Recruiting new employees can feel like navigating a labyrinth blindfolded without a robust measurement system to track and analyze your efforts. Without guided efforts, your recruitment strategy is a hit or miss. In today’s talent landscape, that just won’t do. The solution is leveraging essential recruiting KPIs to illuminate your path and ensure each hire hits the mark.

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This Article Covers:

• What Are Recruiting KPIs?
• Top KPIs to Track
  • Time To Hire
  • Qualified Candidates per Open Position
  • Application Completion Rate
  • Source Quality
  • Cost per Hire
  • Interview To Offer
  • Offer Acceptance Rate (OAR)
  • First-Year Turnover Rate
  • Candidate Net Promoter Score (NPS)
  • Hiring Manager Satisfaction
  • Adverse impact
• Generating Robust KPIs
• Monitoring KPIs with an Actionable Dashboard
• FAQs
• Next Steps

What Are Recruiting KPIs?

Recruiting key performance indicators (KPIs) are measurable metrics used to evaluate and assess the effectiveness and efficiency of recruitment and hiring processes. These KPIs provide valuable insights into the recruitment life cycle, helping organizations monitor and improve their talent acquisition strategies. Organizations can optimize their hiring outcomes by making data-driven decisions and aligning objectives.

Top KPIs to Track

There are several recruitment KPIs to track depending on your business goals and objectives. Let’s consider each one by one:

1. Time To Hire

Time to hire is the duration it takes to shortlist, interview and hire prospects after they submit their applications. Understanding this timeline lets you plan effective recruitment campaigns and unearth bottlenecks hindering the process.

Time To Hire = Days Taken Since the Job Was Posted Till the Candidate Accepted the Job Offer

For example, suppose you notice that candidates begin their application forms, but only a few finish them. In that case, evaluating the length, accuracy and redundancy of the information you require becomes essential. Streamlining this aspect can significantly enhance the efficiency of your recruitment process.

The longer a position remains vacant, the more you potentially stand to lose in terms of productivity and incur higher recruitment costs. Talented applicants may drop out of the application process due to prolonged delays, making it vital to locate lengthy processes and shorten them to be as efficient as possible.

2. Qualified Candidates per Open Position

It’s not just about the number of applicants but the caliber of those who meet your requirements. Qualified candidates per open position reveal the likelihood of finding the perfect fit and setting your organization up for success.

Qualified Candidates per Open Position = Number of Candidates Approved by Hiring Managers / Total Number of Shortlisted Candidates

Having multiple prospective candidates applying for a specific position is always good. The more applications, the more choices you have for a better hire. However, you’re wasting time and effort if the candidates aren’t qualified.

If you struggle to source or engage with qualified candidates, it’s time to examine your approach. Perhaps your job postings lack the robustness required, precise descriptions and clear expectations.

Misaligned candidates can also imply you aren’t posting the job requirements in the right places to connect with your target audience or have unrealistic expectations for the role.

Tracking this KPI helps you gauge if you’re reaching the right audience. If the ratio of qualified candidates is low, you should redo the job ads and improve your efforts to reach the right prospects.

3. Application Completion Rate

It isn’t uncommon to find applicants starting an application and then stopping midway. People get busy or self-reject, thinking they don’t fit the job.

But a word of caution, you’re likely missing out on top talent if the number of applicants abandoning the application midway is high. There are two possible reasons for abandoning the application. The process is either too cumbersome or it’s confusing.

Application Completion Rate = (Number of Job Applications Received / Total Number of Job Applications Started) X 100

Measuring this KPI helps identify whether it’s time to reevaluate your job application process. Making it more user-friendly and mobile-responsive can help attract and retain top-tier candidates who might otherwise slip through the cracks.

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4. Source Quality

While you have different means and methods to find and attract candidates, not all will yield results. It’s up to you to identify and invest in those talent sources that help you build a reliable talent pool and ensure you’re investing in the best sources.

