Top 10 Things that are Seldom Measured and Analyzed that Should Be

Corporate recruitment departments are usually extremely busy places. The focus is mostly on filling currently open requisitions. Satisfying the internal customers' immediate needs is paramount. Large quantities of fascinating data can be collected during that process but seldom are. My experience is that even when that data is collected, it is rarely analyzed.

Following are some ideas about what to collect and analyze.

Source of hire data is really important. It's relatively easy to collect too. The most accurate data can usually be found on application documents. Make sure that the people who review those documents with the applicant, double check the accuracy of the data with the applicant. Many applicants will just put "Internet", "company Website", or "Monster". Ask them to clarify. Capture the best data you can and start reviewing it monthly for all your hires and non-hires. In time you will learn a lot.
How effective are your Internet job postings? The source must be automatically registered. If you're relying on candidates to select the source from a list, then your data is likely no better than random. Most candidates will pick the first site on the list. There is no reason for the candidate to care about selecting the real source. Automate this or don't bother collecting the data.
Are employee referrals your largest source of hires? They probably are, but are they your best source of quality hires?
Are you measuring quality of hire? Are you looking at the relationship between quality of hire and source of hire?
Are you looking at the effectiveness of your recruiters? Number of placements is the sledge-hammer metric. But is it all that relevant? Surely the type and range of positions being handled by a specific recruiter are important. For example, you may have a recruiter who places a high volume of similar, non-exempt people and another who places a smaller number of difficult to find exempt professionals. Does it make sense to compare their performance based on raw number of hires? Is one more valuable to the organization than the other?
Are you keeping metrics on each recruiter's performance over time?
Do you have a measure of all non-recruiting activity that you require your recruiters to do? Is it the same for each recruiter?
Do you keep records of the ratio of internal fills to fills by third party recruiters?
Do you keep records of third party recruiter fees paid per corporate recruiter?
Do you measure internal customer satisfaction with the performance of the recruitment function as a whole and of each recruiter?

It would take a serious effort to begin collecting all the data mentioned above and to regularly analyze that data. Most corporate staffing departments probably have an idea about some of these areas but I question if the data they collect is valid and analyzed in such a way that informed business decisions can be made.

Tags: analyze, applicant, effective, hire, job, measure, metric, post, quality, recruiter, More…source, things

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Comment by Donna Svei on May 3, 2010 at 2:09am: Do you measure return on your recruiting investment? Which recruiters are attracting your highest impact employees? How do you replicate them and their success?

Comment by Simon Meth on May 3, 2010 at 8:16am: Hi Donna,
All good points. Your second point speaks to quality of hire if you assume that the highest impact employees are the highest quality. I assume you mean highest "positive" impact . Your final point is something you can consider if you have data and analysis to show you who you may want to replicate. Cheers! Simon

Comment by Donna Svei on May 3, 2010 at 10:23am: LOL Simon. I was thinking about highest positive impact but the opposite would be useful as well.

I might have been more clear. I always wonder about companies that focus on recruiting cost metrics. IMHO it would be more productive to focus on recruiting investment metrics.

Cheers to you too,

Donna

Comment by Chris Brablc on May 3, 2010 at 12:10pm: Nice Post, Simon!

In particular, I really agree with points 1 & 2. Source of hire is an integral metric to understand what's working from a recruitment marketing perspective. I'd also agree with Donna that ROI and investment metrics should be included for point 2. If Job Board A is providing 20 hires and Job Board B is providing 15 but Job Board A is 10 times more expensive, Job Board B may be the better option.

Source info is great, but it's even more valuable in the context of overall cost per (applicant, hire, etc.) These metrics can help you greatly in getting more out of your recruiting dollars.

Thanks,

Chris
chris@smashfly.com

Comment by Steffan Martell on May 3, 2010 at 12:47pm: Simon,

Great recap of some important metrics to examine. I couldn’t agree with you more on the source of hire data. Unless objectively gathered and or verified, which is easily done using technology, this metric can be misleading for organizations to use.

I agree with you on the analyzing the effectiveness of recruiters. One way to differentiate this metric is to examine the total compensation recruited by the recruiters. While you can analyze this over the number of positions, it does become a key differentiator in recruiter performance and is easily captured. If your business examines the contribution of the position to the company, i.e. profit by position, you can also use this metric to examine the “value” of the roles recruited.

Steffan
smartell@altrens.com
@steffanmartell

Comment by Simon Meth on May 3, 2010 at 10:12pm: Hi Maren,
It's always a "perfect time to set up these processes". Ideally the recruiters would not be directly involved in data collection and analysis. The entire recruitment process should be designed to capture all the needed data. Recruiters should just follow the process.
Cheers!
Simon

Comment by Simon Meth on May 3, 2010 at 10:15pm: Thanks Chris! Following your example, I'd drop A and spend more on B if $ spent on job boards matter. I'm not that interested in cost/applicant. I'm very interested in cost/hire. Cheers! Simon

Comment by Simon Meth on May 3, 2010 at 10:17pm: Hi Steffan, All good points. I'm not sure that comparing total compensation recruited by recruiters is necessarily a good measure for different types of recruiters. It's clearly a great measure to compare recruiters with similar desks. Cheers! Simon

Comment by Dina Harding on July 5, 2010 at 10:23pm: Well done, Simon! It's never too late to start implementing ideas such as those which you mention above. We certainly can't effectively notice, evaluate or change what we're not measuring! :D