Three Ways Data-Driven Recruiting Leads to Talent Acquisition Success

In a hectic job market that’s always changing, your company must prioritize learning about the candidate experience and find ways to improve it. As candidate expectations continue to grow, workers will remain in the driver’s seat and employers must respond accordingly. The most strategic, dialed-in teams have turned to data-driven recruiting for insights about the candidate experience to find areas for improvement and to maximize hiring outcomes.

So, just how can you better use data to transform your growing business to acquire top talent? Take a look at three top ways that your company can use recruiting data and key talent acquisition metrics to evolve your candidate experience and hire quality employees.

How Data Can Transform Talent Acquisition

#1: Get insights into the candidate, hiring manager, and recruiter experiences

The right talent acquisition suite transforms the way teams look at the candidate, hiring manager, and recruiter experiences in their organization. Data from automation software provides a look at the hiring process from every angle to find areas of improvement and efficiency gains. Spot trends in these experiences in real time and determine how you can improve critical areas based on the needs of your talent funnel.

Use key metrics like these to learn about your candidate, hiring manager, and recruiter experiences:

• Sourcing effectiveness
• Candidate conversion rates
• Application conversion rates
• Time candidates spend in the hiring process
• Hiring manager satisfaction
• Recruiter satisfaction
• Candidate satisfaction
• Quality of hire
• Overall time to fill
• Diversity of talent pipelines
• Employee retention rates

While many recruiting teams struggle in getting information about their talent pipeline, those that are able to quickly leverage data and the right automation tools can adapt their processes to deliver a better candidate experience and convert top talent.

#2: Hire and retain higher quality talent

A data-driven approach and the right recruiting analytics can help you analyze where candidates are entering the funnel, so you can better nurture relationships and set your new hires up for success. When you gain insight into your talent funnel, you can deliver a better candidate experience that drives recruiting results, and that leads to more engaged employees who will perform better in their roles and stay at your company longer. Understanding potential pain points based on data and identifying opportunities in the hiring process can help your talent team better find, attract, and nurture top talent. 

You can also use recruiting data to source and hire a better quality of candidate. Talent acquisition technology can help to match potential applicants with roles they are best suited for based on necessary skills, experience, certifications, or other key characteristics. Plus managing expectations at every stage of the recruiting process can help you deliver quality candidates to hiring managers, a smoother, more engaging onboarding experience, and ultimately happier employees. 

Remember, the recruiting and onboarding process is where your company can set expectations and deliver initial impressions with candidates. This process should include providing things like accurate role descriptions, realistic views of the company culture, and information about remote work flexibility. Give candidates everything they need to decide on your company and the role, and leave them with an experience that confirms they are making a good decision in moving forward your organization. Nobody wants to start at a company and find out that their expectations of the role, management, and company culture were wrong.

#3: Improve diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in your organization

Candidates want to know that a company prioritizes DEI and will offer a supportive workplace culture, where they can show up authentically and genuinely contribute to the company’s success. When your recruiting team focuses on improving DEI in the hiring process and uses data to make informed decisions, candidates are more likely to consider your company as a place to work.

In fact, research shows that 49% of candidates ask about a company’s diversity, equity, and inclusion programs during the interview process and 44% say an organization’s commitment to DEI is a key factor in accepting a job offer. Recruiting automation adds efficiency and helps reduce bias by streamlining tasks like candidate sourcing and screening. Expand the diversity of your talent pools and improve engagement by analyzing the candidate and employee experience.

Consider sending candidates a quick survey about their experiences throughout the hiring process and use that data to improve your recruiting practices. Ensure you collect feedback from candidates who both go through your entire process as well as those who drop off along the way. Getting feedback from candidates who are not hired is a great way to uncover how you can improve your experiences for applicants.

Go Deeper on Data-Driven Recruiting

Looking to step up your recruiting processes and hire better candidates? Find out how to measure hiring speed with this infographic or stay current on the latest trends in talent today when you subscribe to our blog. Or check out other recruiting resources to find more tools that will help you build a more nurturing and supportive candidate experience.