Source Quality = (Number of Hires From a Specific Source / Total Number of Hires) X 100

To determine source quality, take stock of the number of quality hires coming from a particular source or how far they move through the hiring stages.

While there may be a few outliers, all your best hires are unlikely to come from a single source. Therefore, it is vital to determine which sources perform the best and to what degree.

For instance, if the top candidates consistently come from LinkedIn, you should focus your recruiting efforts on posting accurate job ads on that platform and reduce investing in underperforming sources.

If social media sites generate more candidates than job boards, analyze the weaknesses in job postings.

Tracking sources gives you valuable insights into what candidates actively seek when they apply to your company, enabling you to position your brand creatively.

5. Cost per Hire

Recruitment can be costly if you don’t allocate a specific budget at the outset. SHRM’s recent benchmarking report found that the average cost per hire can reach up to $4,700. Additionally, recruiting costs continue to rise the longer a position remains open.

So, the real question is, how much does it cost to fill a position? The following formula will reveal your company’s average hiring cost:

Cost per Hire = Total Recruiting Cost / Total Number of Hires

This KPI measures every expense associated with recruitment, from posting job ad campaigns to the relevant boards to rewarding employee referral bonuses, organizing job fairs, and more. It’s also important to factor in the time spent interviewing applicants.

6. Interviews To Offer

Interviewing candidates is an important talent evaluation stage that requires significant planning and resources. Recruiters spend most of their time interviewing applicants to determine if their experiences, skill sets, aptitude levels and personalities are compatible with the job requirements.

But are these efforts paying off?

Interview To Offer Ratio = (Number of Job Offers / Number of Candidates Interviewed) X 100

The interviews-to-hire metric conveys how many people you need to interview to make a hiring decision. In other words, how many qualified applicants do you need to interview before you extend an offer?

7. Offer Acceptance Rate (OAR)

A recent study by CareerPlug identified the following top reasons why potential hires decline job offers:

• Poor experiences during the interview stage.
• The employer took too long to respond.
• The candidate found better opportunities elsewhere.
• The compensation or benefits offered didn’t match the candidate’s expectations.

While these scenarios are common, they’re preventable and emerge as opportunities to improve the hiring process.

Offer Acceptance Rate = Number of Offers Accepted / Number of Offers Extended) X 100

The offer acceptance rate (OAR) defines the percentage of accepted offers. A robust OAR indicates the team’s success in filling up a pipeline with candidates, creating an efficient recruitment process, delivering seamless hiring experiences and securing candidates with the right skill sets.

To boost the offer acceptance rate, ensure the offers you extend are competitively on par with industry standards. Be transparent about job responsibilities early in the process, conduct consistent and fair interviews and facilitate open communication throughout the recruitment funnel.

8. First-Year Turnover Rate

Imagine investing considerable time and money in the recruitment process, only to hire a misaligned candidate who leaves almost immediately after onboarding.

High turnover can be costly and counterproductive to expensive recruitment activities and point to larger organizational issues. Some possibilities include the employees being unhappy due to limited growth opportunities, unrealistic expectations or toxic work culture.

First-Year Turnover Rate = (Number of Employees Who Separated Within a Year of Hiring / Total Number of Employees Who Left During the Same Period) X 100

To calculate the first-year turnover rate, divide the number of new employees who left within a year by the total number of employees who separated simultaneously.

If this calculation is high, it’s definitely a matter of concern. You may want to revamp your recruitment and onboarding processes or improve your company culture to boost retention rates.

9. Candidate Net Promoter Score (NPS)

Candidate job satisfaction is a robust metric to gauge the alignment between the job responsibilities and expectations set during the hiring process verses reality. A low candidate job satisfaction implies misaligned expectations or partial job descriptions.

Candidate Net Promoter Score (NPS) = (Number of Promoters – Number of Detractors) / Total Number of Respondents X 100

It’s advisable to provide a realistic job preview to highlight the pros and cons of the job to prospects, thus mitigating the risk of lower candidate job satisfaction.

