Data-driven Recruitment All You Need to Know

Gut feelings and instincts are good to consider when you feel a friend might be lying to you. But there's no place for hunches and second-guessing in the professional landscape.

Intuition represents the patterns we have identified from past experiences and likely originates in the amygdala, a part of our emotional brain. As a result, relying on predictions not based on facts could invite a good share of unconscious stereotypes and prejudices into decision-making.

That would be detrimental to equitable and fair outcomes. However, the problem isn't only making judgments about someone but also about the data and information we receive.

Nowadays, companies handle significant amounts of big data about their customers, products, and job seekers. They also have increased access to information about their candidates and recruitment performance metrics.

But data is meaningless if you don't know how to evaluate it and convert it into actionable insights. Emotional predictions, guesses, and convictions based on prior experience are not enough to garner relevant information and recommendations from the reports, documents, and input you compiled.

Today, AI technology allows you to eliminate gut feelings, hunches, and unverified approaches in collecting and assessing data. Thanks to that, you can base all your operations, strategies, initiatives, and decisions on precise information and facts.

Those are necessary for ensuring data-driven recruitment, which is vital for stellar candidate experience, quality of hire, and team success. Here's everything you should know about it and how to accomplish it.

What is Data-driven Recruitment?

Data-driven recruitment is about using verifiable and tested stats and facts to inform and drive the entirety of recruitment decisions, starting from candidate sourcing to choosing the most compatible job applicant. Hence, this approach helps recruiters optimize the hiring process and base every step and strategy on tangible data and reports.

That ensures they won't decide about candidates' potential and position in the pipeline depending on superficial and irrelevant criteria but on their skills, experiences, and merit. In this approach, data guides recruiters and hiring managers in their decision-making process and helps them use relevant metrics and information to drive their actions toward desired outcomes.

For instance, they can use data to assess a substantial talent pool and multiple job applicants simultaneously and identify those who match the non-negotiable criteria for a job opening. But you can also analyze your previous recruitment processes to determine bottlenecks, what works well, and what you can improve to establish better hiring practices.

Besides enhancing your strategies and initiatives, you will also boost your team's performance. Data-driven recruitment helps recruiters reduce hiring costs, be more efficient, and grow their success.

For example, data-driven organizations are 23 times more likely to reach new customers and six times more likely to retain them. They're also 19 times more profitable than companies that don't foster data-driven recruitment. Therefore, this approach can take your business to a whole new level and reinforce its continuity.

However, that's not all you get from relying on facts and information. Every company accumulates batches of data over time, and this approach will help you leverage it to your advantage and use every part of it.

That means that instead of only using resumes and cover letters, you will also use public candidate information, insights you collected during past recruitment processes, and job market and competition analysis.

But if that still sounds a tad abstract, let's dive deeper into how data-driven recruitment looks in practice.

LEARN MORE: 5 Best Practices for Using Recruitment Analytics in 2023

Data-driven Recruitment Examples

Here is one of the best things about data-driven recruitment that perhaps you didn't know. - You can use it in every stage of the hiring process and inform every decision and strategy you must make.

The following are the most common examples of data-driven recruitment:

• Candidate Sourcing: You can monitor and assess all your candidate sourcing channels and set it as one of the vital KPIs. That means you can track the effectiveness and conversion rates of job boards, social media, career pages, agencies, and paid marketing. AI-powered platforms can give insights into what source brings you the most qualified candidates, as that will be the channel where you should invest more time and money. For instance, you may discover that LinkedIn is responsible for connecting you with like-minded and skilled job applicants who often become your employees later on.
• Selection Process: This is the essential part of the recruitment process, as that's when you evaluate, interview, and select your future hires depending on their capabilities and compatibility. Throughout this undertaking, you leverage data collection to feed your decision-making. - You assess incoming resumes, run skills assessments, conduct background screening, and interview the candidates. Without these actions, you'd choose top matches solely based on subjective preferences and predictions.
• Candidate Experience: Candidate experience is about how job applicants perceive their interaction with your company from the moment you first contact them to onboarding. Hence, it includes their impressions and experiences throughout every hiring stage, and every action you take matters. Companies typically use Net Promoter Score surveys to measure the candidate experience effectiveness. The results give insights into the critical areas and what job applicants liked during the hiring process. But you can also tap into whether an employee agrees that the job description matches the job and works with your company. If the response is positive, it means you advertised the job role correctly and reached the right target audience. Finally, you can check your company's score on job boards, such as Indeed and Glassdoor, to see how candidates and employees feel about your workplace.
• The Recruitment Planning Stage: Collecting and evaluating data from your prior recruitment processes will help you plan the next one, avoid past mistakes, and remove roadblocks. You can use data to determine whether you should spend less time on specific steps (e.g., the interview stage) or put more effort into engaging your candidates. Moreover, the data you compile will help you address pain points, such as what practices slow you down, where to cut back expenses, and how to shorten the hiring time.

Data-driven Recruitment Strategy Benefits

Accelerates the Hiring Process

Data collection helps you identify the bottlenecks and potential for growth in your hiring process, allowing you to address them or implement automation. Thanks to that, you'll be able to outline your recruitment process by considering details such as the average job applicant drop-off rate, time-to-hire, duration of each stage, and the methodology's effectiveness.

