Technology lets you look out from today into a more productive tomorrow. It makes the work of HR professionals simpler and more effective, but that’s just the beginning. Using predictive analytics, information from decisions and actions in the past helps create a better result in the future.

It’s all because of big data-that sometimes confusing, often overwhelming, sea of information that gets larger and deeper by the day. Just because you know it holds a few keys to problems that you need to solve doesn’t mean it’s easy to sort through or make sense of. But that’s where the story takes a twist.

Now, data is manageable. Using technology, you can sift out what you don’t need and keep the information that’s relevant. And that lets you meet those difficult KPIs head on for better results next time. Here’s how.

#1: Make Better Recruitment Advertising Decisions On Your Own or Automatically

Time was, advertising seemed like more of a guessing game. You could reasonably expect to get similar results each time with the same ad buy, but that was a one-dimensional take on the multi-layered capabilities that are out there now. When performance didn’t measure up, there wasn’t much to go on that explained why.

Recruitment advertising now gives deeper insight. Ad buys aren’t merely based on what performed poorly or well in the past. They’re based more on the reasons why ads performed the way that they did.

Data can find common threads and pull them into patterns. Here’s an example. If a Millennial saw a job ad using Facebook and they responded to the ad, you could expect similar returns with ads targeted to that audience in the future. But what if some of the people who clicked didn’t follow through with an application?

Perhaps some used a desktop computer and some used a mobile device. If the hiring site isn’t mobile friendly, people might opt out. According to Brandon Hall Group, employers see about a 70 percent improvement in quality of hire when they’re focused on the candidate experience.

Considering that more Millennials expect to apply for a job using their phone, you can see how important mobile-first really is for ad performance, candidate experience and quality of hire.

The data collected from that experience can tell you lots of things.

• Type of device used
• Time of day when ads got the most response
• In some cases, the age range of the user
• At which point in the process people tended to opt out
• Whether the ad was shared

Imagine what you could do with that level of data. Future ad buys would certainly improve. So might your hiring site, the application process and even the image used with the job ad. Better images get more shares. Now imagine that instead of making the next ad buy decision on your own, you let it happy automatically.

Artificial intelligence and machine learning can make some decisions much faster and with more accuracy than you can because they evaluate layers and layers of data in the process. That’s smart.

#2: Improve Turnover Rate With Modeling

What could possibly be worse than a costly, extensive time-to-hire with few viable candidates? Making that hire and then experiencing turnover because they didn’t quite fit. It might happen in a month or a year, but it’s never positive when valuable talent moves on. Predictive modeling can improve those results both by making better hiring decisions and with modeling to spot trends with employees already in their groove with the company.

The finance department is well familiar with modeling. Chat them up and you might learn a few tricks. Using calculations and evaluating past performance, they can create a reasonably accurate model of how decisions will play out. That’s not unlike HR technology predictive analytics.

Turnover costs the company in several different directions from the morale of other employees to the costs involved with starting over yet again. If the talent pipeline is weak and neglected, the costs tick up even higher.

Incidentally, nearly half of all CEOs polled in the PricewaterhouseCoopers 19th Annual Global CEO Survey said they’re re-investing in the leadership talent pipeline to attract more of the right people.

With turnover modeling, Recruiter.com says you can find the factors that most likely contribute to disengaged employees so you can intervene before things get out of hand. Here are just a few of the possibilities:

• Extended commute time
• Employee performance over time
• Productivity history
• Time since their last raise
• History of leadership development
• Tardiness or absenteeism
• Fewer projects taken on or completed

The Deloitte 2016 Millennial Survey found that 71 percent of Millennials who aren’t offered leadership growth opportunities look for the door within two years. Wouldn’t it be nice to know that before the clock runs out? Technology can even help you find out if an employee has recently updated their LinkedIn profile, which could indicate that they’re in the market for something new.

#3: Spot Rising-Star Talent Before the Competition

Wouldn’t it be great to spot a new star before they’re a hot commodity? Technology and big data can help you improve quality of hire. Job matching was designed for it.

You can enter the attributes needed for a perfect or near-perfect job fit. They might include years of experience, location, years with another company that has a similar culture as yours, education level and virtually any other factor that you believe makes a difference.

When you let job matching go to work, it scans hundreds and thousands of resumes plus social media to find people that fit the model.

Job matching in real time is where it really stands out. When a potential candidate updates experience, earns a new degree or moves closer to your place of business, technology accounts for it and loops them into the targeted job advertising market automatically.

With machine learning, job matching technology makes progressively more finely-tuned decisions. And to think, it all happens automatically.

Technology is definitely your friend. If you let it, it will go straight to work helping solve some of your biggest pain points with less effort than you’ve exerted in the past. And that frees you up for better uses of your time, like circling back to nurture and grow that ever-important talent pipeline into something lush and productive.