10. Hiring Manager Satisfaction

Measuring candidate satisfaction levels and how happy and satisfied hiring managers are with employee performance is essential.

Hiring Manager Satisfaction = New Hire Rankings or Ratings by Hiring Managers

When hiring managers aren’t happy with new hires, it can indicate some potholes in the recruitment process or the selection criteria are irrelevant. To get in-depth information, you can gauge hiring manager satisfaction with short surveys or interviews.

11. Adverse Impact

Embracing DEI promotes equal opportunities and also enhances innovation, productivity and overall organizational success. Today’s talent market is the most diverse and value-driven yet, with job seekers who are likely to prefer employers that take tangible actions to create an inclusive and equitable workplace.

Adverse impact lets you identify a bias against a protected class, measuring if that protected class is less than an 80% hire rate.

Adverse Impact = (Number of Hires From the Protected Group / Total Hires From a Non-Protected Group) X 100

To find the adverse impact, divide the applicant success rate of Group A (your protected class) by the applicant success rate of Group B (your non-protected class). This number can help you identify if you need to make your recruitment process more inclusive and diverse.

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Generating Robust KPIs

From reaching the perfect prospects with targeted job ads to interviewing top-notch candidates and sealing the deal, recruitment demands intelligent investment.

Investing in powerful recruitment and staffing software will help you generate robust recruiting KPIs:

AI Screening Solutions

Leverage an AI screening solution powered by machine learning algorithms to screen qualified candidates based on different parameters. Calculate qualified hires per open position within a few clicks.

Zoho Recruit’s built-in AI assistant screens applicants to find top matches. Source

Assess your existing ATS and recruiting system and ask your vendor about AI capabilities that enhance initial candidate screening.

Our features and requirements checklist, curated by our analysts, is a good starting point to learn more about the technical and functional capabilities.

Predictive Hiring Assessments

Advancements in hiring science and predictive analytics capabilities empower data-driven hiring. Software solutions embedded with predictive models and algorithms can leverage existing datasets from HR software and performance management systems and generate hiring criteria based on company-specific requirements.

Suppose you’re considering upgrading your recruiting tech stack. In that case, the following systems are excellent options if you want to use scientifically-validated selection methods backed by AI-based hiring criteria:

• Talent Assessment Tools: Best for predicting a candidate’s potential fit and performance in a particular role with psychometric assessments, cognitive tests and job simulations.
• Behavioral Assessment Tools: Ideal for analyzing potential fit for a particular job role or team based on behavioral tendencies and personality traits via questionnaires and surveys.
• Talent Intelligence Software: Best for making data-driven workforce decisions based on multiple data sources from data analytics and artificial intelligence models.

Predictive analytics create robust hiring assessments that may boost KPIs like turnover rate, hire quality and cost per hire by finding candidates with values, behaviors and habits needed to thrive in your company.

Recruiting Chatbots

Technological advancements enabled a far more creative and strategic use of machine learning and AI algorithms beyond simple resume screening.

Advanced web design and machine learning algorithms blend to create AI-powered chatbots on websites and recruiting portals. These digital assistants engage with candidates, answer common queries and provide a seamless experience.

These recruiting chatbots guide candidates through the application process and replace phone interviews with automated questionnaires to determine the right fit.

Online Company Reviews

Online career sites and platforms like Glassdoor are windows that potential hires peer through to get an insider view of the organization.

In today’s digital age, the internet blurs boundaries and redefines how candidates look for jobs. Job seekers are likely to check review sites before applying for the job. According to a recent study by CareerPlug, negative candidate experiences drove 28% of candidates to post negative reviews online, discouraging future candidates from applying.

However, the same study found that 57% of candidates left glowing reviews after having a positive experience.

