Why you should use talent acquisition analytics

We’ve all made bad hires – whether this was because we made decisions under the gun, failed to ask the right questions during an interview, or simply overlooked a sign we should have seen from the start.

The recruiting process can last months and cost thousands of dollars, and it’s more than a little embarrassing when it ends with an unfit candidate.

To recruit the best talent as efficiently as possible, you need to take advantage of talent acquisition analytics. 

Integrating talent acquisition metrics and analytics into your hiring plan will make your process more effective at securing the best candidates by identifying key skills gaps and eliminating bias.

In this article, we describe the far-reaching benefits of integrating talent acquisition analytics into your hiring process and how they’ll help you find the ideal candidate for the role.

What is talent acquisition analytics?

Talent acquisition analytics is a collection of data relating to your employees and processes. Talent acquisition metrics and analytics enable you to use data to inform your hiring strategy.

They help you create a detailed, personalized hiring strategy to find the best candidate for your company rather than just filling an open position as soon as you can.

There are four distinct types of analytics:

• Historical analytics – gains insights from past data

• Real-time analytics – measures data in real time

• Predictive analytics – predicts future trends and opportunities

• Prescriptive analytics – suggests options for business decisions

These data points and insights come from recruitment analytics tools. Different platforms offer different types of analytics.

They can measure a range of key performance indicators regarding candidates, employees, managers, and recruiters.

via Workday.com

So, what can you measure using talent acquisition analytics?

Five of the most common key performance metrics are:

1. Selection and rejection numbers

2. Time to hire

3. Cost per hire

4. Attrition

5. Performance

Talent acquisition analytics enable you to assess what makes an employee successful, helping you to identify the most qualified candidates and boost retention by hiring right the first time.

The case for using talent acquisition analytics in your hiring process

Hiring just to fill an open position is like driving without Google Maps. (Does anyone still do that?) Analytics in talent acquisition is your hiring strategy’s GPS. 

Flying blind in hiring does more damage than simply finding an unfit candidate.

One study found that it takes an average of four months to recover from a bad hire, about 10 weeks to terminate the employee, and a further six weeks to restaff the position.

That same study also found that 64% of recruiters say that the cost of a bad hire increased from 2020 to 2021.

In short: The negative impact of poor hiring decisions is getting worse.

Talent acquisition analytics helps you avoid that pitfall. Here’s a quick summary of the benefits you’ll experience:

Let’s explore these further.

1. Predict candidate success and top performers

Often, a candidate absolutely shines during an interview but then delivers somewhat average work.

Or, in contrast, a candidate who initially seems to be run-of-the-mill ends up being a rockstar.

Figuring out why this happens is perhaps one of the most important questions a hiring manager can answer.

Talent analytics will help you by predicting an applicant’s future performance.

For example, your hiring efforts may be focused on finding a candidate with a bachelor’s degree in X who attended school Y. However, the data you uncover may tell you that your highest performers all scored Z on pre-employment tests – regardless of their schooling.

When your business uses data analytics to identify success and pinpoint high-performing employees, you can leverage that data during hiring to find the best candidates available.

You’re able to study data relating to:

• Characteristics

• Behaviors

• Skills

• Education

• Experience

Understanding these key points enables you to build a candidate persona that perfectly suits your organization.

Then you can compare each potential hire’s data to get an idea of their future performance and success.

2. Target the right candidates

One of the most important types of talent acquisition analytics is people analytics.

Analyzing your most successful employees’ behaviors, skills, and experience shows you what to aim for in your hiring.

This ties into the last point – analyzing your current top performers will show you what works best in your company, but you can take this information further to specifically target these potential star candidates.

Here’s an example of an HR analytics report:

You can take this data and build a candidate persona, which is a representation of your organization’s perfect job candidate.

Do your most successful employees all have a background in IT software applications? Add that to your candidate persona.

After building your perfect candidate persona, create your hiring campaign with this target audience in mind. Post job ads on relevant job boards, filter applications with these specifics in mind, and build your pre-employment testing strategy around your desired qualities.

You can use pre-employment skills tests in conjunction with a data-driven candidate persona to narrow down your selection to only the best of the best.

Here’s a series of defined qualities and the skills tests that can help you find them:

Review each candidate’s score after testing to see how well they measure up to your persona.

Target the best. Find the best. Employ the best.

3. Match benefits to applicants’ values

Leveraging talent analytics enables you to tailor benefits to suit an individual’s personality, values, and lifestyle.

For example, you can use analytics to determine that most of your employees are millennials. The majority of millennials want an affordable healthcare package, flexible work hours, and professional development opportunities.

You can then tailor your benefits based on these insights.

Tailored benefits will increase the likelihood of a candidate accepting a position. If they do join your business, it will also improve their employee experience and satisfaction, maximizing their total potential.

For more information on benefits and rewards, read our article on how to find an attractive incentive for employees.

4. Eliminate bias

The candidate’s handshake was weak.

The candidate went to the same school as my ex.

We aren’t aware of the biases that happen in our minds. They arise without our control.

Bias can be a major diversity and accessibility issue in hiring. For example, judging applicants based on factors like strong handshakes and consistent eye contact will eliminate opportunities for neurodivergent candidates. 

However, data can’t be biased.

