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Using Effective Recruiting Metrics to Drive Results

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Every good recruiting agency has a mission and every mission includes a path to success. In some cases, the path to success is unplanned and even driven by luck, but generally, the most successful recruiting agencies have a thoughtful, well-defined plan. They know what they need to do to be successful. Defining your path is only the beginning. You must also ensure you are following that path. This can be achieved by using and measuring effective recruiting metrics.

Why track metrics?

Metrics offer a variety of uses. First, they are used to keep your team focused on the path to success. In their busy day to day lives, recruiters and sales reps often turn their attention to the next trend, technology, prospect, or client request that comes across their desk. If it doesn’t fit into the company’s mission, then it is a distraction. Publishing metrics reminds team members of which company priorities should receive their focus.

Second, metrics help you identify areas where the company is straying from the plan. Exception reporting in your metrics allows you to easily and quickly react to things blocking your path to success. If customer satisfaction is a major driver of your success, then you can use exception reporting in your metrics to identify low customer satisfaction scores to prevent one time service failures from turning into unhappy customers.

Which metrics should you track?

There are an endless number of different metrics that can be tracked for your recruiting agency. Your agency must narrow down the choices to find the metrics that are most effective in driving your success. Where do you want to focus? Customer satisfaction, speed of service, candidate retention, or something else? ERE Media offers a standard set of recruiting metrics that might be a good place for you to start.

As you evaluate which metrics will best drive the performance of your team, remember the following:

  • Too many metrics can lead to a lack of focus and an inability to excel in any one area.
  • Too few metrics can lead to adverse effects. For example, if you focus strongly on speed to interview, then you may sacrifice candidate or customer satisfaction when trying to decrease the time spent leading to the interview.
  • Complimentary metrics lead to balance and focus.
  • Time is of the essence. Too much time spent on a specific metric calculation and you might find yourself racing against the clock on customer and candidate workflows.

How do you use metrics to drive results?

Once you identify your metrics, there are a few processes to implement in order to use the metrics to effectively drive results.

  1. Define the metric. Metrics can be interpreted differently, so ensure that your metric is well defined. For example, if you are tracking candidate satisfaction, then the candidate needs to be defined. Will it only be candidate’s you place on jobs or any candidate that comes to the recruiting agency?
  2. Communicate the metrics across the company. When you first introduce the metrics, present them and their definitions. Share the results you are expecting from driving the business with the metrics.
  3. Measure the metrics frequently and publish the results.
  4. Celebrate the wins and dig into the losses. Evolve as needed.

How can your recruitment software help?

Effective recruiting metrics can play a large part of driving your success, but the measurement process should only be a small part of your efforts. If you have the right software, then you should be able to track and display your metrics in a dashboard or a report. Tracking metrics directly in your staffing and recruiting software means they can be easily and frequently accessed and provide your team up-to-the-minute views of how you are doing.

Analyzing your metrics directly in your software centralizes the data and simplifies the process. The activity performed by your team is facilitated by your recruiting software and the metrics are reported from the data created. By tracking your metrics directly in your recruiting software, you enable your team to drill-down for immediate exception reporting of areas where you failed to deliver instead of waiting for a monthly or quarterly review of metrics. Adapt’s Reporting & Analytics tool provides you that functionality. To learn more about our recruiting software, please contact us for a demo.

Four Tips on “Moneyball” Key Talent Management Metrics That Give Insight to Staffing Companies

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In the movie Moneyball, which is based on a true story, the Oakland A’s choose their baseball team roster based entirely on statistics and end up wildly successful. You may not have the vast, intricate data that statistician Peter Brand used, but you can take advantage of talent management metrics to achieve similar wins. Staffing software can highlight trends within your recruiting firm, show results of both recruiters and placed talent, and offer you actionable data to guide your decisions.

Four Tips on “Money Ball” Talent Management Metrics That Help You Grow Your Staffing Company From the Bond Blog.

Image Credit: IMDB

“Big data is supposed to solve the problem of Moneyball and talent. Maybe,” writes Raghav Singh, global staffing and talent acquisition expert at The A-List, in his post Moneyball and Recruiting: The Future of Hiring or Pie in the Sky? “One can only use data — big or small — if it exists.” Well, you may be in luck. The four tips, shown as computations below, can shed light on how your recruiting firm is performing… if you’re tracking the data.

 

Tip 1: This Quarter’s (Job Placements / Job Openings) [< > or =] Last Quarter’s (Job Placements / Job Openings) = Company Performance.

In Moneyball, Brand used data to determine whether star players were performing as expected. In recruiting, this talent management metric allows you to determine whether you’re delivering the quality of applicants your clients seek. It’s determined by calculating the percent of job requirements that have been met by your applicants during the last month or quarter. Compare that percent to the previous quarter and the same quarter of the previous year to deem if changes need to be made to your recruiting and screening processes.

  • If the percent has decreased, pinpoint areas for improvement for your recruiting team. For example, give your team a refresher course on tweaking candidates’ resumes per job orders. Recruiting software that automatically creates a new resume with your company’s logo and lets recruiters easily edit each resume may speed this task and improve your team’s results.
  • If your applicant quality is the same over the last year, challenge your team to ramp up recruiting efforts. Hold a seminar using LinkedIn to recruit passive talent. Have a training session that delves into how to pinpoint millennial candidates who will best match particular clients.
  • If your recruiting firm is improving the percentage of job requirements met, good work! Analyze changes you’ve made or tactics you’ve started to use so you can build on them. This is a great opportunity to tap into your star performers and have them share their best practices with the rest of the recruiting team.

 

Tip 2: Number of Completed Activities / Number of Scheduled Activities = Recruiter Performance.

The Oakland A’s worked quietly to use data that pinpointed lesser-known baseball players who had potential. Before placing quality applicants, your recruiting team is hard at work behind the scenes. Recruiting software can track the number of scheduled and finished activities and how they measure up to your staffing firm’s goals. It lets you view a number of talent management metrics, including whether a recruiter is completing assigned communications, interviews, goals for placements and other tasks. If a recruiter is lagging behind, determine obstacles and pinpoint tactics to overcome them.

 

Tip 3: (Unfilled Openings + Number of Candidates Who Are Placed But Quickly Quit or Are Fired) / Job Openings = Failure Rate.

The Oakland A’s used statistics to pinpoint underperforming high-salary players on the roster who they should trade. For staffing firms, failure rates can be viewed as a source of valuable information that can help your staffing firm improve. Review what went wrong and where mistakes were made.

You may discover that your team needs to acquire more in-depth job definitions from your clients that delve into day-to-day tasks and other specifics. You may need to implement additional screening steps, including skills assessments. Or you may need to be screening candidates for certain traits.

“Coachability is the number one reason new hires fail,” writes Andrew Greenberg, CEO and president of Recruiting Division, in Hiring for Attitude: Why 81% of New Hires Will Fail.  “26 percent of new hire[s] fail due to their inability to accept feedback from those they work with, including bosses, colleagues, and customers.” Greenberg recommends asking candidates about whether or not they’ve been coached and what they think about it and what their former boss would say about them.

 

Tip 4: Accepted Offers / All Offers = Acceptance Rate.

In Moneyball, the team had very limited funds and sought players who would accept lower salaries. Your candidates need to have clarity about salary so they’re ready to accept a position if an offer is made. If your candidates are making it through the interview process but then turn down the offer, your team has invested a lot of time and effort for no gain. Tracking acceptance rates gives insight about changes that may need to be made. For example, are your recruiters crystal clear about salaries that will be offered, benefits, corporate culture and daily job tasks? Your recruiters may need pointers on establishing salaries and benefits prior to the interview process.

Your recruiting firm doesn’t need the meticulous data used by the characters in Moneyball, but there is valuable insight to gather from metrics. Whether it’s increasing training for your recruiting team or keeping tabs on talent opportunities, talent management metrics give you actionable data to help you take your team and recruiting company to Major League success.

Your staffing agency can access helpful data in addition to talent management metrics. Discover metrics that shed light on your staffing firm’s financial health and sales funnel with our on-demand webinar, Developing Metrics That Drive Growth and Profitability.

 

Improve staffing and recruiting efforts with key metrics tracked by recruiting software

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Regardless of what industry you are in, you most likely understand that business is largely a numbers game. Numbers are everywhere, from tracking successes and failures to improving process operations and analyzing customer data. With all of these facts and figures running around, it would be foolhardy to think that the staffing and recruiting industry is no less a numbers game.

Now, with staffing and recruiting agencies that focus more on providing a consultative service rather than simply just access to a mass talent pool, the numbers become more critical. Successful staffing firms are tracking staffing metrics to understand a wide range of factors. The adoption of recruiting software has allowed recruiting professionals to gain access to necessary metrics faster than ever. Metrics allow staffing agencies to justify costs, show return on investments, predict hiring trends and even the potential success of certain candidates over others.

In the staffing industry, it’s hard to find anything more worth the recruiting software investment than hiring metrics. However, for the average staffing professional, it may be hard to truly understand where all these figures are coming from, how they are derived and what they mean.

Why should a staffing and recruiting firm use metrics?
Metrics in the staffing and recruiting industry can lead to a wide range of benefits. One of the greatest benefits is the advancement of the relationship between a recruiter and the hiring manager. Metrics and their proper application enable recruiters and hiring managers to align their objectives. In addition, figures allow for a staffing agency to prove credibility to current and potential clients. According to Qualigence International, recruiters are better able to display their understanding of an industry and whether they have appropriately achieved goals and objectives. With the help of recruiting software, a recruiter can enhance his or her ability to be actionable and effective in his or her role. Recruiting software and metrics allow an agency to generate internal benchmarks to better create performance standards and drive recruitment.

