Article: How to use data to create talent recruitment strategies that work

HR Technology

How to use data to create talent recruitment strategies that work

Here's a step-by-step guide to help you accelerate your hiring strategy.
How to use data to create talent recruitment strategies that work

“The right data and analysis can create magic moments”, says Daniel Wahlen, Employer Insights Strategist at Indeed.com. Addressing an audience of HR leaders at the Talent Analytics Conference 2018 in Bangalore, he highlighted how attention to data can ease and accelerate the recruitment process and how HR leaders can embark on a step-by-step process to collect and analyze data.

Assign and automate

In order to ensure that companies create data-focused strategies that work, they need to have a dedicated person or a team involved in tracking data and analysis. Wahlen notes that such a team should be empowered with the right resources and the right amount of time to have an impact.

In addition to having dedicated resources, tracking information about sourcing, i.e., how candidates find information about jobs in your company, should be an automated process, says Wahlen. While companies use a variety of data collection methods, including asking candidates during interviews and snap-polls on the company website, research has shown that 5 out of 6 candidates are likely to give a wrong answer, either because they want to create a positive impression of themselves to the interviewer, or because they just pick the first option that is available on the snap poll online.

Often, a candidate may have gone through a variety of sources to land a job interview. They may have first seen a job advertisement on a job board, then screened by a staffing company before reaching the direct employer. This is why automation is helpful, as it is capable of capturing the multiple touchpoints that a candidate may have cleared.

 In addition to having dedicated resources, tracking information about sourcing, i.e., how candidates find information about jobs in your company, should be an automated process, says Daniel Wahlen, Indeed.com

Ask questions and analyze

The next step to ensure that the collected data is useful to your strategy is to ask questions.

Focus on the KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) that matter to your business – How much do you pay per hire or application? How quickly can you hire candidates from a given source? What is the quality of applicants applying through various sources? The answers to these questions will shape your strategy to give you the best return on investment – whether this is measured as a saving of the time, money invested or in terms of driving process efficiency.

Get a holistic perspective of the recruitment environment:

There are three key data sources that recruiters need to pay attention to:

1) Labor market – This is the analysis of how hard it will be to hire and how extensive the recruiting process will be. Analysis of labor market data can show the difference between job seekers skills vs available jobs in a particular location. For example, If there are 11,000 software engineers searching for jobs online in Bangalore, but there are 20,000 job openings in the same city, you will have to compete for the talent.  Are there other cities that have more favorable labor market? And do you have offices in these cities?

2) Internal performance – Companies may already be using analytics tools, applicant tracking systems. It is useful to understand specific metrics using these already available tools. For example, when you show an advertisement with a job opening, how many candidates actually click on the ad? Metrics such as CPR (Cost per registration), CPS (Cost per sale), cost of applications help in calculating this. The goal is to understand your spending internally and whether this is getting better overtime.

3) Competitive benchmarking – A majority of the software engineers don’t work in software companies, they work across different sectors. If you are looking for software engineers, you are competing for talent across all sectors. You need to be able to compare metrics like CPR with other companies. What are the reasons your competitors are better? Are their job titles better? Are their ads better? Are you under-investing when compared to your competitors? How long is your job open when compared to others?

Understanding the above three data sources will give you insights that you shape your strategy. While there may be quick fixes, at times, there may be long-term imperatives that you need to focus on. For example, the strength of your employer brand is not going to change overnight, but by understanding where you stand with respect to your competition, you can make amends over time.

Despite any level of data proficiency informing your hiring strategy, it is useful to remember that human interaction, business transparency and candidate experience will be the ultimate arbiter of attracting top talent. And even in case candidates are rejected, they are more likely to re-apply in the future based on a positive candidate experience.

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Topics: HR Technology, Talent Acquisition, #TAC2018

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