Brave New Recruiting Metrics: Do They Figure?

• Author: Amitai Givertz
• Posted: February 21, 2007
• Category: Talent Management
• Tags: Metrics, Performance Staffing
• Comments:

Dave Lefkow posts an interesting article on ERE, Proactive Recruiting Metrics. Dave observes that there is a basic shift going on inside organizations worldwide; employers that are moving away from requisition-driven models to a proactive model for recruiting.

In line with this realignment comes a different emphasis on which metrics matter most. Traditional measures like time-to-fill and cost-per-hire — key benchmarks in a reactive setting — are becoming less important in the context of the new recruiting model that Dave describes. Here, new performance measures reminiscent of a sales operation become the norm: number of inbound enquiries received, contacts made, candidates engaged and so on.

While Dave makes a reasoned case — and we like it — I still wonder if he is not ahead of his time, as visionaries often are.

Dave describes an approach that — from want I can tell — would most appropriately fit the proactive recruiting model that has been envisioned variously as Just-in-Time Recruiting (JIT), Lean Staffing, or Total Quality Management (TQM). Hardly understood by the majority who would be charged with its execution, this approach to re-engineering the talent funnel assumes that some very basic changes — not to be confused with easy — have already taken place. Unfortunately, in my travels I do not see much wholesale, elemental change going on, at least on a scale that makes Dave’s argument relevant in the vast majority of U.S. staffing environments.

As long as most organizations view recruiting as an expense not an investment and/or a transaction-driven process, not a strategic business orientation, then time-to-fill and cost-per-hire metrics will remain both easier to quantify, digest and rationalize. Similarly, as HR and recruiting continue to grapple with their strategic roles and relationships, I believe the changes Dave calls for will be slow in coming.

I also wonder if the brave new metrics Dave references were available…

• Candidate identified
• Unknown level of interest/have not contacted
• Connection established
• Not interested
• Contacted
• Willing to listen to opportunities
• Willing to refer others
• Interested in opportunities
• Passed on to hiring team
• In the hiring cycle for a specific opportunity
• Hired
• Rejected (would hire in future)
• Rejected (do not hire)
• Declined

…how many employers would be enabled with the corporate leadership, mindset and analytics to use it effectively, at all? I guess we wait for wholesale changes on these fronts too.

That is not to suggest that employers should ignore the business case for improving their recruitment processes and metrics, or take immediate steps to get there. Nor is it to suggest front-runners have not emerged, implementing the infrastructure for a new model. But we should not overlook the monumental task that this transition from reactive to proactive recruiting represents in reality. Nor should we underestimate the time it will take to get there.

Dave’s earlier post Do recruiters really need CRM? makes for an equally interesting, related read. If people want the kind of recruiting metrics he references in his ERE article — basically, conversion rates, not the usual metrics-data produced by applicant tracking systems (ATS) — the answer to that question is, “Yes, indeed, recruiters do need CRM.” Perhaps we should also ask, “But when and how?”