Redefining Recruiter KPIs

The Impact of Redefining Recruiter KPIs

KPIs, what do they mean to Talent professionals? Are they merely a measurement to see what activity has taken place each week? Does a best practice methodology exist where KPIs drive review, analysis and discussion? Do they address the challenges businesses face when attracting talent? 

The Oasis HR Think Tank explored the current business drivers for redefining recruitment KPIs and the general consensus was that KPIs are often inappropriately set. 

A KPI should not be a procurement driven process, it should address the business need. Historically businesses looked more at the cost of hiring talent than the quality of the employees and contractors who entered their organisation. Often KPIs are linked to external facing activity only, by looking at one side of the process your internal candidates may be experiencing a worse recruitment experience than those you are externally attracting. That does nothing for your internal brand or your staff retention. Your employees deserve the same level of consideration as those you are trying to attract. 

KPIs must evolve with your business. Are your KPI measures proactive? Are you just looking at the here and now, or do your KPIs reflect where you are as a company? Are you including review and measurement against building talent pools, candidate engagement and those activities that will give your organisation long term benefit? Are your KPIs adaptable for both the period of measurement and for your full organisation? 

If the original KPIs agreed are not working then change them, ensure that they are working for your organisation. Measurement of a series of pointless KPIs will use up valuable time that can be spent more productively elsewhere. Measure yourselves as well as your business partners, are the KPIs targets or indicators? How do you analyse the results and get business benefit thereafter? Are you measuring experience alongside activity? With Employer Value Proposition being essential in the war for talent what are candidate experiences telling you? What do you need to do as a result? What is your end goal?

The Oasis HR Think Tank believes that “Many resourcing functions are currently using a set of KPIs that do not take into account the impact hiring managers have on the process”. This is common across many organisations and for that reason KPIs should be where appropriate reciprocal in nature and seek to measure how your business is actually performing. This review and analysis can then become the catalyst for change. Do the findings point to a potential process change which better meets the expectations of the business or has a training need been identified? Accountability and awareness of all individuals involved in the recruitment process and their impact on it will ultimately lead to a better recruitment solution overall.

So how can you make KPIs work for you? Do not look at the data in isolation, think about what is actually happening and which individuals are positively or negatively impacting your KPIs. Think about KPI results as the data output from your recruitment activities. Review this information and consider what it is telling you. Do you have issues in attracting candidates to your business? Do you have a high offer decline rate? Do you have poor candidate experiences? What has created this, what can you do to change it?

Are target driven KPIs leading to poor decisions as the KPI output is the goal? If KPIs were business drivers that lead to recruitment success, an enviable position in the candidate market and great recommendations from those your business has engaged with; surely that is their best use. Linking KPIs solely to financial performance could drive the wrong behaviours and lead to the wrong outcome.

As the Oasis HR Think Tank said “Gathering data and conducting thorough analysis is essential to be predictive and ensure that the resourcing function is as efficient and successful as possible. With any business initiative it is essential to be able to demonstrate ROI for changes so it is essential to capture this data pre and post change.”