The Guide to Talent Acquisition Metrics for Data Driven Recruiters

Recruiters and employers have to go through a lot of hurdles and uncertainties to find and attract the right candidates for their organizations. Measuring the effectiveness of your talent acquisition strategy can sometimes be obfuscated or difficult to calculate, especially in fast-paced environments. How do the best of the best in the recruitment industry measure their talent acquisition metrics? In this guide, we will explore the essential talent acquisition metrics that data-driven recruiters should focus on.

What Are the Talent Acquisition Metrics?

Talent acquisition metrics are ways of measuring how well you are finding and hiring the right people for your organization. They help you answer questions like:

• Time taken to fill a job opening
• The cost of hiring
• Which source provides the most successful candidates
• Candidate and hiring manager satisfaction
• New hire performance and retention

Talent acquisition metrics are not only useful for measuring the past and present performance of your talent acquisition process, but also for predicting and influencing the future outcomes and impact of your talent acquisition strategy. They help you forecast your talent needs and gaps, align your talent acquisition goals with your business objectives and priorities, and demonstrate the value and ROI of your talent acquisition efforts to your stakeholders.

The Importance of Talent Acquisition Metrics

Talent acquisition metrics are important for several reasons:

• They help you align your talent acquisition strategy with your business objectives and priorities.
• You’ll be enabled to monitor the quality and quantity of your talent pipeline and ensure that you have enough qualified candidates for your current and future needs.
• Talent acquisition metrics also help you improve the candidate experience and employer brand by providing feedback on how candidates perceive your recruitment process and organization.
• At the same time, they help you reduce the cost and time of hiring by identifying and eliminating bottlenecks, inefficiencies, and wastage in your talent acquisition process.
• With talent acquisition metrics, you can increase the retention and productivity of your new hires by measuring their fit, performance, and satisfaction with your organization.

Key Talent Acquisition Metrics You Should Know

There are many talent acquisition metrics that you can track and analyze, but here are ones that you should know:

• Time to fill: This metric measures the length of time it takes to fill a vacant position in your organization, from the moment a job requisition is approved until a candidate accepts your offer. It reflects the efficiency and speed of your talent acquisition process as well as the availability and demand of talent in the market. The average time to fill across industries is around 36 days, but it may vary depending on the role, location, and level of seniority.

• Time to hire: It’s the length of time it takes for a candidate to move through your hiring process, from the moment they apply or are sourced until they accept your offer. Time to hire reflects the effectiveness and quality of your candidate screening, assessment, and selection methods as well as the engagement and responsiveness of your hiring team.

• Source of hire: You can measure the origin or channel from which you find and hire candidates for your organization with the source of hire. It helps you evaluate the effectiveness and return on investment (ROI) of your different sourcing strategies, such as job boards, social media, referrals, career fairs, etc. It also helps you optimize your sourcing mix and allocate your resources accordingly.

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• Quality of hire: This metric measures the contribution and value that a new hire brings to your organization over time. It is one of the most important but also one of the most difficult metrics to measure, as it involves multiple indicators and stakeholders. Some common ways to measure the quality of hire are by looking at the new hire’s performance, retention, productivity, engagement, feedback, etc. Here’s an example calculation using these metrics:

• Cost per hire: You can measure cost per hire to get the total amount of money spent on hiring a new employee for your organization. This metric includes both internal costs (such as salaries, benefits, overheads, etc.) and external costs (such as advertising, agency fees, travel expenses, etc.). It helps you assess the efficiency and ROI of your talent acquisition process as well as benchmark yourself against industry standards.

• Candidate experience: You can find out how candidates perceive and feel about your recruitment process and organization with this metric. Candidate experience covers various aspects such as communication, transparency, fairness, feedback, ease of application, etc. It helps you improve your employer's brand and reputation as well as increase your offer acceptance rate and retention rate.

What Talent Acquisition Metrics Should You Measure?

Now that you know some of the key talent acquisition metrics that you should track, how do you choose which ones are most relevant and useful for your organization? Here are some tips to help you decide:

1. Start with Your Business Goals and Priorities

What are the main objectives and challenges that your organization is facing? How does talent acquisition support and align with them? For example, if your goal is to grow your market share, you may want to focus on metrics that measure the quantity and quality of your talent pipeline. If your goal is to improve your customer satisfaction, you may want to focus on metrics that measure the fit and performance of your new hires.

2. Choose the Metrics That Are Actionable and Meaningful

What are the metrics that you can influence and improve with your talent acquisition strategy? How do they relate to your desired outcomes and impact? For instance, if you want to reduce your time to fill, you may want to track and optimize your sourcing channels, candidate screening methods, hiring team collaboration, etc.

3. Balance the Metrics That Are Leading and Lagging

Leading metrics are those that indicate the future performance and results of your talent acquisition process, such as the source of hire, candidate experience, etc. Lagging metrics are those that reflect the past performance and results of your talent acquisition process, such as time to fill, cost per hire, quality of hire, etc. You need both types of metrics to monitor and evaluate your talent acquisition process holistically and accurately.

Conclusion

Talent acquisition metrics are essential for data-driven recruitment. They help you track and improve your talent acquisition process and ensure that you are hiring the right people for your organization. However, not all metrics are equally important or relevant for your organization. You need to choose the ones that align with your business goals and priorities, that are actionable and meaningful, and that balance leading and lagging indicators.

To ensure that you can track talent acquisition metrics, reinforce your strategy and fill in open positions with the right talent, you can equip yourself with a recruitment solution like Manatal. It is a cloud-based applicant tracking system (ATS) that comes with innovative features such as:

• Reports & Analytics that provides you with comprehensive and customizable reports and analytics on various talent acquisition metrics, such as time to fill, time to hire, source of hire, cost per hire, etc. This feature also allows you to create your own custom reports and dashboards to suit your specific needs and preferences.
• Candidate Sourcing which helps you source candidates from multiple channels, such as job boards, social media, referrals, etc. You can also use Manatal’s AI-powered sourcing tool to find passive candidates from LinkedIn and enrich their profiles with relevant information.
• Candidate Management that enables you to manage candidates throughout the hiring process, from screening to hiring. Plus, you can use Manatal’s advanced filtering, scoring, and tagging features to sort and rank candidates based on various criteria.

Manatal is designed to make your talent acquisition process easier, faster, and smarter and has built in analytics & reports for all of your talent acquisition metrics. Start its 14-day free trial today and see for yourself how Manatal can help you achieve your recruitment goals within a few clicks.