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I had a conversation with the Director of Operations of a company that had recently acquired two other businesses. The acquisition was part of a broader growth initiative that also involved ongoing recruitment within the parent company.
Each business had its own vastly different process. But with plans to grow all the companies under their umbrella, they wanted to develop a centralised and scalable recruitment process that would fit their current portfolio and potential acquisitions down the line.
As they began to evaluate their processes, it became evident that there were no consistent measurements of activity, results, challenges, or costs. Before they could measure and drive the right activity and behaviours, they had to put key performance indicators (KPIs) at the heart of their recruitment.
To build a process that helps you achieve your goals, the first step is to find a way to measure your core activity and the results it achieves. KPIs provide the data and insights needed to understand what’s working and what’s not.
Consider a scenario where you have a recruitment process that has served you well so far. How do you make it more cost-effective, produce more high-quality candidates, or reduce the time to find talent?
The right metrics will help you answer those questions and provide the evidence needed to make informed business decisions.
These days, data for developing KPIs is practically everywhere. Despite this, almost every customer we’ve worked with started without the right measures in place. Either they didn’t have the systems to measure KPIs or they didn’t have anyone accountable for tracking it.
Whether you're managing recruitment with spreadsheets or using Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS), here's how to start tracking the right metrics and involve the right people.
Recruitment KPIs can be put into three categories: Cost, Time, and Quality. Although you can get very detailed with what metrics you choose, the following will give you a sufficient overall picture of your process.
Whether that’s cost per hire for the entire organisation or broken down by department or hiring manager, what’s important is having an accurate measure of how much you’re spending.
For in-house recruitment teams, start with:
When working with external recruitment providers you should consider:
Measuring the duration of your end-to-end recruitment process will reveal where there are potential bottlenecks. With a more efficient process, you can improve the experience candidates have with your brand and allow for more accurate future resource planning.
A note on speed: Sometimes there are variables that you cannot control, such as salary or location, that impact your ability to attract more candidates. But one thing you can control is the speed in which you respond. If you can engage with a candidate faster, you reduce the risk of losing them to your competitors while providing a candidate experience that appeals to top talent.
These are the measures that can help you make your recruitment process faster:
This involves finding candidates who are a close fit for the job requirements as early as possible. These metrics indicate the efficiency of the process in identifying and securing top talent:
With KPIs in place, it's time to see how you stack up. Review your recent recruitment activity to establish a baseline. If any KPIs can't be determined with the information you have on hand, begin tracking them from now on.
Now that you know where you stand, the next step is to determine where you want to head towards.
Bring together the key stakeholders who will be accountable for reaching the goals you’ve set. Usually, they’re people from HR, TA, or the hiring managers.
Share your KPIs with this group and discuss how you will approach improving each area. We recommend having a workshop to determine what targets you want to achieve and in what timeframe, what role will each stakeholder play, and how they will measure progress against the relevant KPIs.
Once you put your plan into action, don’t forget to monitor your progress periodically to see whether the targets are achievable or if you need to adjust. Depending on your goals, you may also need to set up new tools and systems to gather the necessary data to stay on course.
Just make sure you don’t make it more complicated than it has to be. For now, stick to the simplest solutions available to keep track of your metrics.
Change doesn’t happen overnight. It takes time to see results, particularly for KPIs that weren’t tracked before.
Start by implementing your new process, then assess the outcomes regularly over a 3 to 6-month period. This timeframe allows you to gather meaningful data on your KPIs, so you can refine your approach and improve your performance.
Here are some examples of what that looks like.
When developing a recruitment process, your priority should be its effectiveness. While staying on budget is important, you must first make sure it’s delivering results. This may involve investing in tools like an Applicant Tracking System or partnering with external recruitment providers.
Once you have a setup that works, you’ll have the proper context to manage your recruitment costs.
Companies often lose great candidates by not moving fast enough. However, it’s important to balance speed with ensuring that candidates are assessed thoroughly.
Try meeting multiple stakeholders during interviews or evaluating candidates against standardised criteria to speed up the recruitment process. The goal is to streamline the time it takes for you to make hiring decisions.
When a candidate is a good fit, it’s much easier to take them through the hiring process. So, why not take steps to ensure this happens as much as possible?
Implementing strategies to attract a higher volume of more qualified candidates or having more selective screening criteria can be highly effective. With better candidates entering your pipeline, you’re more likely to find the right talent early on.
One of our key sectors is engineering. It’s a highly competitive space, especially when it comes to securing projects. For companies that do obtain lucrative contracts, recruiting the right people to deliver on time and on budget is crucial. If you overcommit, or under-deliver it can easily cause your project to fail.
Despite this, one of our clients leveraged their strong resourcing capability as a competitive advantage. By implementing comprehensive KPIs and a robust recruitment and onboarding process, we helped them eliminate a key barrier to taking on new projects and minimised the risks associated with resourcing.
With the data to support their actions, they confidently pursued and competed for new opportunities. They also used this information to showcase their delivery capabilities, providing reassurance to potential customers.
Ultimately, this approach directly impacted their ability to win new projects.
