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In the last two blogs of our Connected Recruiting series, we’ve laid the groundwork on how to measure your strategy. By now, you have your targets, and you’ve conceptualized when and how to check in on them.
Now, let’s dive into building the infrastructure you need to conduct this analysis. You’ll likely already know where you’ll perform most of this measurement and the tools and datasets you have at your disposal to do so. Regardless of technology, there are a few guidelines you’ll want to keep in mind as you move forward with measurement.
Keep it simple
Recruitment businesses have enough metrics to focus on. In order to streamline your measurement – and avoid getting bogged down in unnecessary details – keep your reporting straightforward. The goal of any report should be to show progress against the target as simply as possible.
Naturally, if you’re not achieving the results you’d like, there should be the possibility to dive deeper, if needed, to see what’s driving the change. To monitor continuous measurement of your strategy, though, the headlines come first.
Please split responsibly
Chances are your recruiters might be split across different regions, industries, and employment types. Don’t lose the detail by focusing only on company-wide trends. Segment your reporting and analysis between strategically distinct business units.
Dividing this reporting will look different for each business, but having a segment for each region is a solid place to start. For larger companies, this split might be across different divisions. Your healthcare segment could be seeing an improvement, but your commercial/light industrial segment might be falling behind – or vice versa. These details won’t show up in an overall trend unless you have the proper segmentation in place.
Regardless of how you segment your reporting, the knowledge that a few areas are improving and others are not is far more valuable than an intermediate overall trend, or worse, no trend at all.
Ratios count
Remember that a ratio will often be your target goal rather than a count of actions taken. Those top-level ratios consist of many smaller component ratios, so don’t be afraid to get your metrics talking to each other to discover novel measures.
For example, total applicants divided by advertised vacancies may give you an immediate indication of whether certain Attract strategies are having an impact. At the other end of the cycle, number of workers coming off assignment who are redeployed divided by the total number of workers coming off assignment might be a useful measurement of your Nurture strategies. Your ratios will vary depending on where your business is shifting its focus, but ratios are a helpful way to gather a lot of information at a quick glance.
Real-time where appropriate, not where possible
Many metrics and ratios you incorporate into your continuous measurement strategy can be monitored in real-time. This is a great option to make immediate changes where required – but use this path sparingly.
It’s easy to get addicted to checking real-time measures for metrics that only shift in the long term. Select your real-time metrics wisely, and know that it may take some time to see meaningful changes and visualize long-term trends in your data.
Once you’ve built the infrastructure for your reporting, it’s time to get measuring. In our next blog, we’ll break down best practices for collecting your data – and how to proceed with your Connected Recruiting strategy based on the trends you spot.
Don’t miss the rest of our five-part blog series on measuring your Connected Recruiting Strategy: subscribe to the Bullhorn Staffing Blog today.
