If you’re like most companies, you and your talent team already have a lot of candidate and performance data stored in your recruiting tech stack. However, simply having the data is only the first step — you need to understand how to make the most of it to maximize the impact of this information.
Data-driven insights can help talent acquisition professionals at every step of the hiring process, from identifying and engaging qualified candidates for open roles to converting those individuals into new hires more efficiently. Data is useful both in the short-term to upgrade recruitment models and in the long-term to develop more effective talent acquisition strategies.
However, establishing data-driven workflows doesn’t happen overnight. Rather, it takes a concerted effort across your hiring team to build a productive data-driven recruiting process that informs your recruitment and hiring funnel decision-making. In this guide, we’ll review why data-driven recruitment is important and how to integrate it to bring your organization’s hiring approach to its full potential.
- Why data-driven recruitment matters
- Data-driven recruitment in practice
- How to launch a data-driven recruitment strategy
Why data-driven recruitment matters
It’s worth knowing the benefits of a data-driven recruitment and hiring model — and why you need one for your talent team today. By prioritizing data-driven recruitment, you can:
- Analyze lead-sourcing insights to determine where you can make adjustments to get more qualified candidates in the door.
- Inspect your candidate engagement data to learn what cadence and schedule of nurture communications lead to the most conversions through your hiring process.
- Gauge your team’s interviewing techniques to see if changes are needed to get more prospective hires to engage and accept offers — and even prevent them from withdrawing from consideration.
- Monitor time to hire so you can make your hiring strategy more efficient.
- Improve quality of hire so you can strengthen your organization’s overall hiring effectiveness and achieve your goals.
Ultimately, a modern, data-driven approach for recruiting teams — accumulating and centralizing recruitment data and taking action accordingly — is a forward-thinking, insights-centric approach to achieving a greater return on investment (ROI) from recruiting processes.
Data-driven recruitment in practice
To truly understand the value of data-driven recruitment, it helps to see it in practice. Here’s a hypothetical data-oriented recruitment strategy intended to achieve headcount goals and meet hiring quotas:
- Find candidates for open and future roles based on historical data that denotes which hiring sources lead to the highest-scoring candidates and highest-quality hires.
- Engage each prospect with individualized, well-timed communication, in the form of automated nurture messagesm which should also be fueled by campaign-performance insights.
- Interview candidates of interest who respond to nurture messages in a structured manner — one that, at the end of the process, factors in feedback data from interview panelists.
- Use the insights gleaned during this entire process to decide which job seekers should receive offers and which should be tagged and archived to potentially revisit later on.
- Regularly revisit hiring dashboards that show progress on pipeline growth, offers, job openings, candidate quality, and other essential recruiting areas.
In short, data is a reliable source of truth for talent acquisition teams looking to discover and hire top talent. How you collect, manage, and leverage that data will set your organization apart as a prestige employer in the long run.
Businesses that embrace a data-driven approach towards hiring have an advantage over other employers. That’s because they understand what activities lead to the employment of high-quality candidates and can increase investment in those areas.
How to launch a data-driven recruitment strategy
Developing a data-driven recruiting and hiring process is a marathon, not a sprint. As Renewal by Andersen Director of Talent & Culture Christina Schmit shared:
“It’s not about perfection [when it comes to using talent acquisition insights]. It’s about reviewing the data, adjusting accordingly, and keeping the train on the track.”
With that in mind, let’s explore how to bring your own data-driven recruitment strategy to life.
1. Assess current capabilities
As with any other recruitment process, you need to establish a baseline as the foundation of your strategy. Data can completely transform your recruitment strategy, so establishing elements like these can help structure your approach:
- The data you already collect
- The data you’d like to collect
- The time and monetary budget you have to implement new data collection methods
- Your current tech stack and team experience
Work with your team to compile this information so you have everything you need to kick off your new and improved strategy.
2. Set specific goals
Based on the aforementioned capabilities, you can set specific, actionable goals for your rollout. Make sure your goals are SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, time-bound). Here’s an example of a SMART goal for a data-driven rollout:
“In the next six months, our team will improve its quality of hire by 25% by introducing Lever into our tech stack, configuring a dedicated quality of hire dashboard, training relevant staff on its use, and setting essential qualifications for each role.”
This goal is SMART because it specifies the exact metric the team is working to improve and how they plan to do so, indicates a proposed increase in that metric to make the goal measurable, relates to the company’s overall goals, and has a definitive timeline. To meet the attainable element of the SMART goal framework, this team must evaluate their past performance to evaluate whether this goal is realistic.
3. Upgrade your technology
Perhaps the most important step in the process is to assess and upgrade your data collection software. As the backbone of your data collection system, you should pick the software solution that accommodates your organization’s unique needs and goals.
One leading recruitment data collection tool is Lever. This applicant tracking system (ATS) adapts to your organization to provide a highly-customizable database, no matter your industry or hiring process.
For instance, Cogent Biosciences, a Lever customer, sped up its time to hire and time to fill by evaluating its full-cycle recruiting data in Visual Insights, an out-of-the-box, user-friendly talent acquisition analytics offering. This faster hiring — compared to when Cogent Biosciences relied on its legacy ATS — led to growth in other key metrics, such as job offer acceptance rate, and helped it meet its hiring quotas in record time.
Regardless of the database you choose, remember to leverage free trials and view third-party reviews online before signing on the dotted line.
4. Train your team
Not everyone on your team is a data aficionado, and they don’t need to be. All you need to do is train the team members who will interact with your data collection tools and methods the most. Here are some tips for training your team:
- Set regular meetings at times that align with everyone’s schedules.
- Leverage any product demos led by software experts.
- Create an ultimate guide that answers FAQs and points to other in-depth resources.
- Keep communication channels open so trainees can ask questions at any time.
At the end of the training period, regularly check in with your team members to ensure they’re comfortable with the new software or methods you’re using.
5. Define key performance indicators
Quantify exactly what you’re looking for and stay on track with key performance indicators (KPIs). Some common recruitment KPIs include:
- Time to fill
- Time to hire
- Cost per hire
- Offer acceptance rate
- Applicants per role
- Source of hire
To learn more about what these metrics mean, check out our guide to hiring metrics. No matter which KPIs you choose, ensure your ATS has customizable fields so you can visualize and report on exactly what you need.
6. Develop data collection standards
Even if you know which data points to collect, you need to be able to easily find and report on them. That’s where data hygiene standards come into play. Implement the following data hygiene standards so you can make use of your data when the time comes:
- Standardize data entry processes and formatting.
- Schedule regular back-ups.
- Audit data periodically to remove duplicate or inaccurate records.
- Supplement any missing information with data appends.
Remember to keep data hygiene in mind when trying out a new ATS. After all, the best ATS on the market can do the hard work for you by automating these processes.
7. Iterate and improve
Data management and incorporation is a constantly evolving process. Survey your data-collection team periodically to understand what’s going well and what needs improvement.
Even once your team has found its groove in collecting, maintaining, and reporting on your recruitment data, you should always look out for the best new software solutions and trends that can improve your process further.
Set your team up for data-driven success
As you improve your data-driven recruitment approach, focus on data hygiene and quality instead of quantity. Also, implement clear-cut processes for acting on important hiring data, such as setting regular data debriefs and strategy meetings. As these pieces fall into place, your talent team can set itself up for greater success with your daily recruiting activities and reach your long-term hiring plans and growth goals.
