Using a data driven recruitment strategy can be critical to hiring the right people for your business, but what exactly is it, and how do we create one? With so much data available, we need to know what data is important, and how to weed out what isn’t. We’ve researched best practices to share top tips on how your company can leverage the process to make effective and informed hiring decisions.

What is Data Driven Recruitment?

Data driven recruitment is a technical-sounding term which basically means using available facts and metrics – essentially, data – to make sound hiring decisions. It’s going a step further than the routine resume review, interview and skills assessment process. Those are still necessary, but adding in historical data can save your business money and time, both now and in the future.

Importance of Using Data in Recruitment

Adding employees to your business is a necessary step in growth, but it can sideline people from their regular tasks and take far more time than is ideal. If acquired data is used properly, the hiring process can be streamlined and become more efficient, resulting in employees that are more suited to the positions and stay longer in their roles. This means your business will see a decrease in turnover rates, so you won’t be hiring for the same position in another few months. Your business will benefit by having staff in place that have the necessary skills to do their jobs. It also equates to a higher level of employee satisfaction.

Define Your Recruitment Goals

Creating a data driven recruitment strategy only needs to be completed once; it can then be fine-tuned further as your business learns what works and what doesn’t, but getting the process in place is the hardest part. Working with your Human Resources team, you need to decide your hiring priorities and use those needs to create your goals. For example, common goals are:

• Speed up and optimize the hiring process.
• Reduce hiring costs.
• Hire more highly skilled employees.

Your goals may be slightly different, but the above three are the most common and can be customized based on your company’s needs. Some jobs do require a more intensive process of reference and history review but changes can be made in other areas to properly allocate your budget and time.

Gather Data on Your Current Recruitment Process

The next thing to consider is how you’re currently hiring. Where are you seeing the most mistakes being made or most money being spent? Are your online job ads getting the responses you seek, or do they need to be tweaked? Perhaps you’re not getting results from a specific job board, and it should be excluded from further postings. This could also be said for any recruiting companies you may use. If they take too long or aren’t bringing you an adequate number of qualified candidates, you may choose to cease using them, saving money and time.

Do a cost analysis on your current hiring process. What is your current cost-per-hire? Are too many employees involved in the process, adding more to this expense? Do you currently require multiple interviews for the same candidate? If your hiring process is extended, you could be losing qualified candidates to other companies because they don’t have the luxury of time and cannot wait for your next steps. Do you see a particular area of candidate drop-off that should be investigated? How can you decrease the cost-per-hire without negatively affecting your hiring decisions?

Are positions being left empty for too long, resulting in a higher workload on other employees or increase in overtime pay? Hiring delays can affect your company’s bottom line or you could be losing customers because you can’t meet the demand.

If you use skills assessment tests, take a deep dive to ensure they are fair and up to date. This will help you avoid bias in your hiring decisions, and you may find some of these are no longer helpful. A good suggestion is to review them regularly to determine if they are requiring too much time from your candidates, as expectations need to work for both parties in the process.

Consider the stats from all the above possibilities to proceed in data driven hiring practices that will cut your losses and expand your team with the higher caliber your business needs and deserves.

Use Data to Identify the Best Recruitment Sources

As mentioned above, review your sources for candidates. Look back at previous attempts to fill a position. Choose from options with a higher rate of success and timely results. It may be time to try a new recruitment agency or online job board. Look at the historical data for each approach. In short, put your money where it is most effective. Simply using a process because it’s what you’ve done in the past may be easy, but you could be leaving money on the table and wasting time.

Implement and Track Your Data Driven Recruitment Strategy

Using the goals you’ve chosen, based on the input of your Human Resources team and departmental heads, narrow down the steps you’ll take and decide where to focus your efforts using the data you’ve acquired. Build upon your successes and cut back on the wasted efforts. Statistics from your past experiences is a wealth of information to build upon.

Data driven hiring practices aren’t a one-and-done process. As time goes on, you can look at your foundational model and make changes based on hiring trends. Long-term monitoring of your team to see the success rate can show where there may be gaps in the process or where there is room to make an improvement. Consider employment statistics and company changes. Continually tracking the data you collect will help ensure your company stays on track and doesn’t regress into loss of revenue or business.

Removing the guesswork from your hiring process can be a game changer. Businesses can hire employees faster and spend less money. Teams can grow more effectively, allowing employees to be happy in their roles and businesses can thrive because the process works for everyone involved.

If you’re interested in automating your online job advertising process, consider a demo with PandoLogic. PandoLogic is a programmatic job advertising platform. The platform will help you allocate your ad spend to the best sources and focus on your data driven hiring goals, meeting your staffing goals in real-time. They provide enhanced reporting and fast implementation to help you get your positions filled quickly and effectively with no upfront fees or set-up costs. You’ll get a clear picture of performance per job. Let PandoLogic help you hire without the hassle.