As an employer, you will no doubt be aware of the costs of recruitment – both financial costs and the costs to your time.
That’s why it is essential to assess your hiring metrics so that you know which parts of your recruitment are working well and which areas might need to be tweaked – or abandoned altogether.
Especially if you are an employer for an SME, you could be recruiting on a budget. So having metrics in place can save you valuable time and money – and help you get access to the nation’s top young talent.
These metrics not only provide valuable insights into the efficiency and effectiveness of your recruitment process but also offer actionable intelligence for optimising your talent acquisition strategies.
Hiring metrics for your company
So, what are the essential hiring metrics that you should monitor? Let’s take a look…
Time taken to fill the role
When you do a recruitment drive, do you know how long your recruitment process takes? From posting that job ad to deciding which person is the right one to fill your role and making the job offer?
Monitoring your ‘time to fill’ will allow you to assess the efficiency of your recruitment process.
If your process is lacking efficiency and taking too long, this can affect the productivity in your company because an unfilled role means your existing resources are being diverted.
This can take up unnecessary amounts of time and it can create unnecessary financial costs. And, crucially, it can mean you lose out to other companies on the best young talent.
You need to be able to keep your candidates interested during the recruitment process.
By tracking this metric, it can help you to identify areas that need to be improved upon, streamline those processes and enhance your candidate experience.
Cutting down on the time it takes for your recruitment process to play out gives you a much better chance of securing that top talent.
Obviously, this needs to be done effectively. You need to ensure that you aren’t rushing through the process just to fill a role quickly. Your process needs to be effective at spotting that top talent in the shortest amount of time.
Cost per hire
Another metric for you to look at is your (financial) cost per hire. ‘Cost per hire’ quantifies the total expenses incurred in the recruitment process per hired employee.
In the past, we have written about recruiting on a budget and your cost per hire is obviously something you need to look at.
What does ‘cost per hire’ encompass? Depending on how you are running your recruitment drive, you need to take into account:
- The cost of advertising your role.
- Agency fees – if you are using an agency.
- Technology platforms used in your recruitment process.
- Recruiter fees – if you are using a recruitment company.
- Any incurred travel costs.
- The monetary cost of the time of those on your interview / assessment team.
Monitoring how much it costs your company to recruit one person provides valuable insights into the financial efficiency of recruitment efforts and enables you to optimise budget allocation.
If your costs are too high, then you may need to look at the process and pinpoint the areas where costs are not only high, but are proving ineffective at reeling in that top young talent.
By analysing this metric, you can identify cost-saving opportunities and perhaps negotiate better contracts with any outside agencies you are using.
You can also implement some new strategies that can be more cost effective without compromising on quality.
Candidate satisfaction & experience
Your recruitment process also contributes to your company branding and how those outside view your company – be they customers or job candidates.
Students and graduates talk to each other, in person and online, about their experiences with different companies when applying for jobs.
This means it is very important that your company is talked about in a positive way, even if you didn’t offer those people the job.
If they had a poor experience during your recruitment process, this can have an adverse effect on your future recruitment plans when it comes to attracting young talent. That young talent will now be looking to work elsewhere.
Communication, transparency and professionalism throughout the process is key. Graduates are often applying for multiple positions so a professional, efficient recruitment process where you communicate with them throughout gives a positive candidate experience.
Positive candidate experiences not only enhance your employer branding but also contribute to a larger talent pool through referrals and positive reviews.
Monitoring candidate satisfaction enables you to identify pain points and areas for enhancement in the recruitment journey.
This can be done by asking your candidates to complete a survey at the end of the process and this should help you to really drill down into any areas that need improving.
Offer acceptance rate
It can be extremely frustrating if you have taken various candidates through your recruitment process and offered someone the job – only for them to reject that offer at the end.
‘Offer acceptance rate’ signifies the proportion of job offers made by yourself that are accepted by candidates. If you find that your acceptance rate is low, then you might need to take a look at your recruitment process.
Candidates reject job offers for a number of reasons. Some of them might be out of your control but others might give you cause to make a few improvements.
Some reasons candidates reject a job offer include:
- Salary. If you are an employer at an SME, you might not be in a position to compete with salaries offered by larger companies so this is something that is beyond your control.
- Benefits and perks. There are lots of ways to be creative when it comes to offering benefits and perks to young candidates that might tempt them to accept your job.
- Company culture. Young candidates will look closely at your company culture to check whether it aligns with their values. This is something you can work on if it is continuously cited as a reason for not accepting the job.
- Negative interview experience. If your candidate isn’t happy with the way they have been interviewed, it will leave them wondering what your company is like to work for and there is a chance they will reject your job offer.
- Unclear job expectations. Make sure your candidates know exactly what will be expected of them if they accept a role at your company. If they have also applied for jobs elsewhere and they are clear about the role at other companies but not with the role at yours, you will lose that talent to competitors.
- Long recruitment process. Make sure your recruitment process is long enough that you know you are interviewing the best candidates – but short enough to keep them interested.
By monitoring your offer acceptance rate, you can evaluate the attractiveness of your employer value proposition (EVP) and identify areas for enhancement to improve offer acceptance rates.
Hiring Source Effectiveness
Source Effectiveness assesses the performance of various recruitment channels and sources in delivering qualified candidates.
Whether through job boards, social media, employee referrals or recruitment agencies, each sourcing channel carries associated costs and yields differing candidate quality and quantity.
By tracking metrics such as applicant conversion rates, time-to-hire and cost-per-hire by source, you can identify the most effective channels for different roles and optimise resource allocation accordingly.
For example, some sources might give you lots of applicants for your vacancies but they might not be the best applicants for the job.
Other sources might only give you just a few applicants but these could be the best quality applicants who go through your whole recruitment process so that you can offer them the role more often than candidates who came to you via other sources.
Diversity metrics
We have written in the past about the benefits of having diversity in your workplace. And diversity is one of the aspects of your company that young candidates will take a close look at before they apply for your vacancies.
Diversity metrics evaluate the representation of diverse demographic groups within your workforce.
Diversity and inclusion are not only ethical imperatives but also critical drivers of innovation, creativity, and organisational performance.
Metrics such as gender diversity, ethnic diversity and representation in leadership positions provide insights into the effectiveness of diversity initiatives and the inclusivity of recruitment practices.
Promoting diversity enhances employer brand perception and attracts top talent from diverse backgrounds.
Using hiring metrics
Monitoring these essential hiring metrics empowers you to optimise your recruitment processes, attract top talent and drive success for your company.
By leveraging data-driven insights, you can enhance efficiency, effectiveness and diversity in talent acquisition efforts, ultimately giving you a competitive edge in the marketplace.
If you are looking to recruit young talent, place your ad with e4s and you can reach a targeted group of candidates.
