“Knowledge is power” is something my very first boss in recruitment used to say a lot. Our partner Access Group explains why you need information. More than anything else.
Sure, you need great talent and clients who pay the invoices, but you can’t do any of these things without the right information and if growing your agency is what you’re interested in, data and information is the way you’ll do that. It will become the lifeblood of your business and let’s be honest, those spreadsheets saved on different drives with different names when no one knows which is actually the updated one, isn’t helping you anymore and it’s certainly not making you feel powerful.
As recruitment has evolved as an industry, we’ve got smarter tools that enable us to measure data and analytics to give us the information we need to make the right decisions, but what should you be reporting on, measuring and keeping an eye on?
1. Time to hire
Time is money (yes this article is filled with these clichéd sayings, but in this case they’re completely valid). How long your agency takes to fill a role, from the publication of that role to onboarding a candidate, will determine your success rates. If you’re finding the process long and drawn-out, it’s probably time to look at talent management and how you can tighten your hiring cycle. Your reporting on hiring times across various roles will help you determine an average across the business and aim to lower that as time goes on.
2. Retention rates
You’ll know that recruitment isn’t just about getting candidates in the door, but understanding and partnering with your clients to make sure they stick. The cost of hire is too great to run through multiple candidates, and your clients will eventually get tired of it and work with other agencies. Being able to measure how sticky your candidates are will also give you a great selling point in future business development meetings.
3. Source of hire
Find out where your candidates are coming from so that you can allocate your budgets accordingly. Measuring this type of data will also give you reoccurring themes and you might find that your best candidates all come from a particular social channel or job board. You can amalgamate this kind of data into dashboards that give you an overview of your candidate’s journey and source to allow directors to make the right decisions and sign off on the budgets you need.
4. Time at stages
The recruitment process is complex and has many stages that need to be nurtured and watched over to get a clear picture, and measuring what’s happening at each stage will give you invaluable insights. It will allow you to discover where your bottle necks are, which hiring managers might need more attention, which consultants are struggling and which talent pools have dried up. It can also give you a great overview into candidate behavior and how you can improve the process for them. Certain business intelligence reporting will allow you to build customizable dashboards that lets you see the parts of the process you want to focus on and the areas your agency is struggling with. In turn, you’ll know exclusively what needs your attention and which stages of your hiring cycle could be improved to provide a better service to both candidates and clients.
There are hundreds of different things you agency can measure, especially data that it can pull from you recruitment software to give you actionable insights, but it’s important you measure what’s right for your business. There is no blanket solution, unfortunately, or metrics that are set in stone for every company. Talk to your reporting software provider and find a solution that is bespoke and exclusive to your business model. For more information or just a chat about reporting, find us right here.