These review platforms include information about the employer brand, workplace culture, compensation and benefits, work-life balance and more. Monitoring these platforms unveils a treasure trove of data, allowing you to gauge key performance indicators like candidate-job satisfaction level based on the conversations on these sites.

Video Interviews

Incorporating video interviews in the recruitment process can be a cost-effective and flexible approach. Using a virtual interview system approach also boosts investment returns as it’ll save you and your candidates precious time spent commuting.

Review video interview recordings and notes. Source

Video interviews directly impact critical KPIs like cost per hire, interview-to-offer ratio, hiring manager satisfaction and time to hire.

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Monitor KPIs With an Actionable Dashboard

How do you measure recruitment success? Well, it depends on your business goals and objectives. Are you looking to increase the size of your organization, or are you hiring for a few key positions?

Whatever your goals are, defining them and tracking recruitment efforts with dashboards is a crucial step.

Dashboard showing different recruitment KPIs. Source

Recruitment dashboards are reporting tools that help visualize recruitment KPIs and evaluate performance. They display real-time information to facilitate quick decisions and ensure that recruitment activities align with business objectives.

A recruitment dashboard is a collection of key metrics and reports designed to convey how the recruitment funnel performs, capturing data on applicants across different stages, recruitment budget, campaigns and other key insights to provide a bird’s eye view of the end-to-end recruitment cycle.

These numbers will help you make sound decisions to reduce costs, source candidates from the best channels and enhance talent acquisition strategies.

To sum up, here are the top reasons why having a recruitment dashboard is necessary:

• Gain Valuable Insights: The visual nature of the dashboard empowers you to identify trends, patterns and potential issues in your recruitment process.
• Analyze the Hiring Funnel: Use the dashboard to track and analyze how candidates progress at each hiring stage. By monitoring the conversion rate, you can identify if you’re attracting many unqualified candidates and take necessary actions to improve it.
• Refine Recruitment Strategies: Optimize your recruitment spending by identifying areas for improvement, uncovering top talent sources and attracting candidates who are likely to stay longer within your organization.
• Expand Sourcing Options: Gain an overview of all active talent-sourcing channels. Compare different channel performances and identify top-quality sources or test other avenues.
• Identify Bottlenecks: Access to real-time candidate data helps you quickly spot issues that arise during the recruitment process and address them to maintain a smooth hiring process.

FAQs

Before we wrap up this guide, we’ll delve into some common questions about hiring metrics to assist you in addressing any challenges you may encounter while reassessing your recruitment strategy.

1. What is a good KPI for a recruiter?

Below we’ll list the top hiring KPIs based on recruiting function. However, note that the groups are general and can vary depending on the organization and specific context.

Staffing Agencies: These organizations focus on finding top talent that meets client expectations in a predetermined timeline and assigned resources.

• Time to hire
• Qualified candidates per open position
• Source quality
• Cost per hire

Recruitment Consultants: These individuals identify key areas to improve and increase efficiency across recruitment funnels.

• Application completion rate
• Interview to offer
• Offer acceptance rate (OAR)
• Candidate net promoter score (NPS)
• Adverse impact
• Cost per hire

Recruitment Managers: These individuals are responsible for recruitment strategy effectiveness, assessing the impact on organizational performance and ensuring a positive return on investment (ROI).

• Time to hire
• Cost per hire
• Application completion rate
• First-year turnover rate
• Hiring manager satisfaction

2. How are metrics different from KPIs for recruiting?

Metrics refer to specific measurements or data points used to track and assess various aspects of the recruiting process. Recruiting metrics provide quantitative information about specific recruiting activities or outcomes.

On the other hand, KPIs are a subset of these metrics specifically chosen to reflect the key focus areas and success of specific recruiting functions. In other words, KPIs are strategic metrics that align with organizational goals and provide insights into performance, effectiveness and efficiency.

3. How can KPIs measure DEI efforts?

KPIs can play a crucial role in measuring and monitoring the progress of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts in recruiting. One important KPI in this regard is calculating adverse impact, which helps monitor the potentially discriminatory impact of recruitment processes on protected groups.

As the term implies, this KPI enables identifying and rectifying any adverse impact on diverse candidates. Organizations can assess whether their selection methods are fair and unbiased by utilizing data to track DEI.

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Next Steps

Tracking recruiting KPIs can help you get valuable insights from the recruitment process to make smart, data-driven decisions. When you know how your decisions and actions impact your hiring results, you can find specific ways to strengthen your hiring processes and achieve your business objectives.

To streamline and optimize your KPI tracking, consider leveraging specialized recruitment software that automates data collection, analysis and reporting. Our comparison report is an excellent place to start if it’s time for a software upgrade. All you need to do is add your company-specific requirements to find your top options.

Which recruiting KPIs do you think are the most important for your business? How do you track them periodically?

It’s time to remove the notion that candidates will be grateful to only be in the running. Recruitment is a two-way street, and job seekers prefer employers who make an impact and value their time along the recruitment process. A reliable recruitment framework is a must if you want a competitive edge in finding, engaging and encouraging talent to apply.

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In this article, we’ll detail everything you need to know about the key steps of recruiting and how to improve them.

• What Is the Recruitment Process?
• Importance
• Recruitment Process Steps
  • Analyze Hiring Needs
  • Develop a Recruitment Plan
  • Start the Talent Search
  • Begin the Selection Process
  • Onboard New Hires
  • Evaluate The Process
• Tips To Improve Recruitment Processes

What Is The Recruitment Process?

The recruitment process is an HR function involving finding qualified candidates for open roles. The process starts when there’s a need to hire new employees and concludes after selecting the best-fit candidate. It streamlines key activities to fill an open position, like broadcasting job opportunities, identifying potential candidates, collecting resumes, screening applicants and conducting interviews.

Importance

Recruitment is complex and involves a criss-cross of activities coinciding. To improve hiring success, your team needs to be experts in building quality candidate pools, encouraging job seekers to apply at your company and collaborating until they find the ideal candidate.

Starting the process without the right amount of planning is a recipe for disaster. Here’s how your team can benefit from a well-planned framework:

• Expedite Hiring: With the proper steps, you can declutter all your recruitment activities. Streamlining all the phases of acquiring talent improves the hiring time compared to walking in blind without a plan.
• Decrease Recruitment Costs: When you save time, you also save money. The longer a position remains open, the higher the recruitment costs can run. A streamlined method helps you optimally use your company’s finite resources.
• Find Quality Candidates: A well-crafted process helps your team keep their eye on the prize with clear-cut procedures to engage eligible applicants and build robust candidate pools for present and future needs. Your company culture and professionalism shine through a well-crafted framework and encourage the right talent to apply.

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Recruitment Process Steps

The length of the process depends on the size of your company and the nature of the open role. Some companies have lengthy, drawn-out recruitment procedures, while others have a straightforward method to recruit new employees.

Despite the differences, every end-to-end recruitment process includes the following key stages:

• Preparing and planning
• Developing a strategy
• Talent sourcing and screening
• Hiring and onboarding
• Controlling the process

With that in mind, here are the critical steps of the process.

1. Analyze Hiring Needs

While taking necessary measures to hire someone for a vacant role in your company is one of the top reasons to start the talent search, it’s not the only reason your company might need new blood on the team.

In addition to processing recently vacant roles, conduct an internal analysis to find gaps in productivity and performance across teams and departments. Start by asking internally:

• Are all key processes, tasks and responsibilities evenly distributed in your organization?
• Does the input of time, effort and resources match the work output?
• Does your team lack a certain level of expertise? Will external hiring address a specific need?

Consider gearing up to start the talent search if the answer to most or all the questions above is Yes.

Here are some things to keep in mind as you look to hire.

Process Job Requisitions

Department managers or supervisors also convey the need to hire new employees by submitting job requisitions — a formal request that details the critical elements of the job.

