates for job offers 

Questions to ask yourself before selecting the appropriate metrics: 

1. What do you wish you had understood about the hiring process before you started? 
2.  What data do you use (or would want to utilize) to help you hire more efficiently? 
3. What hiring issues or bottlenecks do you frequently encounter? 
4.  Which recruitment sources/methods do you believe in but can’t show their efficacy with data? 
5.  Which recruitment sources/methods do you think are untrustworthy, but you don’t have the evidence to back it up? 
6. What recruitment data might you use to create reports for your bosses? 
7. To you, what does a successful hiring process entail?

Data collection should be efficient. 

Data collecting might take a long time. Make things as easy as possible for yourself. Here’s how to do it: 

• Take use of software:  It’s possible that your applicant tracking system (ATS) already has reporting features that will save you time. Integrate assessments with the hiring process to get in-depth insights and data about the candidates’ core skills, capabilities, and expertise. 
• Collect data in a variety of methods: Some data may be simply acquired using Google Analytics (for example, conversion rates on the careers page) or simple questionnaires. 
• Take action based on the data: Decide what you’ll do with your data once you’ve gathered it. Here are some instances of frequent recruitment difficulties that data may help you identify, as well as solutions: 

The hiring process takes a long time. Examine which phases of your recruitment process are lagging if your time-to-hire is routinely higher than the industry norm. Here are a few examples of bottlenecks: 

• Sourcing: To help you reach more applicants faster and establish talent pipelines, consider broadening your sourcing tactics using social recruitment or employing a sourcing technology. 
• Screening: Before you begin screening candidates, include qualifying questions on your job application forms and create effective phone screen questions. 
• Interviews: Use software that allows you to plan interviews with hiring managers and applicants across various calendars with ease. 
• Job offers: Write compelling formal job offer letters that correctly summaries your jobs and convince individuals to accept.

Acceptance rates for employment offers are low. 

Having your finest prospects decline job offers results in increased costs and positions remaining empty for longer periods of time. If you’re getting a lot of employment offers but they’re all being turned down, there are a few things you can do: 

• Make employment offers that are more competitive. Use sites like Glassdoor and PayScale to undertake more in-depth research on perks and compensation. 
• Early on, gauge applicant interest in the post. During phone screenings and interviews, make sure you communicate effectively with candidates about the position (e.g., explain their goals and concerns). 
• Make sure your candidates have a good time. Ascertain that your staff treats candidates with respect  
• Prepare employment offer letters that match the candidates’ work expectations.  

A high rate of new recruit turnover 

The number of employees that quit immediately after being employed is referred to as new hire turnover. When your new recruit turnover is excessively high, there are two typical remedies: 

• Communicate effectively with job applicants. Before candidates accept your job offer, make sure they understand the job roles, criteria, and team and individual performance expectations. Your new recruits may depart if they believe you misled them about the position. 
• Create a successful onboarding procedure. Send an email to congratulate your new hire. Ensure that your new workers are made to feel welcome, that they receive proper training, and that they are given opportunity to accomplish important work straight away. 

Understand the data’s limits. 

Data alone will not tell you why something occurs. By mixing diverse sorts of data, you can gain a deeper understanding, but you must still interpret your results. 

• Your issues will not be solved by data. Data reveals what your teams excel at and where there may be issues to address, but what you do with that information is entirely up to you. 
• Data isn’t always unbiased. If data is being generated by members of your team, be prepared to accept the results with a grain of salt.