How to measure Talent Acquisition efforts

Recruiting with KPIs is becoming more and more essential as a key to success, especially when we talk about digital talent acquisition metrics. Whether you’re completely unfamiliar with managing data in your digital recruitment, or you want to take your talent acquisition to the next level, this is the live stream for you.

Adway’s Sara Dalsfelt, Senior Advisor of Digital Talent Acquisition, sits down with Mike “Batman” Cohen, Founder of Wayne Technologies, to discuss how to master data, metrics and KPIS in talent acquisition.

Background Check on Mike “Batman” Cohen

With a name like “Batman,” there must be an amazing background, right? Mike “Batman” Cohen is a sourcing expert, the Founder of Wayne Technologies, and a renowned global recruiting speaker. His company is on a superhero style mission to increase the efficacy and altruism of the sourcing & recruiting industry and, in turn, change the search results for “recruiters are…” (by shining the Bat-Signal, we think).

On a personal note:

Mike has two awesome puppies.
A super cool wife.
And he’s an indoor cycling instructor who LOVES being the center of attention (while background blasting electronic music).

On why he’s called “Batman”:

After another gentleman with the name “Michael Cohen” received some very bad press in the U.S., Mike decided it was time to switch up his brand. He says Batman is the world’s greatest detective, and that’s basically what good recruiters do for a living. The change made so much sense, it stuck!

Recruitment KPIs Vs. Recruitment Metrics

Recruitment key performance indicators (KPIs) are distinct, measurable values that can be used to pin down how effectively an organisation is reaching its hiring objectives. They’re key to creating successful recruitment marketing strategies and they’re not to be confused with recruitment metrics!

Recruitment KPIs

Recruitment KPIs measure your recruitment operation’s progress toward its specific goals. A few examples of recruitment KPIS are:

# of searches run
# of messages sent
# of submissions made
# of qualification calls made
# of interviews conducted

Recruitment Metrics

Recruitment metrics are the tactical elements that tell your organisation how well you’re achieving those KPIs. They can pinpoint bottlenecks in the recruitment process and direct focus and effort where it’s needed most. A few examples of recruitment metrics include:

Cost Per Candidate (CPC) measures how much your organisation spends on recruiting resources, including job postings, online sourcing tools, recruiter hours, onboarding, equipment, salary, and other expenses.
Application Drop-off Rate measures the number of candidates who left the application process (funnel) without completing it.
Conversion Rate is the number of conversions divided by the total number of visitors. For example, if your career page receives 200 visitors in a month and has 50 job applicants, the conversion rate would be 50 divided by 200, or 25% for the page.

One of the biggest misconceptions most of today’s organisations have is that they’re holding recruiters and sourcers accountable to recruitment KPIs instead of recruitment metrics.

How to Implement Data-Driven Recruitment

An efficient hiring process supported with good quality recruitment data will enable your business to make better hiring decisions and keep you on top of your competition. Yet, as is the case with all marketing, you need to measure recruitment marketing to understand which strategies work and which don’t—and then decide how to adjust your efforts to maximize your return on investment.

To be a data-driven organisation, you have to understand where to attack “the problem.” For example:

Instead of simply looking at the number of messages a recruiter sends, are you going back to the beginning and breaking down how many profiles they had to view just to message one? If they need to view 20 just to message one, then sourcing is “the problem.”
If the opening rate on your emails is low, then messaging is likely “the problem.”

You can diagnose a lot of recruiting glitches based on these key pieces of data. This can help you continuously fine tune your recruitment marketing strategy.

Getting Over the Fear of Working With Data

How do you get over a fear of working with data? Understand that it’s going to be really uncomfortable in the beginning, but it’s not you… it’s the same for everybody! Try to get over the discomfort and know it’s not going to last forever. Get data-comfortable!

Using Data to Hold Colleagues Accountable

At Wayne Tech, Mike and his team track every piece of data possible. And they refer back to it in conversation everyday. When they talk about key recruitment KPIs and metrics, the onus is on them to show each other the data that supports what they’re discussing. This is how they hold each other accountable.

Basing Recruitment Marketing Strategies on Efficiency

Response rates help detect the efficiency of your recruitment marketing strategy, but it’s equally essential to determine how efficient your recruiters are within each step of the recruiting process. Depending on each recruiter’s approach, the output could be very different. Are you using your KPIs and metrics to question your recruiters about whether they’re working hard enough? Or are you using KPIs to help them be better?

Top 3 Recruitment KPIS to Track

According to Batman, the top 3 recruitment KPIs every organization should track:

# of hires
# of interviews
# of messages being sent

Questions From the Audience

Anna Stenbeck, Talent Advisor, Keynote Speaker, Author, Ex-Facebook TA Manager

“It might be interesting to hear something about metrics and KPIs linked to diversity. Depending on the country and legislation, certain measurement values or data can be difficult to capture, but it could be interesting to get some good concrete examples of what Batman has seen work.”

When it comes to D&I, how are you approaching the entire process and workflow? What data are you capturing and what steps are you taking to ensure you’re getting diverse candidates? How is your messaging being approached? What do your response rates look like? And the biggest piece: what are your KPIs and metrics actually telling you about the efficacy of what you’re doing? You might be “committed,” but where’s the data to support it?
Also, ahem, D&I is not TA’s responsibility.

Obaidullah Sharif, CEO of The Recruiters & Conference Architect at Pakistan Sourcing Summit

“We are really thankful if Mike would recommend some TA metrics specifically for recruitment consulting to show to our clients here in Pakistan.”

The metrics you want to show are around how good of a job you are doing. Effort is one piece, but effort comes out in the metric. It helps to show who you look at, who you message, and what the efficacy rate is during that process.
Response rate is also always a top metric to measure. It shows your understanding of the market, the candidates, the job and your capability of putting forth quality messaging to attract people’s attention.
Qualification calls vs. submittals is also key.
Submittals vs. interviews as well.

Jim D’Amico, 2020 Talent Innovator and Board President of ATAP

“For leaders, what are examples of bellwether metrics? What, if anything, would you add to Greg Savage’s 3 C’s, KPIs for modern recruiters: Catchment, Conversations and Conversions?”

Batman would add:
- Cost
- Quality
- Candidate Experience

Batman’s Top Two Takeaways

As either a leader or a recruiter, focus on the things that you can control. if you focus on making people better and assume that they’re doing the best they can, they often are.
Try to get comfortable with discomfort. It’s the only way you’ll change and grow in a meaningful way. Nobody becomes the best through constant success. If you stick with it, it will become easier, and you’ll be at the leading edge of the recruitment industry instead of just a manager.

Closing Thoughts on KPIs

The journey towards fully optimizing your digital recruitment process can be long. A vital part of this process is to gather, monitor and analyze your recruitment data consistently over set timeframes. Recruitment KPIs will help you set and measure specific hiring-based goals for your business which will ultimately let your business source and retain the right talent that will propel it to new levels.

What is considered normal numbers will vary from industry to industry. If you want to know the numbers for your industry, you are more than welcome to contact us.

Adway’s Recruitment Marketing KPI Sheet

To help you understand the most important KPIs in digital marketing and master recruitment marketing in social media, take a look at Adway’s Recruitment Marketing KPI Sheet to better: