When recruiters bring up the topics of Metrics or Recruiting Analytics – most of the time I get a “deer in the headlights” look.  Metrics or Analytics do not have to be a topic that everyone runs away from.  I can understand the typical reaction due to management using Metrics to simply get more visibility into activity and use it to only increase raw activity levels.  “Make more calls!”.  It’s no wonder it comes with a bad name.   

Here are the most some common misperceptions about Recruiting Analytics.   

Recruiting Metrics or Analytics is a way to get more Activity from you.

By using metrics – they can watch what you are doing or not doing

It’s just more useless work to do that takes up more time

“Without big data analytics, companies are blind and deaf, 

wandering out onto the Web like deer on a freeway.”  Geoffrey Moore

Without Metrics Recruiting Analytics, Managers as well as individual performers are completely blind – trying to manage their profession like a blind squirrel trying to find a nut.  And the majority of managers do exactly that.  Manage blindly – simply guessing on what needs to be done to improve performance. 

With the right Recruiting Analytics – managers and individuals can tell exactly where they are at, how well they are performing to reach a goal and even determine where they want to go and have the exact road map to get there!

I have helped hundreds of offices and recruiters since 2008 achieve their goals and beyond at the same time get closer to their potential by paying attention to the right recruiting analytics.  It’s not difficult – as long as you are tracking the right data – simple algorithms by putting in Activities, Results and Ratios – real significant improvement can happen often times within days.

In 2011, a Senior Recruiter in the Healthcare IT space came to me with a money problem.  She had two daughters going to private schools in the next year and needed to double her income.  She explained to me that in order for her daughters to go, it was extremely costly.   Currently, she was making about 150K and needed close to 300K so the extra education expense would not affect her life style.   My top Healthcare IT recruiter – was not my leader in activity.  She was not setting any records for phone time, calls or even marketing attempts.   As any manager – the easy way would have been just to say double your activity and thus double your income.  But that is never the best way to manage or get the best results from a senior employee.    Instead, I pulled her Recruiting Analytics and we sat down and really analyzed what was going on.   After about 15 minutes of due diligence from the past 12 months – it was clear that a few of her ratios could be improved.   And improved by simply asking better questions to clients and candidates.   We came up with the better questions and role played through them so she was comfortable.  Then she implemented it That Day.  

In less than 90 days, she doubled her monthly revenue and thus personal income and get this – she actually went from 5 days a week to working only 4 days.   She got double the results and worked less.  Now that is the power of Recruiting Analytics.   I have seen that same result happen hundreds of times and it can happen with you too. 

Eustress versus Distress - Good Stress versus Bad Stress.   Stress isn’t always bad for you.  If you feel goal pressure continually, stress defeats its purpose.  Stress is there to get you react or move.  The fight or flight syndrome is innate in your nervous system – where you are ready to literally fight or get the heck out of there to save your life.  There is good stress and bad stress.  Eustress is good stress of you trying your darndest to achieve a goal.  Stress is under pressure continuously without a positive end result.   Stick with Eustress if you can.

 “What gets Managed, Gets Measured” Rheticus – 1500’s

Measure versus Metric

A couple definitions before we start. A measure is simply a number stating what happened in the past.  “We had 100K in profit last year.  We have 39 new clients.”

A metric is a number that we are comparing to a base line.   We had a 100K in profit last year versus our goal of breaking even!?  We had a goal of bringing on 20 new clients and we achieved 39.”  

Comparing the numbers to a baseline makes it measurable – and changes the measure to a metric.   We can measure anything, but without a baseline number attached it is meaningless.  We will focus our attention on the Metrics that are meaningful.

Metrics: Activities, Results and Ratios.

Activities Metrics and Principle of Critical Mass

Activities are the things that must be done in order to do the business at hand.  These can include any activity that is in the business cycle of a business.   In a typical Recruiting Cycle there are many activities.  From marketing emails to social media connections to phone calls and voice mails to follow up emails to  face to face calls to conversations.  The list can go on and on based on the process you use in a typical recruiting cycle.   Activities are raw numbers that help us determine the volume of work we are doing.  So why is this important?  In anything you do, you need volume in order to be successful or reach a desired performance goal.  So how much is enough?  Well ………Once you reach the point of Critical Mass, then it depends at how good you are.  The better you are at the business the less volume you have to do.

The Principle of Critical Mass says that you need to hit a certain level of activity in order to have the chance or ability to reach performance goals.  We all can agree that without any activity - nothing happens.    The Principle of Critical Mass is very similar to a plane taking off the ground.  Imagine you are flying to China from somewhere in the States, the plane is full of people and each is carrying their allotted two bags at 50 pounds each.  On a typical 747 Boeing airliner that is 400 people with 20 tons of luggage.  The pilot knows in order for him to get that plane off the ground – he needs to hit enough speed to create lift with that type of weight.  That specific speed is called the point of Critical Mass.   The same is true in any profession – there is a point of critical mass – where you need enough volume to have the ability to experience success.  Recruiting is no different.  

Results Metrics

The conclusion of our activities is the results.   We all want to see results.  How many placements, how much is billings this month or this quarter.  Result metrics could also be based on any activity.  For example – if we left 10 voice mails yesterday and had 3 returned calls.   That 3 returned calls could be a result metric as well – depending on what we are measuring.  So a result metric in one example could be activity metric in another. The results metrics are generally the result of a specific activity or group of activities.

Ratios – The Magic of Ratios

The Ratios are the Magic of Analytics.   Unfortunately, the majority of managers manage by Activities and Results only.   Only to miss out on the most important aspect and the quickest way for performance improvement.  The Ratios.   Real successes come from the Ratios.  The Ratios are simply an Activity divided by the Result.  It measures how good we are at a specific thing.   IF we left a voice mail 10x and got 3 calls back – we are batting .300.  The Voicemail/Call Back ratio measures the skillset we have while leaving a voicemail.    We could measure every skillset from voice mail skills, to email writing skills, etc.   But ratios when used correctly – point to skillsets.

The RPM Dashboard is a SAAS based Recruiting Analytics and Training software system used by hundreds of clients world wide to help recruiting firms and billers reach their potential.  For a free test drive and to see what your potential really is– reach out to me at jon@rpm-usa.com.   

Part 2 of this series coming next month.   Recruiting Analytics for Dummies …and the Quantum Leap Theorems…