Provide team and department leaders the option to fill out an internal document that consists of the following aspects:

• Job title
• Name of the manager submitting the request
• Reason for request
• Name of the department
• Employment or contract type
• Estimated start date
• Compensation
• Estimated budget

Create Job Descriptions

The specifications mentioned on job requisitions will help you determine how critical the role is and the key responsibilities of the job. The job descriptions you develop will eventually guide what you need to convey to job seekers.

Job descriptions must include the following elements:

• Job summary
• Job level
• Location
• Reporting manager
• Responsibilities and tasks
• Job requirements
• Work conditions

iCIMS provides tools to create, review and approve job profile descriptions and streamlines the job creation process. Source

When To Consider Outsourcing

Staffing agencies and recruiting firms are on the rise and bring an array of perks to the table. Outsourcing the process can help you leverage ready-made talent pools, vast talent networks and advanced hiring methodologies to tackle intensive recruiting functions.

Consider outsourcing in the following situations:

• Hiring for Senior Positions: You must avoid failure when recruiting for C-suite positions. Relying on recruiting professionals to do what they do best significantly reduces the chances of bad hires.
• Conducting High-volume Recruiting: When there are too many open positions and deadlines, your recruiting team might need a hand to take on intensive recruitment phases.
• Finding Talent for Specialized Roles: Assistance from an external team will help you find talent for in-demand positions which require technical or niche skills.

2. Develop a Recruitment Plan

Once you’re clear about the level of expertise to look for in an ideal candidate, the next step is to define the what, how and why of the process.

State Hiring Goals

Start by clearly stating your company’s hiring goals and then defining a path to help you achieve them in the long run. When your recruitment goals are broadly defined, breaking down your requirements into achievable targets is vital. Consider the following examples of attainable targets:

• Reducing recruitment costs and time to hire
• Building deeper talent pools
• Reducing retention and attrition
• Enabling diverse hiring to improve workplace diversity

Define the Timeline and Assign Personnel

Estimate the time needed to recruit new employees for every open role. Be sure to consider future hiring needs based on the existing skill, performance and productivity gaps.

Next, decide who will do the recruiting and hiring. Both those terms seem interchangeable but, in reality, are different. Your HR team, recruitment professionals or talent acquisition specialists manage recruitment activities like attracting and processing applications.

The hiring process involves coordinating with the hiring manager, who submits the hiring request, to vet and select the top candidate from the talent pool.

Identify Talent Sourcing Channels

Your recruitment strategy must define suitable talent sourcing methods to help you find top talent, improve your company’s visibility in the job market and acquire more applications. Be sure to pick sources that effectively allow you to find the best candidates with the right skills.

Need more information? We’ll cover the different methods of sourcing talent in the section Start the Talent Search.

Develop a Recruitment Process Flowchart

Outlining the candidate journey to clearly state the vital candidate touchpoints and the key people in charge is good practice. Decide on rounds of interviews and where along the processes you want to conduct them.

Zoho Recruit shows recruiting activities in chronological order with time spent and on each stage. Source

Specify different paths and their triggers. Visualizing the workflows lets your team know which course of action to take at different stages.

Evaluate Costs and Assign Budget

SHRM estimated the average cost of recruiting new employees is approximately $4,700. However, the longer the process, the higher the costs. With that in mind, determine the recruitment costs based on the estimated time, number of vacancies and the assigned personnel.

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3. Start the Talent Search

Next, it’s time to start circulating job postings and networking with potential hires through the decided talent sourcing channels. Start your recruitment marketing efforts to spread the word about employment opportunities.

An all-around talent sourcing strategy typically includes a combination of internal and external recruiting.

