10 Must-Track Metrics in Talent Acquisition
Talent acquisition continues to be one of the most urgent issues for companies,
and the pressure to hire the right people has created an intensely competitive
recruiting environment. With research suggesting that HR has the highest
impact on a company’s bottom line, it’s HR that ensures companies have the
right people in place to build and foster excellence throughout the organization.
Yet, hiring initiatives tend to fall flat because companies fail to address the
revolution that is taking place in job seeking and recruiting.
For example, the disruptive force of technology has permanently changed the
way people apply for jobs and how employers hire, requiring talent acquisition
departments to take on a more analytical approach to hiring by tracking key
recruiting metrics.
Manual tracking of these metrics in spreadsheets or folders is no longer a viable
option.
Using technology to track the following set of metrics – from sourcing to
recruiting to onboarding – will directly improve your bottom line, budget, and
productivity. In this whitepaper, we’ll demonstrate how each metric provides
key insights into the recruiting process, provide industry standards for
measurement, and offer helpful tips and tactics in order to impress executives
and hiring managers while facilitating positive change.
Best Sourcing Related Metric
Source-of-Hire
How to measure: Applicant tracking systems (ATS) like iCIMS make it easy to
track and report source-of-hire. Every candidate that enters iCIMS is tagged
with a specific source of entry like job boards, social networks, employee
referrals, or other candidate-supplied information.
Tracking source-of-hire over time will help to modify your team’s work
allocation based on the effectiveness and cost to ensure the best return-oninvestment of recruitment dollars.
For example, in a recent iCIMS survey taken by over 360 recruiting
professionals, we asked which source brings in the majority of candidates.
Unsurprisingly, job boards ranked the highest, followed by corporate career
sites and employee referrals.
Then we asked these same recruiting professionals which source brought in the
BEST candidates. Employee referrals ranked as the number one source for the
best candidates.
Your company may also have similar success rates with these sources. By
tracking your source-of-hire, recruiters have insight into which is the strongest
source and which is the weakest. If one source-of-hire is weak, ask why. Are you
speaking to the right people? Is now the time to revamp (or even launch) your
employee referral program? Could you re-allocate that part of the recruitment
advertising budget to another source that’s known to bring in quality
candidates? Answering these questions becomes simpler when the data is at
your fingertips.
Best Recruiting Related Metrics
Time-to-Fill
How to measure: Industry standard suggests that time-to-fill represents the
number of days from when the job requisition was opened until the offer was
accepted by the candidate. 1
Not only does knowing time-to-fill help HR professionals gain insight into a
realistic time to hire new employees in the future, but it also helps managers
redistribute work more effectively while the position is open. Once any high
time-to-fill challenges are uncovered, you’ll have the opportunity to make
recommendations to the hiring manager that demonstrate how simple changes
can improve their time-to-fill.
For example, iCIMS client Cumming Corporation uses iCIMS reporting abilities to
identify and mitigate bottlenecks during the recruiting process, thus helping to
shorten the company’s time-to-fill overall.
Explained Scott Weaver, director of talent acquisition and development:
1
SHRM
Bonus Metric
Time-to-Start: This metric
measures the lag time
between when a candidate
accepts an offer and when
they’ll actually start.
If it takes weeks or months
before a new hire starts, the
company is still losing
productivity. What can you
do to decrease the length of
time between acceptance
and Day 1?
Always keep in mind, however, that shortening time-to-fill shouldn’t sacrifice
the quality of the hire. Filling a seat for the sake of closing a requisition could
end up negatively impacting other metrics like cost-per-hire, turnover, or
satisfaction.
Every Open Requisition: Total Applied, Interviewed, Offers
Extended, Offers Accepted
How to measure: Track important ratios such as the number of candidates
applied to interviewed, interviewed to offered, and offered to accepted.
Strategic recruiting requires understanding the intricacies of each search and
the ability to anticipate where the bottlenecks might be ahead of time. For
example, iCIMS recently took a look at how much time a resume spends in each
status of the hiring process.
Our research showed that resumes spend the longest time under hiring
manager review during the hiring process. Identifying potential bottlenecks like
this makes it easier to build a business case for positive changes in the
screening process, hiring manager communications, and much more.
Hiring Manager Satisfaction
How to measure: Hiring manager satisfaction is best tracked through surveys
via electronic forms. iCIMS allows users to send and receive electronic forms
through the system, and makes all answers searchable and reportable.
