The job marketplace has turned candidate-driven, meaning candidates are now empowered more than ever. The high demand for specialized skills and longer time-to-fill records have resulted in job seekers becoming more particular about the positions they apply for.

To cope with this shift in the job market, staffing firms have to be innovative when it comes to making use of their recruitment resources. One resource which you can take advantage of is data.

In this age of rapid technological advancement, where storing and analyzing data have become much easier, staffing firms have realized how beneficial data can be in the HR world.

Companies around the world are acting on this realization. In fact, 82% of organizations are planning to start or increase their use of big data in HR by the end of 2018. These companies are heading towards a data-driven HR.

Many recruitment data were not utilized in the past and the recruitment data that was heavily focused on were mostly KPI measures. But nowadays, more unique recruitment metrics, such as the labor market and source of hire, are also being included.

Companies gather and analyze these data to have a significant impact on the companies’ performance. No longer do they have to rely on their guts and biases. Important recruitment decisions are now made based on data-driven analysis.

But what exactly do we mean by data-driven analysis?

Data-driven analytics has three foundations, according to Analytics in HR. Here is an infographic showing these 3 foundations.

Taken from Analytics in HR.

Data is useless if left alone. Based on the infographic, there has to be the corresponding series of actions for data to bear fruits.

Proper data governance, then analysis and adoption of data are needed to ensure that the data gathered can drive results.

Staffing firms with a data-driven recruitment process can formulate insights and improve their talent acquisition and retention capabilities.

They can do this through tracking employee cycle, and pinpointing skills, values, and culture, that can lead to determine what qualities differentiate a good candidate from a bad candidate. They can also predict the speed of hire, and improve the candidate experience.

However, the recruitment process can involve a lot of data. Having to gather and analyze every recruitment data out there can be taxing for the staffing firm. Hence, in this article, we compiled a list of the most important recruitment data that can help boost staffing firms’ efficiency.

But before we get into that, it’s also helpful to discuss your method of collecting and storing these data if you’ve only just started on your company’s data-driven transition.

Two Ways You Can Store and Gather Data

• Spreadsheets

Generating reports through spreadsheets can be a long and tedious process but it allows you to store data in a structured way, takes advantage of the power of analytics, and useful for instantaneously recalculating totals.

• Cloud-based HR analytic solutions

If you want a more technologically advanced analytics function for recruitment, cloud-based HR analytics solutions can be your best bet. It makes for an easier and faster data analysis. It also offers an end-to-end view to monitor your entire recruiting process and store historical information on successful hires. Thus, allowing you to hire better and faster and get ahead of the competition.

Whichever method you choose, keep in mind that having a data-driven HR is not a guarantee that you can have a successful recruitment.

Analytics may give staffing firms the confidence to make sound recruitment decisions, getting rid of that “I think” mentality and replacing it with “I know” mentality.

However, it remains to be important to keep finding ways to improve on all areas of your recruitment process and make the most out of all your recruitment resources, not just data. Now that we’ve got our bases covered, we can move on to discussing the most important data for recruitment.

Most Important Data Needed For Recruitment

Staffing firms with a data-driven HR aim to use its HR data and analytics to add value across all sectors of the organization, and ultimately, to gain a competitive advantage. They have to seamlessly connect all recruitment data, from the sourcing process down to the job placement, to effectively meet the demands of their clients.

But with 90 % of data in the world created just in the last 2 years, there’s a risk that staffing firms may end up collecting irrelevant data. Not all data are created equal and staffing firms have to be smart to collect only the important data so as not to waste resources.

As a general rule, the truly relevant data are the ones that can help your firm make more placements and generate more placement fees over time.

1. Labor Market

Let’s start with the basics. We all know that the labor market is forever changing. Questions such as “What will the labor market be like by next year?” or “Are there enough skilled people for this position in the job market?” can be tricky but not completely impossible to answer.

Staffing firms have to pay attention to changes in the economy. Having a bird’s eye view of the employment trends in the national and international level can help prepare your staffing firm for whatever the hiring demands your clients are going to have.

