The world is rapidly changing, and nowhere is that more obvious than in Talent Acquisition, which is evolving from a cost center to highly impactful business driver. How can your organization make the switch? The answer: it’s all about the data. In fact, organizations with highly optimized, highly competitive recruiting functions are doing so by leveraging talent analytics.
In a recent webinar, Jobvite’s Chief Product Officer, Robert Tsao, joined Kyle Lagunas from industry research firm IDC, to talk about the future of talent acquisition and how leading organizations can tap into analytics to optimize talent efforts and initiatives.
What are Talent Analytics?
But first, what do we mean by talent analytics? The simplest definition is this—the measurement and analysis of talent data. You can generate data a variety of ways, and any organization using an ATS or other HR or recruiting tool has access to some data and reporting capabilities. But it’s not just about the data itself. You then need to apply data-based insights to optimize your recruiting efforts.
There are three core capabilities to a talent analytics function:
- Monitoring KPIs: Keeping tabs on the metrics that matter
- Predicting Problems: Anticipating needs or challenges
- Providing Insights: Delivering insights about your hiring organization to the business
The Value of Talent Analytics
Talent acquisition is evolving quickly. Traditional metrics like cost-per-hire, time-to-fill and new hire turnover alone give little insight into the performance of talent acquisition. Many organizations are embracing new practices around attracting, engaging, and evaluating candidates. But they don’t always know how to measure those practices.
The real value in talent analytics is in coupling the measurement and analysis of talent data with the application of data-based insights to optimize workforce viability. This results in an HR function that is using data and insights to make business decisions.
Despite these benefits, adoption of talent analytics is still trailing. An IDC survey found that more than half of organizations are still tracking talent data and metrics manually. And the majority of organizations admitted to tracking metrics in key areas like talent attraction, talent discovery, and talent strategy infrequently or inconsistently.
Four Ways to Jumpstart Your Talent Analytics
We at Jobvite believe that talent acquisition is a business critical capability. So how can improved talent analytics drive better performance? While there’s no silver bullet, Kyle and Robert identified four key best practices.
- Measure what you can: Evolving measurement beyond the occasional cost-per -hire analysis or turnover report is no small task. Start with the metrics and data you can track without too much heavy lifting. Every HR or recruiting tool has some built-in analytics capabilities. Start there. Some of the most common metrics that Jobvite customers report on include, source of applicant and hires, time-to-hire by source and region, activity by recruiter/hiring manager, bottleneck reports, interview and evaluation activity, and offer rejections vs. positions filled.
- Measure what matters most: A common misperception in talent analytics is that you have to measure everything. A more realistic approach is to talk to your recruiters, hiring managers, and other business stakeholders and find out what metrics matter most.
In its research, IDC found that leading organizations are focusing on these metrics: quality of hire, culture fit, quality of candidate, recruiter performance, candidate experience, hiring manager satisfaction, new hire turnover, and offer acceptance rates. However, some of these metrics are hard to quantify. One example is candidate experience. To quantify the candidate experience, Jobvite partners with companies like Glassdoor and BetterCompany to measure interview and hiring experiences.
- Measure frequently and consistently: Good analysis relies on sound data. And that requires tracking activities and outcomes frequently and consistently. You need to make sure you have access to data to make data-based decisions and get beyond gut feel or anecdotal evidence. You need it on a weekly or monthly basis, not just when a quarterly report is due to the higher ups. IDC found that the majority of leading organizations are tracking candidate experience, recruiter response time, and recruitment marketing performance frequently or in real time. And dashboards are important for getting a snapshot of your performance at any given time.
- Analyze, report and optimize: Measurement for the sake of measurement is not valuable. Context is key. The insights that you generate need to be shared with the business so that recruiting performance can be put into context. What do the metrics actually mean? Benchmarks can help you understand where you stand relative to your competitors and peers. For example, Jobvite produces three different reports that evaluate industry benchmarks. Putting benchmarks into your dashboard will allow you to track your organization’s performance against the industry standard.
It’s not just about reporting itself, but who gets access to reports and the insights they contain. An IDC survey found that while 91% of organizations are reporting to C-level executives, only 23% are reporting to managers. This highlights the widespread need for better reporting of results throughout the business in order to stimulate discussions.
Ready to build your talent analytics strategy? Watch our on-demand webinar, “Jumpstarting Talent Analytics,” and learn directly from the experts as they break down the four key tenets in talent analytics.
