What Is a Data-Driven Hiring Process?

Being data-driven has become ubiquitous. However, it's not merely a buzzword; it's a necessity. Data serves as our guiding light, aiding in decision-making processes and streamlining interactions with stakeholders involved in the hiring process.

Utilizing data helps us understand what worked and what didn’t and make future hiring decisions. 

Also, a data-driven hiring approach means gathering, analyzing, and interpreting metrics to gain insights into the talent market and identify areas for improvements in attracting more qualified candidates.

But wait, there's more! It also helps reduce bias, using standardized approaches that focus on skills and experience over personal opinions. This not only ensures fairness but also broadens the diversity of the talent pool.

Choosing Your Data

Making the switch can feel pretty overwhelming at first! The key is to start by figuring out what you're aiming for with your hiring and finding the metrics that matter most to your organization.There are various qualitative and quantitative data you can refer to. However, they must be aligned with your hiring needs and Talent Acquisition Strategy.

Start by identifying your objectives, what you want to achieve. For example, you would like to reduce the hiring cycle by 20% in the next year.

The next step is to determine the metrics you want to use to measure your progress. Some of the most common are:

Time to Fill: The duration between opening and filling a role upon offer acceptance

Source of Hire: Do you know where your candidates are coming from? Track which channels and sources generate higher-quality candidates and invest more money in them

Cost per Hire: The total amount you spend on recruitment annually, divided by the total number of hires you’ve made. This includes advertising, agency fees, and internal recruitment expenses

Recruitment funnel effectiveness: the number of applicants per job and people at each stage, as well as the pass rate between stages

Offer Acceptance Rate (OAR): number of hires made divided by the total number of job offers extended. An OAR above 70% signifies success

Quality of Hire: There is no absolute way to measure this metric. It includes a combination of qualitative and quantitative data to assess new hires' overall fit and performance to determine how well they meet the company’s needs and expectations. It considers job-specific skills, productivity, contribution to the team, fit with company values and culture, feedback from hiring managers and colleagues 

90-day Quit Hire: Tracking the number of hires leaving within three months offers insights into hiring effectiveness

Candidate Experience: Gather feedback from candidates about their interactions with recruiters and hiring managers, the clarity of job descriptions, and the efficiency of the application and interview process. Candidate experience is usually measured using the Net Promoter Score via a survey

Implementing a Data-Driven Approach

Once you've identified the most relevant metrics for your hiring goals, it's time to put them into action and implement a data-driven approach throughout your hiring process. Refer to your ATS, LinkedIn, employee surveys, and any other hiring software that provides analytics. Include both quantitative and qualitative data.

In your sourcing strategy, gather data from job boards and career pages for Inbound, and track Outbound data, such as the number of people contacted and interested.

Design structured interview frameworks that include both quantitative assessments and qualitative evaluations of candidates' skills, cultural fit, and motivations.

Build your own Hiring Dashboard, use an ATS or a spreadsheet program where you can collect all the data related to the job opening to give you a clear picture of your hiring funnel. Share these dashboards with hiring managers and all the stakeholders to facilitate data-driven decision-making.

Lastly, regularly review hiring metrics and stay informed as the field of data-driven hiring is evolving, and be open to experimenting with new approaches to optimize outcomes.

Conclusion 

You can’t manage what you don’t measure. Data can be a powerful tool to provide insight into your talent acquisition strategy within your organization.

The benefits of data-driven hiring are various, they provide visibility into the effectiveness of your recruitment strategies, help improve the hiring processes, and enable you to build a robust talent pool and make predictions for future hiring.

No more guesswork, data becomes your roadmap!

So, what’s your data-driven strategy? DM me on LinkedIn 

Your friendly TA Ivana