Collecting data on the current trends in the labor market can help staffing firms analyze how hard finding competent candidates are going to be on that period. Analysis of labor market can also provide statistics on the number of job seekers skills as compared to the number of available jobs in that region.

2. Time-to-fill

Timely and precise data is useful for a well-functioning talent acquisition program. Hence, time-to-fill is one of the most important recruitment metrics.

It’s a record of how long it takes to successfully place a candidate from the time a job position has become available. To properly count those days, staffing firms first have to define the time period they have to measure, what they consider the starting point down to the end point.

An average time-to-fill record is around 42 days. But different staffing firms may have a different starting point and end points, causing a discrepancy in the number of days.

In essence, time-to-fill record allows staffing firms to identify which positions take longer periods of time to fill, and which ones are easy to land.

By knowing this kind of information, staffing firms can manage expectations by making a well-planned timeline for their clients. They can have a better estimation of the costs based on how long the search is going to be. And clients can plan accommodations in their business operations while waiting for the available position to be filled.

However, as we’ve mentioned before, it’s not a good strategy to only focus on one recruitment data. It may be one of the most important metrics for recruitment but there are other data that have to be taken into consideration.

3. Time-To-Hire

Time-to-hire is often used in the same context as time-to-fill but they are essentially different. It measures the number of days between the moment a candidate is approached and the day the candidate accepts the job.

This metric answers questions such as “How long do you wait for a candidate’s response?”, What’s the average number of days before you find the right candidate?” The answers to these questions are very insightful for the staffing firm since it gives you a view of how quickly your team can make important calls when it comes to dealing with candidates.

In short, it’s an effective metric for giving you a clear idea of how well your organization is performing.

Staffing firms can also use this metric when looking for the best offshore RPO to partner with. This metric starts with the sourcing, down to the point of acceptance. These recruitment processes can be offshored, and in the hands of an efficient offshore RPO provider, a good time-to-hire record is to be expected.

4. Source of Hire

One of the emerging recruitment metrics nowadays is the source of hire. This allows staffing firms to determine which sourcing channels are the best places to source. Common sourcing channels are social media, the company’s career page, and online job boards.

These kinds of data allow the staffing firm to determine which sourcing channels your top talents are coming from. By making use of this knowledge, you can make a sound judgment when trying to decide which sourcing channel you are going to invest in. Advertising and sourcing take a considerable amount of time and money from the company. Hence, it has to be done only after careful considerations.

5. Quality Of Hire

Quality of hire is among the top priorities of 40% of some big companies in the world. A candidate with a high-performance rating is considered high quality and expected to be a hiring success, and the opposite holds true for a candidate with a low-performance rating.

Quality of hire can also be measured by turnover and retention metrics. However, this can be a faulty metric because turnover and retention can stem from ineffective management practices.  

Quality of hire can be used for as a variable for comparisons. It can be connected with the data collected on the source of hires to adjust recruiting strategies to get more revenues from different sources. For example, if most of the top performing hires came from the X job board, then according to the data you have, it’s going to be more profitable for your firm if you invest on X job board.

Final Thoughts

Gathering, storing, and analyzing data has changed throughout the years. The recruitment industry is no stranger to these changes.

A simple spreadsheet used to be the most efficient way to record data, then cloud storage happened. All of a sudden, big data are being stored, transferred and analyzed in the most efficient ways.

Smart HR leaders are now making these innovations work for them. At the same time, they also realized that when data is mined and analyzed properly, it can contribute greatly to the staffing firm’s success.

They can double down on their strengths, and cut the areas where they have weaknesses. It eliminates the guesswork and gives the staffing firm empirical basis for their recruitment decisions.

But these benefits can only be earned if staffing firms are actually gathering data that truly matters. So much data is available out there. Be wise when choosing which data to collect to avoid wasting resources.

In the end, staffing firms who are able to connect and make sense of all these important data they gathered are the ones who are going to come out on top of this industry.

 

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