How do you know if your recruitment process is successful? How can you measure your results and make them quantifiable? With these questions in mind, here are five ways to measure success in your recruitment process that you can use to gauge the effectiveness of your program and refine it as necessary to make it more efficient and effective at finding top talent for your organization.
1) How Many Visits Did Each Job Position Get?
The number of visits can give you an idea of how attractive your job postings are. If you’re getting a lot of visits, that’s a good sign! You can also look at the number of applications and compare it to the number of visits. This can help you gauge how many people are actually reading your postings and whether they’re qualified for the position.
2) How Many Candidates Filled Out the Pre-Application Form?
The pre-application form is the first step in your recruitment process, and it’s important to measure how many candidates actually complete it. This number will give you an idea of how many people are interested in the position and whether or not your advertising is reaching the right people. Additionally, you can track how long it takes candidates to fill out the form and use that information to improve the process. For example, if a candidate spends 20 minutes filling out the form, then you know that they need more direction about what to do next.
3) What Were the Conversion Rates?
The first metric you should look at is your conversion rate or the percentage of people who completed the entire process and were hired. This number will give you a good idea of how successful your recruitment process is. If your conversion rate is low, it may be time to reevaluate your process. Here are four other ways to measure success in your recruitment process:
- Time-to-fill: How long does it take to fill a position? The shorter, the better, of course. But there’s another way to look at this measurement. What if we looked at that statistic not just as the time between when a person was hired and when they actually started working but also what it took for them to get from application submission to starting work? It might make sense then for us to also consider how many steps (e.g., screening phone call, interview) we had during that timeline. Ideally, all applicants would move smoothly through those steps until they start work without needing any extra handholding by our recruiters; but sometimes, there can be unexpected delays on either side of the process because life happens. When those delays happen, they really drag out the time-to-fill statistic and thus decrease its usefulness as an indicator of our overall effectiveness as recruiters. So the longer your average time-to-fill is, the more likely it is that there are issues with your recruiting process that need to be addressed. In addition, some jobs take longer than others to fill, so making sure you have enough volume in each type of job title so as not to skew results is important too.
- Number of offers declined: Who turned down your offer after being extended one? There’s no one right answer here—there could be anything from high turnover rates due to chronic staffing issues or bad management practices (which means recruiting needs serious help), or maybe those candidates simply found something better elsewhere.
- Average time spent per candidate: And speaking of talent management practices…how much time do we spend per candidate on average? That’s one question that can tell us whether or not we’re trying to take on too much. With limited resources, spending 20 hours on a single applicant won’t yield as good results as spending 5 hours across five different applicants.
- Screening costs: Of course, hiring the wrong person isn’t just a waste of time and money–it’s dangerous for your organization’s culture, customer experience levels, etc. That’s why it’s worth taking into account the cost associated with screening candidates–both in terms of time and financial resources like wages paid to screener personnel–and seeing how those numbers compare against your desired conversion rate to determine which strategy works best for you. For example, let’s say you have a conversion rate of 50% and a time-to-fill of 10 days. You decide to screen your applications for red flags before moving forward with interviews. Now, imagine that the screening process takes up 8 hours, and you pay $30/hour for those staff members. You’ve now invested 16 hours and $240 on a 50% chance of getting the hire. But is it worth it? Is your goal to make as many hires as possible or to ensure that you’re only investing in quality hires?
Remember: It’s about measuring success, not quantity. Whether it’s a lower conversion rate, a higher time-to-fill, or the amount of time we spend on average with applicants, these are all indicators that you should look at to see how your recruitment process is performing. But just as importantly, you should be looking at your organizational goals and the individual goals of your recruitment team. As such, it’s not just a matter of does it work but also is it the right thing to do.
4) What Was the Application Response Rate?
In order to get an idea of how your recruitment process is going, you should ask applicants for feedback. This can be done through a survey or simply by asking questions during interviews. Be sure to ask about the entire process, from the initial contact with your organization to the final decision. Additionally, try to find out if there were any problems or areas of improvement.
5) Did We Receive Positive Feedback from Applicants?
If you’re constantly hearing from applicants that your recruitment process is long, arduous, and frustrating, that’s a sign that something needs to change. On the other hand, if you receive positive feedback about your process, it’s a good indication that you’re doing something right.
Conclusion
The recruitment process is vital to the success of any organization. By taking the time to measure success, you can ensure that your process is efficient and effective.
