With the rise of new recruitment software, the days of traditional hiring are over. That means no more sifting through hundreds of resumes by hand or making hit-or-miss hiring decisions based on luck or gut feeling.
Making the most of this new recruiting age means knowing how to use the information at your fingertips to drive stronger decision-making. That’s where data-driven recruitment strategies can help. Using a data-driven recruitment strategy, teams can pull powerful insights that eliminate guesswork and biases in the hiring process — so you know you’re hiring the best person for the role. Beyond individual hiring decisions, these insights can also help you refine the recruitment process, improving time-to-hire and cutting overhead costs.
We’ll cover the importance of data-driven recruitment and a few actionable strategies to help you upgrade your hiring process and score the best talent.
Why Does Data-driven Recruitment Matter?
Data-driven recruitment has the potential to completely redefine how companies hire. The goal of a data-driven strategy is to use all the available data on candidates — beyond the basic resume and cover letter — to make a strategic decision on new hires. It also helps identify long-term trends, allowing teams to revise or even overhaul their recruitment process to make it as efficient as possible. While the idea of data-driven recruitment has been around for a while, the development of certain HR technologies has helped elevate the process. Tools like Applicant Tracking Systems, CRM software, and performance management platforms can all play a role in this intelligent analysis of recruitment data.
From lowering hiring costs to reducing time-to-hire, data-driven recruitment has many benefits. Here are just a few things data-driven recruitment can do:
- Improve the quality of hires through data-driven assessments
- Make more objective hiring decisions that are free from bias
- Cut out inefficiencies in the recruitment process to speed up time-to-hire
- Lower hiring costs by focusing only on the most relevant candidates
- Improve the candidate experience to stay competitive in the hiring market
- Identify trends and forecast future budget or staffing needs
How To Build a Data-driven Recruitment Strategy
With real-time insights and predictive analysis, a data-driven strategy has the potential to help you hire faster and more efficiently than ever before. But if you want to turn data into actionable insights, you need to approach your recruitment strategy the right way, with the right tactics.
Here are the three key steps to build a data-driven recruitment strategy that gets results.
1. Select the Right Metrics
Using data as part of your recruiting strategy is essential, but not just any data. The metrics you choose to focus on can play a crucial role in your hiring outcome.
Here are a few of the most important hiring metrics:
- Quality of hire
- Cost per hire
- Time to hire
- Hiring source
- Candidate experience scores
- Job offer acceptance rates
- Turnover rate
- Time to productivity
The right metrics will vary from company to company. While you can count on a few for any strategy — quality of hire, cost per hire, and time to hire, for example — others will depend on your hiring goals and needs.
Before committing to specific metrics, think about the biggest problems facing your hiring process. Do you have no trouble attracting candidates but a harder time keeping them? Or are you spending too much and not getting enough in return? Different problems require different solutions and sets of metrics.
2. Use Software To Collect Data
While you can collect some kinds of data through tools like Google Analytics or survey sites, this can quickly become time-consuming. The best way to collect data — quickly and efficiently — is through software solutions. The right technology can allow you to collect data, store applicant information, and track each candidate as they move through the hiring process.
Choosing the right platform is essential. Not all platforms will offer the kind of data collection you need, let alone the powerful insights you’d need to act on that data effectively.
3. Put the Data to Good Use
The kind of steps you take next will depend on your hiring needs. Think about the insights you pulled in the previous steps — what did they tell you about your current hiring process?
Let’s say the data shows your time-to-hire could use improvement. Use the data to identify roadblocks and bottlenecks that could be slowing down the process and look for solutions. For example, improving the screening process to quickly narrow down your best and most relevant candidates. Or cutting down the candidate pool with other assessment tools, so you can be more selective with who moves on to the next round. Maybe the data shows that your application and interview process is effective, but you’re struggling to secure job acceptances from your ideal candidates. Then, you can think about how to address that setback — providing more competitive benefits in your job offers, improving the candidate experience, or making candidate interest a higher priority in the assessment process.
Just remember that data can only take you so far. Looking at the numbers can help you identify problems, but it’s up to you to fix them to get your hiring process back on track.
Data-driven Recruitment: The Future of Hiring
There’s no question that data-driven recruitment is set to transform the way we hire. Data offers a rare glimpse into the inner workings of your hiring process, including what worked and what didn’t. These insights can play a crucial role in the future of your hiring process.
But it takes the right strategies and software to make the most of the new recruitment landscape.
If you want to unlock all the opportunities data has to offer, you need powerful recruiting software at your side. At Oleeo, our customizable AI-powered software is designed to optimize every step of the hiring process. Learn more about how we can help you build a results-driven recruitment process, or request a demo today.
