Top 5 Recruitment Metrics That Matter

Metrics are the key to measuring success of any process. Without certain KPIs you wouldn’t be able to identify the areas where performance could be improved. In recruitment also, metrics act as a key indicator of the effectiveness of your recruitment process. As the usage of analytics in HR gains strength by the day, the power of metrics to provide a clear picture of the health of recruitment process in an organization also increases.

• What are recruitment metrics?
• How to measure recruiting metrics?

What are recruitment metrics?

Recruitment metrics are the standard KPIs used to assess and improve the hiring process in an organization. These metrics provide actionable insights on process effectiveness, and potential areas of improvements. The hiring metrics can be broadly divided into four categories, viz. speed metrics, quality metrics, productivity metrics and cost metrics. With adoption of the latest HR analytics tool, new metrics are being discovered to gain deeper insights on process improvements. Here we discuss the best metrics for recruitment success.

• Time to hire is one of the top recruiting metrics
• Source of hire is an important recruitment metrics
• Candidate experience is also a recruitment success metrics
• Quality of hire is also a measurable recruiting goal
• Cost per hire is another recruitment metrics example

Time to hire is one of the top recruiting metrics

Time to hire is one of the speed metrics. Also known as Time to fill, it pertains to the time taken by the process to identify and recruit a potential candidate for a vacant position in the organization. Knowing the time its taking to onboard a candidate on the team is important because it has direct relation to recruiter productivity, and process performance. Any organization would want to have the shortest time to fill so that candidates do not wean off to competitors during the hiring process itself. Candidate who is actively looking for a change would most certainly accept an offer that comes first their way.

(Also Read: How to reduce time to hire?)

Source of hire is an important recruitment metrics 

When we look for productivity metrics examples in hiring, source of hire is the first metric to be noticed. Source of hire investigates the sourcing channel effectiveness. We know recruiters use multiple channels to source candidates to maximize their talent pool. Common channels include job boards, employee referrals, social networks and career site page. Identifying where best candidates are coming from can prove really helpful as that’s the channel you would want to allocate your job advertising budget. Also, the channels which do not provide relevant candidates can be identified and you could stop wasting the time/effort wastage on those channels.

(Also Read: How to Improve Talent Sourcing in Your Organization?)

Candidate experience is also a recruitment success metrics

Candidate experience, also understood as Candidate satisfaction is one of the quality metrics that recruiters must take care of. To measure this, candidates are asked to provide a feedback on the hiring process of the company. Just like we have a consumer Net Promoter Score to gauge consumer satisfaction, hiring managers now create a candidate NPS to gauge candidate satisfaction. A standard set of questions that you may ask to candidates in and after completing the hiring process such as:

• How would you rate your overall experience working with the organization during the hiring process?
• How was your experience with the recruiter?
• How satisfied are you with the speed and responsiveness of the recruitment process?

A satisfied candidate is definitely an indicator of successful hiring process. It helps in improving the employer brand and consequently gain access to better talent in the long run. On the other hand, an unsatisfied hiring prospect can vent out their dissatisfaction on various online channels, harming the reputation of the brand and also reducing chances of getting the top talent.

(Also Read: How to create a positive candidate experience with HR Technology?)

Quality of hire is also a measurable recruiting goal

Quality of Hire is another measurable recruiting metric that is also known by the name of First Year Quality. The first year performance of the candidate, often judged by their performance rating gives an insight into the quality of hire. Naturally, candidates who get a good performance rating are considered as a good quality of hire while those with low performance rating are indicative of bad hires. A bad hire can be a liability and prove costly, financially as well as through loss of productivity. Thus there are huge repercussions to a bad hire, in terms of direct as well as indirect costs. If you combine quality of hire with sourcing channel effectiveness,  it can provide details of sourcing channel quality, which again will help you control recruiting costs and improve performance.

(Also Read: Three Simple Steps to Avoid Making a Bad Hire)

Cost per hire is another recruitment metrics example

A simple way to measure the cost per hire metric is to divide the total costs incurred in a recruitment process by the number of hires. However, in order to come up with an accurate cost per hire figure, you must keep in mind the multiple cost structures. Total recruitment costs include the internal recruitment costs, such as the total time spent by recruiters in hiring, lost productivity as well as the external costs such as advertising budget, candidate expenses, consultant fees and others. A low cost per hire is desirable and achievable with measures to control any loss in productivity and proper allocation of budget. In fact, if we continuously measure and control all other recruitment metrics, cost per hire will automatically be taken care of.

How to measure recruiting metrics?

While knowing the importance of these metrics is one thing, measuring them and implementing the insights is another. There are various analytics tool available that can help you in accurately calculating all these metrics. For example, sourcing channel effectiveness can be measured by using Google Analytics to track where the people who viewed the job/or filled the job application form on your website actually came from. You can set goals to check the conversion rate. If its too much a task for you to capture all these metrics separately than it makes sense to invest in a comprehensive recruitment software that comes integrated with advanced reports and analytics to measure the vital hiring metrics. These software provide graphical reports based on data collected from recruitment activities conducted in the organization. Based on these reports, you can take corrective actions wherever required.

(Also Read: How Recruitment Software Works, its Benefits and Main Features)