You’ve Implemented Recruiting Metrics: Now What?

June 25, 2013

3 Steps for Translating Recruiting Metrics into Action

You’ve established and implemented a process around tracking recruiting metrics such as:

  • Quality-of-hire
  • Cost-per-hire
  • Retention rate
  • Time-to-hire
  • Manager satisfaction
  • Applicant satisfaction

How do you use these recruiting metrics for improvement?

Step 1: Establish Benchmarks

To be effective, recruiting metrics need to be actionable. In order to be actionable, you first need to establish benchmarks for each metric. To create internal benchmarks, track your metrics quarterly to get an understanding of your average for each. Externally, recruiting metrics should be compared against industry standards (for starters, see this report from the Novo Group and benchmarks for cost-per-hire here).

Step 2: Create an Action Plan Based on the Results

Once you have recruiting metrics and benchmarks and are tracking the success and failure of the recruitment function, use them to drive recruitment behavior. For example, if your retention rate has declined 12% quarter over quarter, look further into the reason for the decline. If the reason is not clear (i.e. there was not a significant event that would skew the metric), you then need to look into your retention programs and put together an action plan with the goal of reducing the turnover rate. Once you have deployed the desired action plan, you measure it’s effectiveness/ROI by measuring the change in the retention rate. This is an example of how to use recruiting metrics to drive the behavior and programs of your talent acquisition function.

Step 3: Share and Discuss Metrics with Your Team on a Regular Basis

Review your metrics quarterly to identify trends and breakdowns in the recruitment process in a timely manner. Almost all recruitment metrics are focused on past events and what has changed overtime. Although these numbers are telling, it’s important to dig in and get to the root of the cause before taking action. Ask your team why this happened and what the causes were. In addition to measuring your recruiting metrics over time, you should also make comparisons to industry averages. This will allow you to compare and benchmark your performance against competitors in the industry. How are you translating your own recruiting metrics into action?

Director of Talent

<strong>Carlie Smith</strong> was the Senior Talent Manager, Sales & Marketing at OpenView. She worked directly with hiring managers and key stakeholders within OpenView and its portfolio to lead vital searches and provided process guidance on recruitment strategy, including talent identification, strategic sourcing, relationship building, and competitive intelligence. Currently, Carlie is the Director of <a href="https://www.circle.com/en">Circle</a>.