Using TA metrics to measure business impact of hiring processes & strategies

The Talent Acquisition (TA) teams often struggle with showcasing the value-add of their function to the business. Now as the function becomes even more critical, it becomes all the more important for TA professionals to get more business buy-in and speak the language of business. 

Tight labor market, along with skill shortage is making business leaders wonder if they are truly hiring the “best and brightest”? They are challenging the TA processes and asking the TA leaders how they are adding value to the business with new hires. And while many of the TA teams have been capturing and monitoring performance data, they are struggling to gain the confidence of business and carving a strategic position of importance and respect for the TA function.

So where is it that TA teams are lacking in showcasing the business impact of their processes?

Well, to begin with, most of them have not been able to crack the code of quantifying how they add value to business. One way to do this is by making recruiting metrics more outcome driven than activity based. 

Recruiting Metrics are key to evaluating the health and effectiveness of recruiting process, and also a medium for TA professionals to make their function matter to business. 

With the increased use of technology in the TA space, new-age TA Techniques are also picking up fast and emerging and changing the way TA teams measure the impact of their processes. 

Here are some recruitment metrics, TA teams should track during TA assessments and present to showcase the value-add of the talent acquisition (TA) function to the business:

Time to hire

Some organizations take 14 to 100 days, or may be more to fill a position, while some are filling       positions the same day they open. With automation now, recruiters have the opportunity to reduce their time to hire and bring in more efficiency in their hiring process. They can monitor how these newer technologies have helped them shorten the time to hire. 

In a recent survey by Mercer|Mettl, 63 percent of the organizations said that they will work on their speed and quality of Talent Acquisition. While Time to hire is a broader metrics, TA professionals can use to track the efficiency and speed of their hiring process, there are some other metrics they can use as well.  

• Time to Fill: Time to fill measures the time required to fill a position in days, from a start date of when a requisition is approved by a business to the date the chosen candidate has completed a background check.
• Time to Accept: A step ahead from time to fill, time to accept measures the time required to fill a position in days, with a start date of when a requisition is approved by a business through the date the chosen candidate has accepted the job offer.
• Time in Process Step:  Time in Process Step describes the time a candidate spends in each step (you should be able to see this in your ATS). With this metric the recruiters can measure the recruiting efficiency as well as the strength of the overall hiring process. It can be used to identify bottlenecks in the entire process. Candidates could be sitting in hiring manager review for weeks at a time, or a faulty integration could be preventing candidates from moving along in the process.
• Time to Start: Here the recruiter can measure the time required to fill a position in days, with a start date of when a requisition is approved by a business through the target or actual start date of the candidate.  

Candidate drop rate across hiring stages

One of the most common challenges recruiters face is that candidates often drop out, either at the interview stage or many times even after receiving the offer letter. By looking at the number of candidates who start an online job application minus the number who complete it, divided by the number who start, recruiters can track the candidate drop rate across hiring stages. 

This metric can help recruiters in identifying stages in which they are lacking. By tracking candidate drop rate across hiring stages, they can improve where they are lacking and relook at their strategies for those stages where they are lacking. 

Revenue impact of recruitment

As the new world of work urges TA professionals to think more business, it becomes necessary that they measure the direct financial value of their processes. They can carry out a benchmarking exercise to compare their metric with competitors in the same sector, and highlight how they are doing well or identify where they are lacking. 

They can also track how each new hire has contributed to the revenue of the business. It can be done either after 3 months an employee has joined or after a year, as per the scope of their role and business needs. 

First Year Quality 

This is the percentage of candidates submitted by recruiters who are accepted for employment plus the percentage of these that do not leave, divided by two. 

Attracting quality talent’ was chosen as the biggest challenge by talent acquisition teams in State of Talent Acquisition – 2019, a report by Mercer|Mettl. Further, even if some companies manage to hire the most relevant candidates, they are often unable to retain them. The new hires either don’t seem to fit in the culture of the organization or are not found to be fit for the role. 

Knowing how long new hires stay can be an indicator of recruiting performance, and can be used as the basis for future hiring decisions. 

Hiring Manager Satisfaction

It is obvious that measuring the satisfaction hiring managers is key as it is for their teams, recruiters are hiring for. Their satisfaction with the new hire can be measured using net promoter score. It is an important metric as this will help recruiters know if they are able to hire right candidates or not. Also, in case they get poor scores, they can go back to the hiring manager and work on the areas they are lacking. 

Candidate Satisfaction

While on the one hand it is important to measure the hiring manager’s satisfaction, on the other candidate satisfaction is also crucial. An unsatisfied candidate is no longer a voiceless unknown who will complain about their experience to a couple of friends at dinner, they are on social media and platforms like Glassdoor and LinkedIn, where they can write about the review of the company and impact its reputation. 

In the new digital age, the candidate experience becomes all the more crucial as companies fight for the same scarce skills. By measuring candidate satisfaction, TA professionals can gauge whether or not they have been able to give a positive experience to applicants. 

Success ratio of various sources of hire

As TA professionals, today, use many sources to hire talent they can assess the drop rates for respective sources as well and identify which of them helps them get most relevant candidates.

Whether it is employee referrals, job site, staffing firms or social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat, the TA professionals can track and compare the quality of candidates who comes from each source. They can measure the time to hire for each of these platforms, they can track time to fill and even quality of hire. 

 Candidate Withdrew Reasons 

Candidate drop rate across hiring stages and candidate satisfaction rates give only a slight picture of how well the candidate experience has been. Candidate Withdrew Reasons is a metric which asks TA professionals to delve into the specific reasons candidates dropped off. This could be at any stage of the hiring process. 

Candidate withdrew reasons measures the total number of candidates who withdrew from the recruiting process in a fiscal year broken down by their reasons for leaving. 

Through this metric, then the TA teams can redesign their strategies and work on the areas where they are lacking. 

With data collected from these TA metrics, the TA teams can build their case on how they have benefitted from a particular new hiring strategy or a new technology. They can show how they are adding value to the business. As soon as the business leaders realize that TA professionals are measuring the business impact of their processes, they will get more involved.