External Recruitment

You’re recruiting externally when you look for potential hires from outside your company. Extending your search outside your organization is necessary to bring in fresh blood:

• Job Advertisements: Post job announcements on third-party employment and job boards frequently used by your target audience.
• Career Pages: Job seekers interested in your company are likely to check your company website regularly. Developing a dedicated career page to display open jobs is an excellent way to pitch opportunities.
• Social Media Recruiting: Target passive candidates who might not be actively searching for a job change by posting opportunities across social channels like LinkedIn.
• Employee Referral Programs: Allow your existing employees to recommend people from their professional and social circles on an incentive basis.

Smart Recruiters finds candidates by deploying job ad campaigns across different talent sources. Source

Internal Recruitment

Sometimes, talent hides in plain sight. Identifying potential hires from your existing talent pools is key to filling open roles quickly and reducing recruitment costs while you’re at it.

Internal recruitment involves taking measures to fill vacancies by finding the top candidate from your existing workforce. To recruit internally, you can rely on the following approaches:

• Internal Job Postings: Announce open jobs to your existing workforce and allow them to apply.
• Nominations: Allow managers to suggest candidates from their team for an open role.
• Succession Plans: Check succession and promotion pathways to identify, select and train an existing employee to level up.
• Talent Databases: Tap into your existing human resource information systems (HRIS) to identify and nominate potential talent from your organization.

Oracle HCM Cloud offers a deep-dive into past and active succession plans. Source

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4. Begin the Selection Process

The hiring process begins when your company receives applications. The candidate selection process involves the following activities:

• Screening Applications: Scan resumes to narrow the selection process to relevant applications. Respond to the candidates and let them know that they qualify for the role.
• Evaluate Candidates: Put your potential hires to the test and assess them objectively based on their industry knowledge, problem-solving abilities and personality traits. This can include things like paid and unpaid tests or more elaborate projects. Consider industry standards when deciding how to evaluate candidates. For example, hiring a Marketing Specialist differs from hiring a Full Stack Engineer.
• Interview Shortlisted Candidates: Schedule a date and time to interview potential hires. Ensure you ask relevant questions to determine if values and attitudes align. The number of interviews per applicant depends on how critical the role is.

Workable allows managers to score candidates on templated scorecards during the interview process. Source

• Verify Background and Check References: Check the integrity and authenticity of the references, qualifications and other essential information associated with potential hires. While most background verification searches occur at the end of the hiring cycle, you can file for searches at any point during the process.
• Make an Offer: After finding the ideal candidate for the job, it’s time to share the good news with them. Send the selected candidate a formal offer letter by mail or email and detail the compensation, benefits and start date in the document.

5. Onboard New Hires

Once your selected candidate accepts the terms of employment, it’s time to integrate them into your company.

Ensure that your company has internal procedures to manage post-recruitment activities like processing onboarding forms and bringing the new hire up to speed.

Bullhorn uses auto-fill functionality to expedite E-Verify submissions. Source

Here’s a tip: rely on an onboarding checklist and develop an orientation program to introduce your new employee to the team and acquaint them with your company culture.

6. Evaluate the Process

You might be eager to bring the process to a close. However, don’t stop after hiring. Ensuring that your procedures are always up to date by frequently assessing the validity of the methods. Finding weak links and bridging gaps is the key to creating a top-notch framework.

Are there ways to tighten the process? Start by analyzing and looking for weaknesses in the following aspects:

• Quality of candidates from talent sources
• The number of applications from different talent sources
• Existing recruitment workflows
• Candidate engagement and communication methods

Have your recruiting efforts impacted the bottom line? Return on investment indicates whether the input matches the output. Next, assess recruiting costs and take action to control them:

• Job advertising and job boards
• Average cost-per-hire
• Administrative expenses and overhead costs
• Outstanding charges when positions remain open for too long
• Background verification fees
• Pricing plans of your recruitment tools
• Cost of outsourcing services from recruiting or staffing agencies

Jobvite provides deep analytics on candidate pipelines, job ad campaign performance, expenditures and recruiting metrics in interactive dashboards. Source

Read our article on recruiting KPIs to learn how to measure the effectiveness of your process.