For instance, you'll uncover whether posting on job boards brings you more success than sharing job ads on social media. Also, you'll understand whether job referrals are a better candidate source than job fairs and events.

It will be much easier to develop a successful hiring process if you determine at what stage most of the job applicants quit and what discourages them from proceeding. Your job application process might be overly demanding and lengthy, forcing people to look elsewhere.

However, data-driven recruitment helps you identify what stages to shorten and how to make them more efficient. As a result, you'll improve the productivity of your recruitment team, lower time-to-hire, and improve candidate engagement.

Reduces Hiring Costs

Since data-driven recruitment helps you have a faster time-to-hire rate, you will use your recruitment budget more wisely and efficiently. After identifying the bottlenecks slowing your efforts, you'll remove unnecessary costs and ensure every resource you invest has a good purpose.

Moreover, you can assess your tech stack to check whether you're using outdated tools and software, causing you to waste time and money. For instance, some companies invest a fortune in modern video programs, yet they're only hiring local job applicants who can attend face-to-face interviews.

Removes Recruitment Bias and Driving More Objective Decision-making

Implementing a data-driven strategy helps you promote unbiased decision-making and only hire people based on merit and qualifications. That also enables you to establish a legally bullet-proof hiring process, as you'll keep up with compliance and the latest employment regulations and protocols.

That is the best shortcut to fostering resilient and widespread DEI initiatives in your company. You need a diverse workforce to develop a productive, innovative, creative, and collaborative workplace.

For example, data-driven recruitment nudges you to prioritize structured interviews and skills assessments. These efforts are vital for choosing the most compatible talents based on their skills and knowledge and removing favoritism and prejudices.

Enhances Candidate Experience

No matter how excited a candidate is about working with a specific company, no one likes lengthy and complex job application processes that include multiple steps before finally submitting a resume. However, many employers still don't leverage data-driven recruitment and aren't aware they're losing many potential candidates at the initial stage.

Thus, they fail to encourage candidate feedback after the end of the recruitment process, leaving them without invaluable information and guidance for the future. Having that data can help you remove the hurdles job applicants encounter while interacting with your company and improve their experience.

READ MORE: 5 Ways to Improve Candidate Experience in 2023

Foster a Proactive Approach

Companies that nurture data-driven recruitment don't wait for the last moment to prepare and roll out their hiring activities or strategize as they go. Instead, they use verifiable information and past and current data to plan in advance and anticipate challenges and prepare their response.

Since data-driven companies have a proactive approach, they are always ready for what might come, giving them leverage in the hiring process compared to their competitors.

For instance, they keep track of their budget and ensure they only invest in what has a good ROI and purpose. These companies think through every step and back it up with relevant data and reports.

Here are the best data-driven recruitment practices.

5 Best Practices for Data-driven Recruitment

1. Choose Relevant Metrics and Determine Your Data Sources

The variety of data points in your recruitment software might be confusing if you're unsure about the vital metrics and hiring goals. Hence, the only way to prevent that is to decide what's most important in your recruitment process and what metrics you should focus on.

Assess your organizational and business objectives and establish a metrics list to ensure you're on the right track. For instance, you might want to prioritize time-to-hire because you've been struggling with a long selection process.

The next step is to decide on data sources. Consider whether you'll collect data from your ATS platform, candidate surveys, Google Analytics, or something else. However, you may also want to track your recruiter satisfaction, budget data, or lead conversion.

2. Use a SaaS

SaaS (Software as a Service) is cloud-based software that helps you optimize your recruitment processes and augment your digital competencies. You can leverage its capabilities through a SaaS-based ATS or CRM. These platforms have holistic dashboards where you can collect and assess data, make hiring decisions, and communicate with your time.

Thus, since SaaS is a cloud-based solution, you can rest assured about data privacy. Regardless of external conditions and events, everything you collect will stay safe and accessible to you in a cloud environment.

3. Let Your Dashboard Guide You

Using an ATS or CRM allows you to access and visualize all the data from a single dashboard with multiple features and possibilities. For instance, you can detect recruitment trends and hurdles, see campaigns, or track budgets.

Thanks to that, you can address potential problems before they make an impact. But you can also spot opportunities and take action.

4. Determine Your Recruitment Actions

Data-driven recruitment isn't only about tracking and measuring data but also acting upon it. For example, you may discover you're suddenly receiving an increasing number of under-qualified job applicants after implementing a new candidate source.

You can quickly opt out of that source and focus on one that brings more compatible people. Also, if you notice that your career page is generating more incoming resumes, consider prioritizing SEO so that your website moves further up in SERPS and brings you even more candidates.

5. Assess Your Pre- and Post-Data-Driven Recruitment

Track how your recruitment processes were before and after implementing the data-driven strategy. That way, you'll know what stages you improved and what needs additional attention.

You'll also understand whether your approach is effective and bringing you closer to desired outcomes. That way, you'll detect successful and inadequate initiatives and implement necessary tweaks and changes.

LEARN MORE: Making Data-Driven Decisions with an Applicant Tracking System

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Promote data-driven recruitment with multifunctional recruitment software that will give you insights into the effectiveness of your strategies, practices, and decisions. Manatal's AI Recruitment Software comes with a comprehensive ATS and CRM and powerful data analytics, reports, and AI recommendations.

Leverage Manatal's 14-day Free Trial and start transforming your recruitment and creating a positive difference in your hiring outcomes.