In the wise words of our Director, Giles Guest, research and analytics is key to understanding candidate behaviour and how candidates interact with your brand.

This is also true in regard to metrics – it is essential to know where you are, otherwise you can’t measure where you’ve been. With data we can be specific about our focus and areas that need improvement, giving us a rock solid recruitment strategy.

Unlock the secret to excellent performance

It doesn’t matter when you start measuring your performance, the key is measuring for a set, consistent period of time. Any metrics that you set need to be meaningful, with the aim of improving your recruitment strategy.

Sales and marketing teams use metrics on a daily basis, so why shouldn’t we measure performance in recruitment in the same way? ? Having data at your fingertips allows you to react instantly and change your strategy, in order to draw in those quality and relevant candidates.

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How do your metrics look versus the UK average?

We’ve taken some benchmark data from Workable, to give you a baseline of the UK recruitment industry’s performance in some commonly used metrics:

• Time to Fill – UK and Ireland – 48 days between a job being posted and an offer being accepted

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• Interviews per hire – UK and Ireland – 14

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• Qualified candidates per hire – UK and Ireland – 21

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Are you investing time in recording data to enable you to benchmark against these statistics? If not, we suggest that you start or you may run the risk of losing track of your recruitment strategy.

What 5 key metrics should you be tracking to make you a top quality recruiter?

• Time to fill – measuring the number of days taken to fill a position will give you an idea of your efficiency as a recruiter. However, you do need to be aware of roles that are continuously open, as these will lower your average. Knowing how quickly you fill a position will enable you to give an accurate figure to hiring managers and manage expectations.
• Source of hire – If you know where your quality candidates are coming from, you can focus your recruiting team’s efforts in the right place. Finding the strongest source will save you wasting time on others that aren’t providing the best candidates.

• Quality of hire – An important metric to ensure that you maintain the reputation as a recruiter of excellent candidates, this can be measured by sending the recruiting manager a survey periodically for the first year of a candidate’s employment.
• Time spent interviewing – Knowing how many interviews your team carry out per hire can help you to improve your interview process. Cutting down the time spent on each interview, or the volume of interviews per role accepted, could make your hiring process more efficient.

• Candidate satisfaction – This is important as it will predict your success in the near future and is a good barometer of how you are doing in general. The best way to measure candidate satisfaction is through a survey as this will give you quantifiable data to work with.

Take away the guess work, add metrics to your recruitment strategy

As we mentioned, without knowing how you are performing in specific areas of your recruitment, it is difficult to make improvements. By implementing these 5 key metrics you will increase your chances of success in recruiting, enabling you to pinpoint where you are achieving excellent results and any areas that require more work.