Is your company's hiring strategy working for or against you? Here’s how to find out!

If it seems like your company is constantly struggling with high turnover, slow hiring times, or mismatched candidates – then perhaps it’s high time to measure the effectiveness of your recruitment process.

In order to get a sneak peek behind the scenes of the hiring process, we sat down with Paulina Mech, HR Business Partner of our parent company, MBE group.

But before getting into details, let’s start with the basic and almost rhetorical question: why is measuring recruitment effectiveness even important?

Why should employers measure recruitment effectiveness?

Well, the short answer is: that there are many good reasons to do so.

Think of recruitment as a critical investment – one that influences the entire company’s performance. By measuring its effectiveness, you’ll be able to:

• Minimize turnover: By hiring the right candidates who fit your company’s culture and job requirements – a candidate well fitted to the post and the company values is less likely to leave – or at least, quit the job because of the two abovementioned factors.
• Save time and resources: By identifying inefficiencies in your hiring process and optimizing them.
• Enhance the candidate experience: Creating a recruitment process that is pleasant, efficient, and transparent, might help only attract more talent. But that’s not all – by leaving a positive impression of the recruitment process on the candidates, you can strengthen the brand of your company.

But what happens if you don’t track the recruitment metrics? In short, employers run the risk of increasing hiring costs, damaging the company culture, and ultimately losing out on talented employees who could help take the business to the next level.

5 KEY METRICS TO TRACK IN RECRUITMENT

1. Quality of candidates: Are you looking for the right people?

Good recruitment is not just about filling a vacant position – it’s about hiring people who add value to your company. To track this, consider:

• Candidate profile vs. job fit: Does the new hire possess the skills and experience outlined in the candidate profile?
• Performance: Is the new hire meeting or exceeding job expectations within the first few months?

If your hires don’t match the job description or don’t perform well, in the end, your company’s productivity will suffer. High turnover rates can be especially costly because they disrupt team dynamics and lead to additional recruiting efforts. What is more, having to fill the same position over and over again can drain your HR resources and harm Team’s harm morale.

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2. Time and cost of hiring: Is your recruitment process efficient?

Ideally, recruitment should not only be of high-quality, but also fast and cost-effective. Two major metrics here include:

• Time to hire: How long does it take your company: from the moment a job opening is posted until the candidate accepts the offer?
• Cost per hire: What is the total cost associated with filling a vacancy, including advertising, recruiter fees, and onboarding?

A slow recruitment process can lead to lost productivity as you wait to fill essential roles. Additionally, inefficiency in recruitment can compound the recruitment costs, which ultimately impacts the business’s profitability. By keeping an eye on these metrics, you can streamline the process and avoid overspending while faster getting the right talent to the right place.

3. Candidate satisfaction: Does your recruitment process leave a positive impression on the candidates?

So you found the right candidate, they signed the contract, and you might be thinking: ”OK, my job here is done, right?” Well, not quite. The recruitment experience doesn’t end once the hire is made. It's incredibly important to measure how candidates feel about your hiring process, regardless of whether they were hired or ended up being rejected. Here are two critical factors you should consider:

• Net Promoter Score (NPS): How likely are candidates to recommend your recruitment process to others?
• Candidate feedback: Collect insights about their experience with communication, interviews, and transparency.

A poor candidate experience can harm your employer brand, making it harder to attract top talent in the future. Candidates who have a bad experience might share their frustrations on social media or with their professional network, deterring others from applying to your company. On the flip side, a positive experience leaves candidates with a favorable impression, even if they didn’t get the job, increasing the likelihood of future applications or referrals.

4. Overall metrics: Were you getting to the right candidates?

Imagine this: your job posting got a response from a hundred interested candidates. That surely is a good sign, isn’t it? In theory, yes – a high number of applications may seem very promising. But here is the catch: not all applicants are created equal. Therefore, measuring the quality of applications you receive helps to ensure that you’re attracting qualified candidates for your roles. Key metrics to track here include:

• Application-to-interview ratio: What percentage of applicants meet the job qualifications and are invited to interview?
• Source effectiveness: Which platforms (job boards, LinkedIn, referrals, etc.) bring in the highest number of qualified candidates?

If you’re receiving a high volume of unqualified applications, you will likely end up reviewing candidates who don’t meet the job requirements. This not only costs you time, but may ultimately delay your hiring process. On the other hand, targeting the right sources ensures you’re getting quality applicants from the start, making the entire recruitment process more efficient and effective.

5. Retention & Contract renewals: Are your new employees there for the long run?

So you managed to fill all your vacancies – mission accomplished. But, if half a year has passed since the contract signing, and your once enthusiastic new-hires are already handing in their resignation letters – we might have a bigger problem on our hands.

Here is where retention tracking metrics come into action. They can help you pinpoint the source of the issue and ensure that the new employees you bring in will stick around in the future:

• Probation period success rate: How many new hires complete their probation period and have their contracts extended?
• Early turnover rate: How many new employees leave within the first few months after being hired?

High turnover, especially during a probation period, is a red flag. It often signals a mismatch between the job role and the candidate’s expectations. It can also point to a failure in the recruitment process, where the wrong candidates were hired in the first place. High early turnover results in wasted time, money, and resources, as well as a disrupted work environment. By tracking retention, you can adjust your recruitment approach to improve the longevity of your hires.

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When can you tell if a candidate is a good fit for your company?

Identifying the best candidates is not an easy task. Depending on the organization of your hiring process, you can determine a candidate’s fit during several stages:

• During resume screening: How closely does the candidate’s experience align with the job requirements?
• During job interviews: How well do they communicate, and do they demonstrate the required skills and cultural fit?
• Post-assessment: Are they capable of performing well in real-world scenarios or project assignments?

An organized recruitment process helps you quickly identify the best matches for the role. And the faster you can assess a candidate’s fit, the less time and resources you’ll waste.

All about ATS, or what tools can help track recruitment effectiveness?

Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) are incredibly useful for tracking and measuring key recruitment metrics. These tools can automatically measure:

• Time to hire
• Candidate drop-off rates (at which stages are candidates leaving the process?)
• Source effectiveness (which platforms yield the best talent?)

ATS platforms allow HR teams to collect and analyze data more efficiently, helping you make data-driven decisions. By automating these tasks, you reduce the risk of human error and improve your recruitment ROI (return on investment), which saves you time and resources in the long run.