Tag: Data-Driven Hiring

The key to optimizing your recruiting lies in identifying, measuring, and taking action on the best hiring metrics. If you want to get more out of your metrics, we’ve got you covered. GoodTime joined Checkr and iCIMS to identify the most high-value metrics, and how to best leverage and analyze your hiring data.

Want to watch the watch the webinar in full? Come right this way. For a recap of the conversation, read on.

Choosing the Best Metrics

Vanity metrics have a knack for sweeping up hiring teams. The numbers make your team feel good, and boy do they look attractive in a report. But looks can be deceiving; ultimately, those numbers reveal next to nothing about your business goals.

So, how do you select the metrics that matter? 

Monitor Metrics on Candidate Relationships

With the high expectations of today’s candidates, forming a genuine bond with applicants is more important than ever. Talent teams should keep an eye on metrics that reveal the quality of these bonds.

Jasper Sone, GoodTime’s Co-founder and Head of Product, said that one important metric that’s contingent on your candidate relationships is turnaround time. This measures the average time it takes for a candidate to respond and get confirmed for their next interview. 

Engaged candidates respond faster than disengaged ones. With candidates interviewing at four times as many companies now versus pre-COVID, meaningfully connecting with applicants is crucial to keeping your turnaround time low.

Divide by Primary and Supporting Metrics

Rhea Moss, Director of Data Insights and Customer Intelligence at iCIMS, prefers to choose hiring metrics by distinguishing between primary and supporting metrics. When a primary metric is healthy, the secondary metrics in connection to the primary are likely also healthy.

 For instance, time-to-fill is an important primary metric to measure. If your time-to-fill improves, you’re probably seeing notable supporting metrics like your OAR (offer acceptance rate) and dropout rate improve, too.

Let Hiring Metrics Reveal Themselves

Is starting your projects by selecting the key metrics the best strategy? Maybe not. Scott Jennings, Head of Industry Strategy and Market Development at Checkr, suggests a different method. He believes that teams should start with a business problem that they’re looking to solve, and then work backwards to identify the most suitable metrics.

“What you typically find when you’re delivering a project is that the metrics at the end of it that matter are different than what you thought going in,” Scott noted. “That’s going to be influenced by the different data sets that you bring in and the different philosophies that are brought in.”

Balancing Speed and Quality When Hiring

Candidates don’t want to wait around. A lengthy hiring process means losing talent. Yet at the same time, a rushed hiring process creates disinterested candidates. How should teams balance speed and quality to snag top talent?

Boost Interviewer Availability and Quality

Jasper recommends that organizations take two crucial steps to emphasize speed and quality. The first step involves providing a high level of interviewer availability. For the second step, talent teams should ensure that their interviewers convey an excellent image of their company.

To tackle the first step, organizations should have five alternative interviewers locked and loaded for every interview. “If you provide five alternatives, for any random time that a candidate wants to meet there is a 96% chance that someone on your team could meet with them,” Jasper noted.

The second step involves establishing a robust interviewer training program. This way, you’ll build an interviewing team that’s adept at deeply connecting with candidates.

Ideal Speed Varies by Employment Model

While the average hiring process in the U.S. lasts for about 23.8 days, this length varies across the different employment models. Same day hiring isn’t possible in most traditional hiring spaces, but it is in the contingent labor market.

For this reason, Scott noted that the ideal speed—and the perfect mix of speed and quality—that talent teams should shoot for depends on the team’s employment model. Teams should reflect on the standards and candidate expectations that are unique to their model, and then go from there.

Leveraging Industry and Geographic Benchmarks

Congratulations! You now have a stellar selection of metrics to monitor. Better yet, you’ve crafted a hiring process that emphasizes both speed and quality. But, one question remains: how should you utilize industry and geographic benchmarks when analyzing your own data?

Analyze Benchmarks for Shifts

“Geographic benchmarks are quickly falling to the wayside,” Rhea noted. While these benchmarks are incredibly pertinent to industries like healthcare and retail, it’s unwise for teams to leverage geographic benchmarks in the same way that they have in the past since people are relocating to new geographic locations faster than ever.

