Whether you notice it or not, data is at the heart of everything we do these days. It guides the recommendations you get when you log in to a streaming service. It helps you decide whether your finances can support that big purchase you’ve been eyeing. Data supports and helps us shape our lives, translating clinical numbers and information into very human decisions. Data should also of course be at the heart of your organization’s talent sourcing and recruitment strategies.

Data Does Not Make HR Obsolete

Some Human Resources departments have faced some opposition to taking a more digital data-focused approach to the work that their teams have always done so well with good old experience and decision-making.

The reality is that the great human things about HR aren’t going anywhere. Rather, organizations that have adopted a data-forward approach have found ways to make their work more efficient and transparent—a quality that certainly helps when you need to justify budgets and resources.

Using data and tech in your talent sourcing also helps improve the overall quality of potential hires, improving your team’s metrics across the board. The more time you spend with high-quality candidates, the less time you’re spending with tasks or people that can bog you down.

Data Helps You Source Smarter

So much of talent sourcing is a trust exercise. You try to place your ads in the spots where they’ll be seen by the most qualified people, but some sources just yield better results than others. What a programmatic platform can do for you is help you see in real time which talent sources are working and which ones aren’t. That helps you make corrections essentially in real time, maximizing the time and money you’re spending on job postings and outreach.

Data gives you the confidence to make big decisions—and advocate for resources. When you walk into budget season with a deck full of metrics like your average cost-to-hire and your ROI for particular sources, you’re better able to demonstrate what resources you need, and how you can transform them into results.

Data Can Identify Skills Gaps In Your Workforce

Data doesn’t just help inform where you’re sourcing your candidates. Programmatic platforms can take existing data about your workforce, identify areas that you either want to maintain or develop, and help you fine-tune your recruiting materials. This level of specificity can go beyond what hiring managers think is necessary in the role or overcome assumptions made by HR. Your job descriptions can be revised to get candidates with particular skillsets and help improve the quality of applicants you’re getting.

Data Helps You Achieve Diversity Goals

Most organizations have set a goal of becoming more diverse in their hiring and recruitment. That can be hard when talent sourcing and recruiting are done in a very status quo way, using the same places to advertise jobs and find candidates. Data about your organization’s demographics can help you define specific areas for representation improvement.

Using data and AI in the hiring process can also minimize bias (including unconscious bias) by setting particular rules. That can include removing names from resumes to ensure blind reading by hiring managers or having a system of questions for interviewees that are based on job data, not individual perceptions about the candidate. Even the most aware, well-meaning people can have unconscious biases. AI software has only the biases you program into it, which means you can trust the data to be blind to things that might otherwise be up for human interpretation. 

If you’re looking to improve efficiency and HR adaptability for your organization, data is the way to go. Tech tools and data analysis are becoming more prevalent by the day in HR, and the insights you get from applying them to your sourcing will help you build a strong pipeline for years to come.