Hiring managers and recruiters are uniquely positioned to notice different
problems in the hiring process. According to iCIMS Hire Expectations Institute
research, 80% of recruiters think they have a “high” to “very high”
understanding of the jobs for which they recruit. But 61% of hiring managers say
that recruiters have, at best, a “low” to “moderate understanding” for the jobs
for which they recruit.
Receiving feedback on a regular basis allows you to see what worked, what
didn’t, and what internal improvements can be made for the next search.
Additionally, talent acquisition technology provides a wide array of tools to
support better communication between stakeholders. Even hiring managers—
who don’t typically “live” in the world of talent acquisition systems—benefit
from strong talent acquisition technology! When hiring managers can easily
approve jobs, candidates, and offers from their mobile devices, or interact with
recruiters via email with all communications automatically tracked within the
system, everything becomes simpler for all parties involved. When hiring
managers are able to sign into the system to easily view all candidates for their
jobs, as well as each candidate’s stage in the hiring process, they begin to have
access to the “bigger picture” they need to help resolve hiring bottlenecks.
Best Practice Example
What are the best ways to
engage hiring managers?
We asked and identified
four best practices:
−
79% meet to talk on
the phone to discuss
job requirements.
−
67% prepare screening
questions and/or
interview questions
together.
−
63% collaborate on
ways to find the best
candidates (e.g. best
keywords to search in
resume database,
which social media
sites to use for
searching, which
competitors have the
best staff to target,
etc.).
−
55% review resumes
together and
continuously “tweak”
the criteria.
Candidate Satisfaction
How to measure: Similar to hiring manager satisfaction, candidate satisfaction
is best tracked through surveys via electronic forms. iCIMS allows users to send
and receive electronic forms through the system, and makes all answers
searchable and reportable.
Create a standardized survey that measures candidates’ experience based on
their impression of the selection process. Just a few negative candidate reviews
can dissuade top talent from applying to your company.
For example, 46% percent of candidates rate their candidate experience
applying for jobs as poor to very poor. And worse, 64% said that they share
information about their candidate experience via social media. With this in
mind, you definitely want your company to be perceived as candidate-friendly. 2
As technology has expanded, many companies have abandoned the personal
aspects of hiring. However, companies like Enterprise Holdings make it a
priority to keep the “human” within human resources. Marie Artim, VP of talent
acquisition, explains:
2
The Candidate Experience Playbook
Best Practice Example
Enterprise Holdings has a 5
business day follow up rule to
follow up with every candidate
that submits an application.
Collecting feedback on the current stats of your hiring process will help to
improve future candidate experiences, which is key in recruiting for all
applicants whether selected or not.
Cost-per-Hire
How to measure: Cost-per-hire typically includes advertising fees, agency fees,
employee referral payouts, travel expenses, relocation expenses, and internal
recruiter costs including time spent screening, and dividing it by the total
number of hires.
Cost-per-hire is a metric that should be seen in context with other recruiting
metrics, as it can vary greatly from one position to another. For example, costper-hire for a senior executive position will be drastically different from a nonexempt position. It is also important to understand what is causing a high costper-hire (such as high time-to-fill).
Although cost-per-hire is valuable, it does not take into account the length of time
it takes to fill a position and quality of hire.
Compliance
How to measure: Applicant tracking systems like iCIMS offer robust tracking,
reporting, and audit features that make it easy to collect and store voluntary
EEO information.
Dashboard widgets help companies avoid missed filings and submissions that
can create further delays, inefficiencies, and risks throughout the recruiting
process. HR technology like iCIMS makes it easy to identify next steps, know
when a deadline is coming up, and understand your audit risk exposure.
Example of a dashboard widget.
Best Onboarding Related Metrics
Quality-of-Hire
How to measure: Similar to hiring manager satisfaction, quality-of-hire is best
tracked through surveys via electronic forms during a specified interval. iCIMS
allows users to send and receive electronic forms through the system, and
makes all answers searchable and reportable.
It’s essential to keep track of candidate success once they are on board. In
order to document and track quality-of-hire, send surveys out to hiring
managers periodically during the first year, or at a preferred interval. Tracking
this feedback can help the recruiter get to know the hiring manager’s
preferences and ultimately fine tune recruiting and screening processes over
time.
New-Hire Turnover Rate
How to measure: The new-hire turnover rate is calculated by dividing the
number of employees that separate from the company (including by firing,
voluntarily leaving, retirement, etc.) by the total number of employees during
that time period. This can be calculated in any set interval (i.e. month, year,
etc.)
Regardless of their level of performance, a new hire can hardly be considered a
success if they voluntarily quit within the first few months.