Her take? Instead of using industry and geographic benchmarks as gold standards, teams should evaluate benchmarks to understand general, directional shifts. Look for seismic changes in behavior based on industry or geographic data, and take that into consideration when identifying changes in your hiring metrics.

Share Your Own Benchmarks

It’s just as important for your organization to share your own benchmarking data as it is to analyze benchmarks that are already available. Jasper added that GoodTime enjoys sharing their benchmarking data to help other organizations set goals for themselves.

“By sharing data, not only does it give us an understanding of where we’re at, but it inspires teams to come up with creative ways to beat some of the geographic or industry standards,” he said.

Optimize Your Recruiting Process Today

When you take action on the most crucial hiring metrics, the sky’s the limit for your talent team’s success. If you want to beef up your knowledge on TA metrics a bit more, you’re in good hands.

Check out our 4 KPIs that Show TA Ops Success infographic to boost your recruiting process with more metrics that matter.

Does your team focus on the recruiting KPIs that really matter? Ignoring the most crucial metrics—or neglecting to track your recruitment process as a whole—is like recruiting with your eyes closed. Without a sense of your past and present success, it’s impossible to optimize your process with data-driven decisions and spot hiring issues.

But don’t stretch yourself thin by monitoring a laundry list of metrics. Track just a handful of recruiting KPIs and leverage the data to evaluate and refine your process and recruiting strategies.

Stuck on which metrics to choose? We recommend for teams to keep a close eye on the following crucial recruiting KPIs.

1. Time-to-Hire

Failing to track your time-to-hire is practically a sin in the TA world. That’s why time-to-hire is one of the most common recruiting KPIs. It measures how long it takes your company to fill an open position. It’s a stellar KPI to use when measuring the efficiency of your hiring methods.

Teams with a low time-to-hire stand a better chance of transforming applicants into new hires in record time. Meanwhile, teams with a high time-to-hire risk losing star candidates to a lengthy process and a poor recruiting experience.

How Do I Measure Time-to-Hire?

Measuring time-to-hire is pretty simple. You just need to calculate the number of days from when an applicant enters your pipeline to when they accept your offer.

What’s a Good Time-to-Hire?

The average hiring process in the U.S. typically lasts for about 23.8 days. However, a “good” time-to-hire varies by factors such as industry and job function. A government role will likely take longer to fill than a role in a restaurant. But know this: candidates don’t want to wait around. With some companies snatching candidates up within 10 days, speed is the name of the game.

The shorter the hiring process, the better—as long as your process provides ample time for candidates to understand the role, and for recruiters to meaningfully connect with applicants. You need to balance speed with quality.

2. Quality of Hire

The challenge of every recruiter is to balance hiring fast with hiring the best candidates possible. That’s where quality of hire comes in. It measures the quality of your new hires and reveals if you succeeded in finding the right person for the role.

It’s one of the most important recruiting KPIs to track; our hiring research reveals that out of several popular metrics, quality of hire is the one that talent teams most commonly measure. Hiring high-quality new hires means that you carried out the recruitment process in an optimal fashion to achieve the ultimate goal: finding the person most suited for the position.

How Do I Measure Quality of Hire?

There’s no golden rule when it comes to measuring quality of hire. Your organization first needs to define what “quality” looks like in a new hire. This definition will be unique to what your organization wants to achieve with this new employee, and whether the employee attained this.

It’s wise to combine several factors to get a holistic view of the quality of each hire. For example, you could measure how well the employee exemplifies your organization’s core values, and/or how quickly and effectively they ramp up to fulfill the duties of their role.

What’s a Good Quality of Hire?

A “good” quality of hire can only be determined in the context of all your organization’s hires. Over time as you continue to measure quality of hire, you’ll be able to determine what caliber of performance makes a person a high-quality new hire and a low-quality new hire.

3. Candidate Net Promoter Score

A handy candidate net promoter score (CNPS) informs you about how candidates experienced your hiring process. A high CNPS shows that you excel at cultivating a process that cultivates a positive candidate experience and creates fans out of applicants. A low CNPS means bad news for your employer brand—and a likelihood that candidates will share their bad experience on company review websites.