What if the selected candidate turns down your job offer? The following ways will help you prepare for when potential hires decline offers:

• Evaluate your offer
• Check your employer branding tactics
• Revise your benefits
• Look for vague clauses or terms
• Eliminate anything that indicates bias

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Tips To Improve Recruitment Processes

No matter how experienced your recruiting team is, there’s always room for improvement. Consider the following ways to optimize the process.

1. Upgrade Your Tech

Now’s the time to ask: Is your organization’s recruitment software up to the mark? Or worse, is it non-existent?

With the right tools in your tech stack, you can equip your team to handle the complexities of recruiting new talent while delivering excellent candidate experiences.

Start by assessing your current tools against your technology needs to identify areas you can improve. Need more information? Our recruitment software features and requirements checklist is a good starting point to learn about the features that will benefit your company.

A modern recruitment system provides all-in-one capabilities to streamline the talent acquisition process, expedite hiring and optimize expenses.

If you’re looking for tailored experiences, consider the following options to integrate with your existing tech and build a recruiting ecosystem:

• Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS): Automatically screen thousands of applications, scan resumes and parse applicant details into similar profiles. Streamline the candidate journey with defined next steps.
• Pre-employment Assessment Tools: Evaluate candidates and produce comparable scores objectively. Rely on standardized assessments to test your potential hires to determine their competencies.
• Interview Scheduling Software: Interview shortlisted candidates and track different interviews on a centralized calendar.
• Video Interview Software: Besides conducting interviews remotely with video tools, allow your candidates to submit video responses that your team can collectively review.
• Background Check Software: Conducts compliant verification searches to determine the integrity of candidates, verify documents and uncover potential red flags to optimize hiring decisions.
• Recruiting CRM: Manage all candidate communication campaigns and engagement efforts in one place. This system is ideal when nurturing candidates throughout the process is one of your recruiting goals.

2. Enable Data-centric Recruiting

Data is the new currency, which is why 44% of recruiters plan to increase spending on analytics tools, according to a study by Talview.

During the selection process, you’ll gather a ton of vital data on job outreach, candidate engagement and team performance. Instead of relying on intuition and assumptions, accessing measurable insights will help you optimize how you hire.

You can:

• Uncover the perceptions held by your candidates throughout the process and identify how to engage them better.
• Uncover patterns or trends to predict outcomes and take proactive measures to make improvements.
• Optimize recruiting and track vital DEI metrics to prevent them from dropping below a certain level.
• Use in-depth analytics to help eliminate bias and assess applicants on what matters most: skills and competencies.
• Develop data-rich reports to aid decision-making.

3. Consider All Forms of Talent

Talent is everywhere if you look in the right places. 53% of employees who quit during the Great Resignation said they changed their career paths in the past year. Workers didn’t leave the workplace entirely but were searching for growth opportunities.

To put things in perspective, Willis Towers Watson reported that as much as 44% of workers could be active job seekers. Now is the right time to consider all forms of talent movement.

Consider the following areas you can find talent:

• Internal Talent Mobility: Providing internal opportunities enhances talent pools and reduces recruitment costs since you already know the individual. Plus, they’re already familiar with your company’s values.
• Boomerang Employees: Leave the door open for former employees to reapply at your company. LinkedIn reports that 4.5% of all new hires among companies that use the platform were rehires.
• Past Applicants: Tap into candidate relationship management databases to locate applicants who left a mark and consider them for future roles.

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Conclusion

Perfecting the recruitment framework takes time, effort and learning from experiences; not all businesses start with that knowledge. While there’s a learning curve to the process, as long as you develop a framework that streamlines the key phases, your candidate selection efforts will have a better chance of paying off.

A step-by-step process will help your company make a lasting impression on your candidates, persuade more people to apply and provide your team with the means to spot top talent.

What are the strengths and weaknesses of your current recruitment process? Let us know in the comments!