Recruitment Analytics

Hiring Success Glossary

Table of Contents

What are recruitment analytics?

Real-time information derived from data and predictive analysis is the definition of recruitment analytics. Data and reporting tools empower hiring teams with key insights and hiring reports that drive recruiting strategies. By using software to identify and compile a list of talent, it’s easy to make good hiring decisions. And by analyzing what has — and hasn’t — worked in the past, hiring professionals can adjust strategies as needed. In addition, recruitment reporting reveals the quality and cost of hiring, as well as the time it took to fill the position.

Why should I use data-driven hiring?

Finding excellent talent before the competition gives your company an edge. By using a data-driven hiring process, your hiring professionals can slice and dice information on candidates and jobs based on their needs. The engine that drives the data incites is recruitment analytics which provides both historical and trend data that shows an applicant’s qualifications, the length of time it took to hire them, and whether or not you’ve retained them. Assuming you are leveraging an end to end talent acquisition suite, determining the cost and quality effectiveness of a particular talent pool source is just a few clicks away. Those insights will help you drive better outcomes going forward.

What are the key metrics I should track for my recruitment data?

Finding out whether or not the hiring process is running smoothly is one reason to do a deep dive into recruitment data. However, it’s not the only one. Other key recruiting analytics metrics that should be tracked include:

  • Source of candidates – which hiring platforms are the candidates coming from
  • Number of applicants – how many qualified applicants are there for each job
  • Time to hire – how long is the hiring process
  • Cost per hire – what are the internal and external costs associated with hiring
  • Quality of hire – how does this hire stack up to previous hires
  • Retention – are you retaining your employees
  • Overall velocity of hires – what percentage of your jobs are filled on time
  • Applicant to hire ratio – how many interviews and applicants are required to fill the role

Analyzing hiring reports with a robust recruitment analytics system allows the user to access data in real-time for hiring optimization.

How do I compile hiring reports?

Hiring reports should be critical and accessed on an on-going basis so that you can fix what isn’t working — and run with what is. When compiling hiring reports, it’s important to recognize what impacts your business. Some things to consider include:

  • Hiring frequency – if you are only hiring a few candidates a month, reports may not need to be pulled as frequently
  • Hiring speed – determining how much time is being devoted to each hire, in each department, may give insight into how the process may be improved
  • Rejection reasons – evaluating why candidates are rejecting your job offers can help you tailor your offerings
  • Source quality – which platform is sending the best candidates for a particular job
  • Cost per hire – put a number on both the internal and external costs of the hiring process

No matter which data you decide to compile, it’s an important step in optimizing the hiring process so that it can be smoother and more cost-efficient in the future.

Now that you’ve decided what to include, it’s time to compile the report. Depending on which system(s) and ATS (Applicant Tracking System) you use, the data can either be compiled and presented within the ATS, or, the data can be exported via various data extract mechanisms into a data visualization engine such as Tableau or Power BI from Microsoft. Most systems provide for either a one-time delivery of the data or automated reports that are recurring and can be shared with colleagues within a company.

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