By measuring your CNPS, you can get a leg up on the competition by understanding what candidates really think about your process. Then, use this data to identify what does and doesn’t work.

How Do I Measure Candidate Net Promoter Score?

Ask your candidates several candidate experience questions. For instance: “What is the likelihood that you would recommend us to friends or family as a place to work?”  They’ll answer this question using a zero to 10 rating system. 

Divide the responses into three categories: promoters, passives, and detractors. Candidates who respond with nine to 10 are promoters. They’re likely to recommend your company and are loyal. If a candidate responds with seven to eight, they’re passives. They feel neutral towards your company. Candidates responding with six or below are detractors. Don’t count on them to promote your brand.

To calculate your CNPS, subtract the percentage of detractors from the percentage of promoters.

What’s a Good Candidate Net Promoter Score?

Generally, scoring 10 to 30 is good, while a score close to 50 or above is excellent.

4. Offer Acceptance Rate

Your offer acceptance rate (OAR) is the percentage of candidates who accepted your job offer. A strong OAR means that your offer, hiring process, and company seem attractive to candidates. 

Ended up with a high OAR? Pat yourself on the back; you’re a star at filling vacancies and connecting with candidates throughout their hiring journey. Disappointed with your low OAR? Time to spruce up the quality of your hiring process and the competitiveness of your offers.

How Do I Measure Offer Acceptance Rate?

Divide the number of offers accepted by the total number of offers extended. If you extend 100 offers and 50 are accepted, your offer acceptance rate is 50%.

What’s a Good Offer Acceptance Rate?

The average OAR is 65.7%. Use that as a benchmark when determining the quality of your organization’s OAR.

5. Career Page Conversion Rate

This metric refers to the number of visitors on your career page who went through the application process to become applicants. If you value a steady flow of applicants, the career page conversion rate is crucial. It informs you on how effective your career page is and what changes should be made to ensure that you’re never scrambling to find viable new hires.

Your career page should speak to your mission, values, and company culture. Think of it like a window into your organization. The page should be compelling enough that people are able to envision themselves working at your company. If your conversion rate is low, you have some work to do to optimize your page.

How Do I Measure Career Page Conversion Rate?

Take the number of applicants and divide it by the number of site visitors. If you have 25 applicants and 100 visitors, your career page has a conversion rate of 25%.

What’s a Good Career Page Conversion Rate?

A conversion rate of 11% or higher is great. If your conversion rate is lower, analyze how you can let the most captivating parts of your employer brand shine through.

6. Interviews With DEIB Exposure

Want to elevate your OAR and CNPS in one fell swoop? Assemble interview panels that champion DEIB.

“Interviews with DEIB exposure” refers to interviews that feature interviewers from a diversity of perspectives and backgrounds. The goal is to avoid crafting homogenous interview panels.

Diverse hiring starts with diverse panels. Interviews with DEIB exposure promote better decision-making and mitigate unconscious bias.

Not only that, but a DEIB-centered interview panel promotes a better experience in the hiring process. About 80% of Black, Hispanic, and LGBTQ candidates report that a diverse workplace is a crucial factor when considering job offers. With increased DEIB exposure in the interviewing stage, underrepresented candidates will feel at ease knowing that your organization celebrates different backgrounds—including their own.

How Do I Measure Interviews With DEIB Exposure?

Measure this KPI by taking the number of interviews with DEIB exposure and dividing it by the total number of interviews. 

What’s a Good Level of DEIB Exposure?

There is no “right” level of DEIB exposure in interviews. The goal is to present candidates with panels that help them comfortably and confidently picture themselves working at your organization. If your diversity hiring goals falter, the DEIB exposure in your interviews likely needs improvement.

Boost Your Recruiting KPIs With Tech

Your hiring process and your talent pipeline won’t improve if you don’t measure them. For now, data-driven recruiting is seen as an approach to recruiting, but let’s be real: all recruiting should be data-driven. 

If you want to make your recruitment process data-driven and connect with candidates like never before, using just your ATS simply won’t cut it. But you know what will? Leveraging GoodTime Hire.