Three time periods most metrics cover in the staffing and recruiting industry
Understanding metrics begins at discovering what is being measured. According to ERE.net, there are three time periods that metrics should cover so that staffing professionals get the most out of the numbers.

1) Historical metrics. Too often when a staffing company is talking about metrics, it is focusing on historical metrics. According to Dr. John Sullivan at ERE.net, relying solely on historical metrics is a recipe for disaster. These metrics measure the events and data accrued in the last year and should not be used for real-time decision making because everything they tell a staffing professional has already occurred. These metrics are better used for trend analysis.

2) Real-time metrics. This type of metric allows a staffing professional to see what is going on as it is happening. This is helpful but could also cause potential problems. According to Sullivan, because real-time metrics occur for the most recent month or quarter, the figures could give a skewed glimpse of how the agency is performing. It’s best to remain aware, make slight adjustments and possibly look over how any changes in the economy or processes could be impacting the results.

3) Predictive metrics. Sullivan told ERE.net, that although predictive metrics are very rarely used in the staffing industry, these figures could be the most important of all. By using these figures, a staffing agency may be able to determine what challenges it could face in the future or whether an opportunity is on the horizon. Staffing and recruiting professionals seeking to work proactively versus reactively should consider the merits of using predictive metrics in decision making.

Key staffing and recruiting metrics to track

1) Number of positions filled. This figure tracks the number of candidate applications accepted for a position by a client during a fiscal year. This number falls under the historical metrics category and often helps recruiting professionals determine employee turnover and total costs spent annually on new workers. A recruiting software system put in place can help track this process easily and help professionals determine how best to improve performance.

2) Retention. Depending on the staffing and recruiting organization you are working for and what part of the industry it services, it could be important to track employee retention for replacements. How long are workers placed at agencies staying? This is of course less applicable to recruiters who are providing professionals who work in contract positions with a set end date. However, if retention is a figure being used by your firm, make sure that it also includes voluntary versus involuntary talent turnover for workers on assignment that takes the month, quarter and year into account. In addition, measure average overall time of employment, average number of talent on site, and whether the number of onsite talent appreciates over time.

3) Position vacancy rates. Staffing and recruiting professionals are often used to find a worker for a position faster and cheaper than an in-house human resource office. This means that every day a position is left unfilled an agency may be losing future orders from the client. Vacancies impact corporate revenue for a staffing and recruiting firm as well as the client. As a result, it’s imperative to find a person for the position in a timely manner and to ensure that the average vacancy time is not lengthy. ERE.net reported that it is a good idea to consider creating a standard vacancy rate so that recruiters have goals and benchmarks to measure their performance against.

At the end of the day staffing and recruiting professionals know that he/she who gets there first (with the right candidate/employee) – wins. Wisely using the reports and metrics possible through an advanced staffing and recruiting software system plays a crucial role in understanding and running operations that are consistently first.

What Staffing Metrics Should Your Agency Focus On?

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Finding the right metrics to focus on in your staffing agency can be quite challenging. Which metrics are the most important and why could be a subject of debate for hours without end.  To complicate the situation, if you adjust your processes or goals based off tracking the wrong staffing metrics, you could end up driving your agency into unfamiliar, alarming and/or potentially hazardous territory.

Without a doubt, some metrics are better than others at providing your agency with big candidate data from which to base more effective decisions.  Let’s explore some of those and why they are more important than others.

Which Staffing Metrics Are Most Important?

Some of the more common metrics analyzed by the typical staffing agency include time-to-fill and cost-per-hire.  These metrics are great for measuring short-term performance.  And, short-term performance is definitely important.  But what about the long-term?  If your agency purely focuses on placing the first candidate with the required qualifications, is that truly a foundation for long-term success?

You might have some initial success and an incredible placement rate, which makes you look good now, but you may lose client companies because your turnover rate stinks!  As such, it’s also critical to track turnover rates to see how well you are actually matching candidates to positions and companies in which they will be successful.

Length of time in a position can indicate a good fit, but some other important metrics you might also want to track to determine the quality of the hiring process at your staffing agency are production and manager satisfaction.  By measuring the employee’s production as compared to his or her peer group, you will have a good idea as to how his or her skills will fit that position.  Manager satisfaction with the employee contains a fair amount of subjective judgment and may or may not reflect the candidate’s performance accurately, but it does provide a good measurement of culture fit.

When You Focus on Long-Term Staffing Success, You Transform Your Agency

Focusing on those short-term metrics has its place when analyzing your company performance, but if you also take the time to focus on long-term metrics, you will take your staffing agency a step above all the rest.  The more tightly an employee’s skills and personality fit a company and its culture over the long haul, the higher the employee’s performance.  The better the employee performs, the better the company performs, and the more business your agency earns by developing a great reputation.

Don’t follow the herd and measure what everyone else does – take a risk by trying something different.  You won’t be disappointed by the results.

To learn more about how staffing software by Bond US can help you effectively track the staffing metrics that most contribute to the success of your agency, request a free demo.