Using analytics in talent acquisition enables you to make decisions based on the skills and experience needed for the role without considering stereotypes, attitudes, and emotional reactions.

Say your data report showed that the ideal candidate has X years of experience in the field, possesses excellent communication skills, and is motivated by Y. In this case, simply assess candidates’ skills, communication, and motivation to find these qualities without bias.

This is called blind hiring, and it zeroes in on candidates’ skills and talent.

Target and hire the prospective employee who has the right knowledge and skill set – not the one who laughs at your jokes.

5. Improve insights into your hiring process

Remember our GPS analogy from earlier?

Analyzing your strategy and talent acquisition data lets you see the roadmap to success.

Rather than simply speculating on the best choices for your hiring process, see what works and what doesn’t and identify key bottlenecks.

You can see from this analytics report that a large number of candidates fall off after reaching the “qualified” stage:

Source

Is your process smooth from the point you receive an application to the point you hire a candidate?

Then don’t change a thing.

But what if candidates are falling off at a specific step in the journey?

That’s your area of improvement.

Let’s say that many applicants drop off after the first interview. This could mean that your business is taking too long to communicate with candidates, such as with interview follow-ups and status updates.

Delayed communication could be the biggest detriment to your hiring process. For more information, read our article on how to communicate with candidates.

You can solve issues like this by discovering a leaky pipeline through detailed hiring metrics.

The five most important hiring metrics are:

1. Time to fill – the time it takes to fill vacancies in your company

2. Time in process step – the amount of time a candidate spends in each hiring step

3. Quality of hire – the value a new hire brings to your organization

4. Cost per hire – the expenses involved in hiring new talent

5. Offer acceptance rate – the comparison of total offers against offers accepted

Let’s examine how you can use offer acceptance data. What if your data tells you that candidates are leaving the pipeline at the offer stage?

Going through the hiring process for months only to have your ideal candidate turn your offer down is more than disappointing.

Time, money, and a great potential hire all walk out the door.

Metrics and analytics will give you insights on how to make a better job offer. Perhaps you’re targeting an audience that has little interest in your organization’s values.

For example, analytics could show that many Gen Zers are dropping off at the offer stage in the recruitment process. 

You can then research this specific demographic and make changes as needed. This includes displaying your mission, values, and equity to help attract the purpose-driven Generation Z.

Examining hiring process metrics will give you essential knowledge and feedback so that your hiring strategy will run like a well-oiled machine.

6. Save money

Jörgen Sundberg, the chief executive officer of Link Humans, says that recruiting, hiring, and onboarding a new employee can cost as much as $240,000.

Let’s look at a sample scenario.

Sample Inc. starts recruiting for a position. Its cost per hire includes organizational costs, recruiters’ salaries, hiring and referral programs, job board fees, and agency fees.

The company makes four bad hires through this campaign, equaling nearly $1m in costs.

What if it could identify in advance what makes a successful candidate and increase its percentage of perfect hires?

Sample Inc. adopts talent acquisition analytics dashboards, which enables the business to adjust its strategy to target its hiring more accurately. This results in only two bad hires.

This saves Sample Inc. almost $500,000.

Hiring the perfect fit the first time, or even the second time, can save your business hundreds of thousands of dollars.

7. Identify skills gaps

Skills gaps are the difference between the skills present in your workforce and the skills needed in your workforce.

For example, your analytics predict a sharp upward trend in programming projects in the coming months. To respond, you’ll need more high-level programmers, which means either upskilling your current programmers or hiring more.

Identifying these shortages can significantly improve your company’s performance and efficiency.

Talent acquisition metrics and analytics can be a powerful part of your skills-gap analysis process. 

Analyzing your team’s performance and skills will reveal valuable insights into crucial talent gaps within your business.

You can conduct internal skills testing to further boost your skills-gap analysis.

TestGorilla’s tests enable you to assess:

• Personality traits

• Language proficiency

• Hard skills

• Soft skills

• Culture add

Identifying skills gaps will enable you to efficiently upskill current employees and make your hiring efforts laser-focused.

8. Identify diversity gaps

It’s well documented that diversity in your business works in your favor.

Studies show that increased innovation, creativity, and productivity are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the benefits of diversity in the workplace.

Employee data from analytics software will reveal diversity gaps in your workforce, enabling you to take action to grow your organization’s talent and culture.

Source

Finding diversity gaps in your workplace will not only improve the company itself but also attract new talent.

A diverse and inclusive company is a major priority for prospective employees.

One study showed that 76% of job seekers rated a diverse workforce as an important factor when evaluating businesses and job offers. That number is even higher for:

• Black people – 80%

• Hispanic people – 80%

• LGBTQ+ people – 79%

Diversity within your organization shows candidates that you are inclusive, forward-thinking, and fair.

A yes for talent acquisition analytics

Talent acquisition analytics benefit current employees, new hires, and job candidates alike.

They enable you to build an ideal candidate persona, predict employee success, and close skills gaps while saving money and eliminating hiring bias.

At TestGorilla, we’re in favor of talent acquisition metrics. We want to eliminate hiring bias in all its forms so that you can find the absolute best candidate for your open role without anything getting in the way.

For more information on improving your hiring process, take a look at our piece on talent analytics and hiring a talent acquisition manager.

 Register with TestGorilla for free today and start making better hiring decisions, faster and bias-free.