5 Metrics You Must Measure to Achieve the Gold Standard of High-Volume Recruiting
High-volume recruiting can be difficult to navigate for the uninitiated. Without the right hiring data — and the right understanding of that data — you may end up with inaccurate forecasts and overwhelming hiring shortfalls.
The good news is it is never too late to start analyzing your high-volume recruiting process and fixing the problems you uncover.
Not sure where to start? Here are the most crucial recruitment metrics your team should be tracking in any high-volume recruiting situation:
1. Source of Hire
Knowing where your candidates come from is one of the most impactful pieces of information a recruiter can wield. With this data, you can better focus your time and resources on recruiting channels that are more likely to deliver high-quality candidates who go on to become high-performing employees.
Where this fits into high-volume recruiting: When hiring for high volume, it is important to know what channels are most effective. A lot of channels can produce large volumes of candidates, but only some will yield large volumes of qualified candidates. Save yourself the headache of screening hundreds of unqualified resumes by focusing on the right channels.
2. Cost Per Hire
Knowing your cost per hire allows you to break down your recruiting process and identify where you could be saving money. For example, if an open role is racking up higher costs than it did the last time around, that’s a signal there may be some inefficiencies to work out.
Where this fits into high-volume recruiting: When dealing with large volumes of candidates, cost-effective investment of resources is key. Otherwise, your high-volume recruiting effort will burn through your budget.
3. Time to Hire
Like cost per hire, this metric allows recruiters to see just how efficient their current recruiting strategies are. Time to hire can tell a recruiter whether the team is being too indecisive or holding out for an unrealistic ideal candidate.
Where this fits into high-volume recruiting:In a high-volume recruiting situation, you need to get candidates in the door as quickly as possible. Otherwise, you’re just asking for bottlenecks, delays, and shortfalls.
4. Ratio of Interviews to Hires
When looking at the ratio of interviews to hires, recruiters can see if any parts of the interview process are broken or if candidates are getting lost at certain points in the pipeline. This ratio can also help you determine whether your interview process is too long, too short, or too repetitive. Over time, the hiring team can also identify patterns in how specific interviewers conduct their interviews. For example, if it seems like candidates who interview with one particular interviewer are less likely to be hired, that may be a sign the interviewer’s style is negatively affecting candidates’ perceptions of your company.
Where this fits into high-volume recruiting: This ratio tells you how many candidates you need to interview in order to get the number of hires you need. Knowing that number allows you to work backward, planning for a more efficient high-volume recruiting effort from the start.
5. Ratio of Offers to Acceptances
The offer-to-acceptance ratio distills all the previous metrics to answer a crucial question: Was the candidate enticed and engaged enough to take the position after enduring the hiring process? If 100 percent of candidates who came from a certain source of hire or went through a certain hiring experience accept their offers, you’re doing something right. If, on the other hand, a lot of candidates are rejecting offers, you need to pinpoint why that is.
Where this fits into high-volume recruiting: This single number can tell you whether or not your recruiting process works. If the ratio is low, the process is working. If not, you have problems.
A version of this article originally appeared on the Oleeo blog.
Jeanette Maister is managing director of the Americas for Oleeo.