Fortunately, technology that allows companies to automate many parts of the
onboarding process can be directly linked to decreased turnover and improving
retention. According to the Aberdeen Group, companies with best-in-class
onboarding see a 91% employee retention rate, vs. 31% retention experienced
by companies with substandard onboarding processes. 3
3
Strategic Onboarding: A New Look at New Hires
Best Practice Example
If a business with 120
employees loses 18 employees
in a year due to retirement,
changing employers and firing,
this business has 15% turnover
rate (18/120 = 0.15).
Best Practice Example
Additional information to
include in an electronic
onboarding portal:
−
−
Carolyn Lewis, recruiting manager at iCIMS client Gables Residential, reported
that a key element of their new onboarding process involves the ability to
personalize the new hire onboarding experience:
−
−
−
−
−
−
Gables Residential utilizes iCIMS New Hire Onboarding Portal to fully showcase
its employment brand and company culture. Communication of important
policies and procedures, benefits information, and tasks to complete is
centralized in one location via this portal.
As a result of these best-in-class onboarding tactics, a new hire feels more
welcomed and prepared for his or her new job faster, and is able to contribute
to the company’s overall success sooner.
Task Completion
How to measure: iCIMS makes it easy to track a new hire’s onboarding progress
with a convenient status bar.
Welcome message
from the CEO
Company vision, values
and mission statements
Meet your co-workers
page
Videos or pictures that
expose the new-hire to
the company culture
Benefits enrollment,
direct deposit, 401K
and tax forms
Candidate experience
surveys
Organizational policies,
vacation calendar,
expense and travel
guidelines
Internal and external
training schedules
Bonus Metric
Time-to-Full-Productivity:
This metric measures how
long it takes for a new hire to
become fully productive in
his or her new role. This can
also be tracked via surveys
sent to the hiring manager.
This metric provides insights
into the effectiveness of the
recruitment process, training
and onboarding process, and
helps identify any
bottlenecks or impediments
to productivity.
Example of new hire task status bars within iCIMS Onboard.
During the onboarding process, measure key performance indicators (KPIs) on
tasks for internal and external stakeholders to ensure important paperwork
doesn’t get missed, and identify areas that may benefit from process
improvement.
According to Lewis, Gables Residential’s former paper-based onboarding
processes caused significant loss of productivity for hiring managers and new
hires.
According to Aberdeen Group, providing new hires with the chance to hit the
ground running on day one increases the likely-hood they’ll hit critical
performance milestones within the first year of employment. 4
4
Strategic Onboarding: A New Look at New Hires
Know Which Metrics Are Most Relevant for You
Deciding which metrics to track differs from company to company and from
department to department. For example, the goals or objectives of your
department might differ depending on who you report to. Typically, HR
departments report into the CFO or the CEO. Depending on exactly who, the
metrics you would want to track could be different.
Ultimately, identifying the right recruiting metrics for your business should boil
down to two steps:
Step 1: Choose right metrics that make sense to your organizational
goals and business strategy.
Step 2: Ensure alignment and that the team understands the meaning
and purpose of each specific metric and how to measure for
standardization.
It’s important to remember that metrics cannot have any power by themselves.
As previously mentioned, most metrics should be looked in context of one
another in order to tell the most accurate story. Being able to tell a story with
metrics is now more critical than ever.
The reality: job seeking and recruiting have changed forever, and companies
must rethink their current processes and technology strategies in order to align
with corporate objectives. This “new normal” in talent acquisition requires a
fresh outlook on how companies approach and invest in finding the right
people.
If you want to improve your metrics and impress your company by delivering
tangible results, look to technology that can make your life simpler and your
hiring processes faster and more effective. With the right talent acquisition
technology, you can easily analyze your own process and identify the specific
bottlenecks that most need change.
How iCIMS Can Help
The iCIMS Talent Acquisition Software Suite offers users the most powerful
reporting capabilities available on the market. Literally every field within the
Platform, whether standard or custom, can be used to collect data for reporting
purposes.
iCIMS, a leading provider of innovative Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) talent
acquisition solutions, is an Inc. 500 and Software Satisfaction honoree focused
on helping businesses win the war for top talent through the implementation of
easy-to-use, scalable solutions that are backed by award-winning customer
service. iCIMS' Talent Platform, the industry's premier candidate management
solution, enables organizations to leverage mobile, social, and video
technologies to manage their entire talent acquisition lifecycle from building
talent pools, to recruiting, to onboarding all within a single web-based
application. With more than 2,700 clients worldwide, iCIMS is one of the largest
and fastest-growing talent acquisition system providers with offices in North
America, UK, and China. To learn more about how iCIMS can help your
organization, visit http://www.icims.com.
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