As business owners, Executives or HR leaders, we all have various processes to manage and analyse. It’s our job to understand what’s working, what’s not, where we’re being productive and more. Finding incredible staff is such a fundamental part of running a business, but the process itself sometimes falls by the wayside in terms of analysis. How do you know how effective your recruitment process actually is?

Sure, you’re finding people for the positions you advertise; but recruitment is not necessarily a case of whether it’s working or not. Like you would with any other process or aspect of your business, it’s about asking if it could be done better.

Here are 3 key deliverables in how to measure recruiting success, along with advice as to how to improve each aspect.

1. Time-to-hire

Time to hire refers to the number of days between beginning a recruitment process (which could be the day the board sits down to outline a required profile, or just the date you post a job online) to the moment your new hire starts in their role. Obviously, the shorter the process the better; great talent isn’t on the market long. Take stock of your hiring process and measure how long it takes to fill each role (bearing in mind that level of seniority, technicality, profession etc will change this) and above all be aware of how long each aspect is taking.

Find out where any delays are happening (is the role being prioritized by the hiring manager and/or HR and pushed to be filled ASAP? Is there a lag in responding to applicants? Are hiring managers unable to make time for interviews fast enough?) then use this to measure recruiting success, and take pains to speed up any problem areas.

2. Cost-per-hire

Cost per hire doesn’t just come down to the individual’s salary or package, but every cost related to bringing them on board. We’re talking advertising, man-hours spent sourcing and then interviewing and onboarding, purchasing any necessary equipment/tools they need to do their job, and all the administration involved, plus any agency fees if you’re using one. To bring your cost-per-hire down, you first need to have a transparent, honest look at how much time is being spent recruiting and what that might be costing the business.

Talent pipelining (succession planning and promoting from within), employee referrals and partnering with a strong agency are all great ways to improve your cost-per-hire. Agencies in particular can be a sound investment in terms of strategy, given that every piece of the process you delegate to them leaves your own team free to complete their usual duties and responsibilities – saving crucial time as well as money.

3. Qualified candidates by opening

What we mean by this is not the number of applications you receive, but how many are relevant and suitable for the job in question. The total number is less important – you could have a hundred which are completely irrelevant and simply don’t fit the bill, which gets us nowhere. Largely we class qualified candidates as those who pass the initial application screening to be moved on to the next stage, which would usually be your first conversation or meeting.

It’s important to understand how many qualified candidates you’re receiving for each role you advertise, as this will open up questions about your entire process – your employer brand perception, online presence, quality of adverts, and package competitiveness to name just a few. As such, make sure to keep track of recruitment metrics, particularly conversion rates from application to first stage of interview, first to second, and so on throughout the process. If you’re receiving a very limited amount of qualified applications, we can take from this that you’re not necessarily attracting enough of the top talent on the market – which needs to be improved as part of an overall recruitment strategy overhaul.

With these 3 deliverables in mind, you should be able to get a handle on how successful your recruitment campaigns actually are – furthermore, you’ll give your team the ability to improve that as such. As a professional staffing agency, these are all things we stay on top of as standard; our job isn’t just to find qualified staff for our clients, but to take an overarching look at the strategy in place and make suggestions based on the expertise we’ve developed over the years.

Like we said, everyone can source and hire a person – but how do you know you’re getting the absolute best?

That’s where we come in. Get in touch to learn more about the successes we’ve had with clients across North America, moreover how we’re able to help you improve metrics across the board.

Any views or opinions expressed within this blog do not necessarily reflect the official policy of  NLG. Any points made are for general information only, and none should be relied upon as a basis for making any business, legal or other decisions. Neither NLG nor the author can be held responsible for any reliance placed by you on any information or material within this article.