Data-Driven Recruitment: How to Develop a Winning Strategy in 2021

Elbow grease and guesswork were once the only choices.  Now there’s a mass of data-driven ways to accurately, objectively, and methodically analyze recruitment.

What is Data-Driven Recruitment?

Painstakingly going through data by hand and relying on “luck and intuition” no longer cut it when it comes to assessing recruitment methods for building the ideal sales team.  Instead, it is imperative to “use tangible facts” in outlining recruitment strategies and plans and making actual hiring decisions.

In many cases, the data is readily available, holding a “wealth of insight” that is easy to overlook.  Shockingly, as many as two-thirds of recruiters “don’t have the tools” for interpreting their own “market and talent pool,” largely remaining “reactive and tactical” rather than proactive.  Research also indicates that recruiters and hiring managers are not exceedingly confident in each other’s understanding of the roles they are trying to fill and hold inconsistent estimations of their own understanding.  

The solution to setting informed expectations and enhancing recruitment efficacy lies in finding a “seamless way to connect all employee data — from sourcing to hire and beyond.” 

The Benefits of Data-Driven Recruitment

Honing more comprehensive awareness of roles and recruitment strategies using “mature analytics” stands to make talent acquisition teams “2x more likely to improve their recruiting efforts and 3x more likely to realize cost reductions and efficiency gains.”  What are the specific metrics you should expect to improve by harnessing the full potential of recruitment data? 

Objective Quality of Hire

Some research shows that “ 75% of all hires” turn out badly, and much of this disappointment is likely due to subjective, unscientific hiring decisions.  Tracking performance and retention of current salespeople as well as new and potential hires shows which characteristics comprise a good or bad hire to help you better anticipate outcomes.  

There tend to be massive productivity differences between first, second, and third-rate salespeople, and you want outstanding people.  Data-driven decision-making hinges primarily on having a very clear understanding of the key attributes that lead to success and careful analysis can reveal which sourcing practices, for instance, yield the best hires. 

Diversity and Minimized Bias

Making data-driven decisions weeds out unconscious hiring biases to focus on objective measures of candidate attributes.  Similarly, monitoring the “hiring funnel for important demographic ratios such as gender, ethnicity, and veteran status” helps organizations guarantee inclusiveness and equity in the recruitment process and reach diversity targets. 

Speed and Cost of Hire

Stakeholders and planners often need to know how much time and cost it will take to fill a position, sometimes even for “each stage of the hiring process.”  Using analytics to evaluate recruiting data can not only provide the information you need to make credible time and cost estimates but also “reveal the bottlenecks slowing down hiring.”  A faster and more efficient hiring process costs less, and so does knowing which recruiting expenditures are worth the price.

Candidate Experience

Studies show that companies who put the candidate first manage to “deliver higher quality talent, improve recruitment efficiencies and align more closely with business objectives.”  Analytics can show you which factors are detracting from or strengthening the quality of candidates’ experiences.  It is important to engage and prioritize potential hires, because the most talented people have the most options- that means more alternative potential employers to choose from if your hiring process presents a sub-par experience. 

Recruiting Capacity and Forecasting

Tracking data related to “employee turnover, internal movement between departments, and hiring success” facilitates predicting talent needs in order to maintain updated recruiting plans and budgets you can accurately deliver on. 

How to Employ a Data-Driven Recruiting Strategy

What specific actions are instrumental in developing an adequate data-driven recruiting strategy?

Applicant Tracking System (ATS)

It is logical to look first to the applicant tracking system.  This has some functions such as “tracking candidates through the hiring process, and getting data such as time-to-fill and cost-of-hire.”  But when the ATS stops gathering data on someone post-hire, you need to look elsewhere for information on long-term performance.  Besides siloing data, ATS can sometimes even prematurely rule out good candidates.  You need a “single system” where you can access all employee data pre- and post-hire. 

Empower the Recruitment Team

Having all the relevant data readily available in one place by utilizing a “sophisticated analytics function for recruitment” saves your recruitment team time and energy and contributes to greater success.  A data-driven approach helps them easily and quickly obtain historical employee data to form accurate forecasts and detailed plans. 

Benchmark, Track, and Compare Results

Whenever you have “made any changes to your recruitment strategy, you benchmark the new data to the old metrics” to see how well the changes work and advocate for further valid interventions. 

Useful Metrics to Observe

-Objective assessment scores and structured interview results: Are the candidates progressing through the recruitment process truly vetted and qualified? 

-Quality of hire is the most important recruitment metric.  It demonstrates the aggregate “effectiveness of your hiring processes” and opens up reflections on many other metrics.

-Cost-per-hire: How much do different methods cost?  Do they considerably offer value by reliably helping you find top talent?

-Time-to-hire: “How long does it take to hire a person in this field?”  Are there any steps in the process you can eliminate, streamline, or improve?  Can you automate certain screenings in order to interview fewer unqualified candidates?

-Source of hire: Which sources produce the most high-performers?

-Candidate experience scores: Are your job ads mobile-friendly? Is the application process clear, “engaging, informative,” and as brief as possible?  Are you measuring “behavior on your website” to locate problems like drop-off?

-Job offer acceptance rates: Are compensation and benefits competitive enough?  Is the workplace welcoming towards candidates, and are you communicating with them properly?

-Turnover: Are you immediately equipping new hires with “effective onboarding,” suitable training, and “opportunities to do meaningful work?”  How does turnover and inter-departmental movement inform forecasting and budgeting? 

The Limitations of Data

Even the most advanced data applications cannot do all the work by itself  It is still on the recruitment team to efficiently collect, integrate data, “interpret your findings,” and act on them.  

Employ a Data-Driven Recruitment Strategy with PerceptionPredict

PerceptionPredict Performance Fingerprints use over 400 data-proven human attributes, behaviors, and skills combined with your company- and role-specific data to formulate current and prospective employees’ ‘sales DNA.’  Based on a 20-minute assessment, our decision support platform uses predictive analytics to compose future performance profiles.  PerceptionPredict objectively estimates salespeople’s KPIs like how many units or how much revenue they will move, arming you with refined, objective data for perfecting your hiring decisions and recruitment strategy.

Book a demo to discover how our data-driven decision support platform fits into your revamped recruitment strategy.