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Eight Critical Recruitment Metrics Successful Headhunters Follow

Employee Engagement, Employee Relations, Rewards and Recognition

Human capital is one of the biggest assets of any business. Organizations spend huge chunks of money on recruitment process every year to get the right pool of employees. It only makes sense that they want to know how effective and efficient the recruitment process has been and what returns it has yielded. The onus of measuring these returns lies on the shoulders of headhunters.

There are certain metrics or Key Performance Indicators (KPI) which can help headhunters to capture how much time and money is spent on recruitment, whether the quality of recruitment is up to the mark and whether the conversion has happened as desired. These metrics answer some pertinent questions regarding the hiring process and enable headhunters to fill the gaps where there is a scope of improvement. They empower headhunters to optimize the recruitment process and make informed decisions for the future.

Here are eight critical recruitment metrics that most successful headhunters prefer to track:

1.  Time to Fill

This metric refers to the number of days taken to fulfil a vacancy from the time the job was posted to the offer acceptance by the candidate.

The lesser the time is taken, the lower is the cost of recruitment. It also has a more positive impact on the organization because existing employees have to spend lesser time in doing overtime for the job role, which has a pending vacancy. A poor time to fill metric can be an indicator of the fact that the job advertisement is not effective and there are some bottlenecks in the sourcing process. Successful headhunters ensure that they anticipate the hiring needs in advance and make realistic planning to get the desirable time to fill ratio.

2. Quality of Hires

This metric refers to the value that new hires bring to the organization and is often measured by their first-year performance rating.

Lower quality of hire metric indicates that the quality of hire is poor and is an additional cost burden to the company. A bad hire also indicates that it will affect the long-term growth of the company because this person may not be able to perform the job optimally. The morale and productivity of other employees are also likely to go down. Moreover, a poor hire is likely to quit, thereby further impacting the retention ratio. Successful headhunters ensure that they collect the right data on employees and whether their profile aligns to the company’s hiring needs.

3. Cost Per Hire

This metric is also defined as the total cost of recruitment process divided by the number of hires. This metric can be measured monthly or annually.

Cost per hire has a direct impact on the organization’s bottom line. Hence, successful headhunters ensure that they take into account internal and external cost associated with hiring. The internal costs are time spent by recruiter and manager, new hire boarding time, lost productivity and other administrative expenses. The external costs are advertising, agency fees, candidate expenses and new hire training. Cost per hire gives high visibility to headhunters into every single cost that goes into recruitment and whether it can be reduced or eliminated.

4. Applicants per Opening

This metric tells about the number of applicants who applied for a particular job posting.

It can indicate two things – either the job role is very popular, or the job description lacks clarity. Higher applicants per opening result in higher recruitment cost because headhunters require more time and money to spend on screening and interviews. Successful headhunters ensure that they narrow down the job description by mentioning specific eligibility criteria and required skills to attract only qualified candidates.

5. Offer Acceptance Rate

This metric is defined by the percentage of candidates who accepted the job offer vis-a-vis who were sent the job offer.

A lower offer acceptance rate indicates that the recruitment process is not effective. Either the process is too long or not engaging the candidates enough. It is also possible that the job offer or company culture wasn’t attractive enough. Successful headhunters ensure that they understand the job expectation of candidates, give them positive experience throughout the hiring process and keep the talent acquisition funnel short.

6. Source of Hire

This metric refers to the number of candidates that entered the recruitment pipeline from each source such as job portals, social media, referrals or placement agencies.

Each source has a cost associated with it. By analysing which sources are doing better and attract more candidates, the others can be eliminated. This will considerably reduce the recruitment cost. Successful headhunters concentrate only on high-performing sources by studying web analytics or using surveys that question ‘how did you come to know about this position?’

7. Attrition Rate

This metric refers to the rate at which employees voluntary quit an organization over a period of time.

A higher attrition rate is a cause of concern for organizations. It either indicates that employees have low workplace satisfaction or they are not the right fit for the company. Whatever the reason may be, a higher attrition rate translates into additional cost to the company because the recruitment process has to start all over again. Successful headhunters delve deep into the reasons for high attrition rate and ensure that they are tackled before the new recruitment cycle begins.

8. Candidate Experience

This metric measures the quality of interaction between the organization and candidates during the recruitment process. It tells whether the candidates were satisfied with the hiring process.

It is important to measure this metric because it leads to quality hires and prevents candidates from exploring other job opportunities during the company’s period of recruitment. Successful headhunters ensure that they take feedback of candidates through surveys regarding their experience from the time of browsing the job posting to the handling of their rejections/onboarding.

Recruitment metrics form the foundation of the quality of the recruitment process and hires for successful headhunters.

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