Hire delivers an unparalleled mountain of insights to make your hiring process top-tier. Gain access to robust recruiting and interview dashboards to understand the status of your teams and track the progress of open roles.

Learn more about how Hire’s interview scheduling software can transform your talent acquisition process today.

Feeling overwhelmed by all of the TA software options on the market? You’re not alone. In today’s tech-driven world, the key to standing out from the talent competition is a strong TA tech stack. But with so many solutions available, it’s difficult to assess which tools are necessities and which ones are just nice-to-haves. 

Don’t worry—we’re here to point you in the right direction. With these four tools, you’ll impress candidates and smash your TA goals in one fell swoop.

1. Applicant Tracking Systems

If you don’t already have an applicant tracking system (ATS), this is your sign to invest in one. There’s a reason why over 98% of Fortune 500 companies use an ATS software (that’s all but nine companies). With an ATS in your TA tech stack, you can facilitate the application process without the risk of losing qualified candidates to the “black hole.” 

An ATS also allows you to easily filter applicants through keywords, skills, or previous roles. No need to spend time organizing applicants; an ATS conveniently collects all your applications in one place. 

While an ATS is a must-have, it’s not without limitations. Even though the typical ATS can now do more than just handle applications, their main expertise lies in that area. You’ll need to add additional products to your tech arsenal if you want to robustly tackle performance metrics, load balance, or enhance DEIB.

The ATS that you choose depends on the needs of your talent team and company. Consider your company size, scalability, and additional features that you’d like to use (text recruiting, referral program management, etc). 

Can’t decide which ATS is right for you? We get it—there’s a LOT. Here’s some recommendations:

• Greenhouse
• iCIMS
• Jobvite
• SmartRecruiters
• Workday
• Lever

2. Virtual Interviewing Platforms 

Remote hiring is far from a pandemic-born phase. Just look at the numbers: 93% of employers reportedly plan to conduct virtual interviews well into the future. If one thing’s for sure, getting acquainted with virtual interviewing platforms is non-negotiable. 

From Zoom to BlueJeans, adding virtual interviewing platforms to their TA tech stack enable recruiting teams to connect with applicants from across the world. No longer limited by a candidate’s geographic location, these platforms both widen and diversify your talent pool.

While remote interviewing is here to stay, you’ll need to master several best practices to maximize the potential of virtual interviewing platforms. These platforms are only as helpful as you make them. To give candidates the best impression of your virtual interview process, standardize the virtual interviewing process and troubleshoot your software before diving into an interview. Remember: candidates are assessing you as much as you’re assessing them.

3. Employee Pulse Surveys

Listen: from a talent retention standpoint, we need to change our employee surveys. 74% of companies still use detailed surveys to analyze employee engagement, but large-scale surveys just don’t cut it anymore. They’re time-consuming to both create and orchestrate—and not to mention an absolute pain to analyze. Instead, opt for employee pulse surveys. 

Pulse surveys allow leaders to solicit feedback and benchmark their employee satisfaction “health” by asking the same questions every survey. They’re designed to be short-and-sweet, so you can expect a high response rate with simplified, actionable feedback. 

Similar to virtual interviewing platforms, employee pulse surveys are what you make them. Pulse surveys can measure anything and everything, and the question types are up to you. Most companies use these surveys on a monthly basis, but there’s no one-size-fits-all survey cadence.

4. Candidate Relationship Intelligence

Throwing more candidates into the top of the funnel simply isn’t an effective way to hit your hiring goals and snag the best talent. The real secret to recruitment success lies in forming connections with candidates in the middle of the funnel, all while moving them through the process as quickly as possible. That’s why companies like Slack and Box now use Candidate Relationship Intelligence as the solution to their hiring.

GoodTime Hire is the only platform that harnesses Candidate Relationship Intelligence to win the best talent. Hire’s success comes from three pillars: automation, relationships, and insights. The magic happens by automating coordination to reduce time to hire, building genuine connections between recruiters and candidates, and gathering actionable insights to continuously optimize the entire process. 

And the results: companies hire up to 70% faster and impress more candidates than ever before.

Ready to learn more about how Hire can transform your recruiting process? Let’s do it.