In today´s competitive market for recruiting the best talent, it is not just about improving your employer brand and recruiting great candidates. If you want to define whether your recruitment department is successful, you will want to measure their work. Some of the most used metrics in recruiting are time to hire, quality of hire and cost of hire. As a recruiting department, you will want to be measuring these and see how you can optimize them to be as successful as possible. Here are some ideas on how to nail these 3 recruiting metrics and make sure you are selecting the right talent in the right time period and at the right cost:
Time to hire
This recruiting metric is one of the key indicators on how successful a recruiting department is, and it is a metric that many companies struggle with. Did you know that it takes many companies months to fill a role? The time to hire metric is so important because it directly impacts the cost of hire as well because the longer it takes to fill a position, the costlier the hiring process. So, how can you improve time to hire in your recruiting process? First of all, you need to be data driven to be able to measure your time to hire in order to find concepts to improve. Second, having a structured recruitment process with standard steps will help to optimize your recruitment process and therefore bringing down the time to hire. Third, build a talent pipeline even when you don´t have a vacancy. This way you have a pool of great candidates already to reach out to when a vacancy comes up. Finally, invest in good technology. An Application Tracking Software (ATS) or assessment software can really make a difference when it comes to time to hire.
Quality of hire
Apart from wanting to know how long it takes to fill a position, you will want to measure as well what value the new hire brings to your company. How much a candidate contributes to your business´ long-term success is obviously an important metric but it is also very difficult to measure and assess. Especially because it often takes months (or even, years) to prove out. Therefore, investing in the quality of hire is truly a long-term commitment. Usually, the first step in improving quality of hire is defining what success looks like. Then it all comes down to collecting the correct data, streamlining recruiter´s workflows (this will also impact the cost of hire and time to hire) and getting your hiring managers aligned on what quality of hire should look like and how they can assess for it during interviews.
Cost of hire
When it comes to optimizing the cost of hire, the key is to save money and not compromise hiring quality. For example, the talent pipeline mentioned above is an easy, affordable solution that will give you quick access to good candidates thereby driving down the cost of hire. Or, you can use an employee referral program to get access to great candidates. And if you do it well, it doesn´t have to cost you a lot of money because if your employees love working for you, they will refer you to their friends (probably, for free). Finally, you need to take advantage of social media and a good corporate careers site. Through social media, you can connect with many job seekers and with your site you can publish jobs 24/7 reaching many candidates, both without spending a fortune.
How did you improve time to hire, cost of hire and quality of hire? We would love to read your ideas and feedback in the comments section.
