5 Key Recruiting Metrics Every Talent Acquisition Leader Should Report to the C-Level

Time to fill, cost per hire, and the number of hires used to be the basic metrics Talent Acquisition leaders report on. However, these metrics only measure what has been done and they are no longer seen as strategic by themselves.
The CEO and the executive teams have a primary focus, which is to grow the business, increase revenue, launch new services or products, and get their company ahead of the competition. Therefore, the things they care about most are going to be recruiting metrics and analytics that speak their language.
The talent leaders need to also speak this language and should answer the question of how business impacts recruiting in the context of:
1. Increasing revenue
2. Productivity
3. Innovation

1. Percentage of Key Jobs Not Filled

One of the ways to link recruiting metrics to revenue is to report the Percentage of Key Jobs Not Filled. The longer key positions in the organization are not filled, the bigger the impact on the business. It can cripple or delay the enterprise if the revenue and market positioning strategies are compromised as a result. Company profits and productivity could be on the line.
In addition to highlighting these key roles, you can talk about the projections of hiring, and what you may need from the executives to get the qualified candidates. It could be more resources, a proposal of the budget needed to complete the job, or aligning the executive teams’ expectations to get the key hires in.

2. Retention Rate

Retention rate is important to know because it measures the aptitude of the recruiting team and can highlight issues in a particular department. If new employees are constantly leaving, your company is losing money and wasting time.
The executives will want to know why new employees are leaving because hiring is expensive and often leads to a dip in productivity. A revolving door of new hires directly impacts departments throughout the company. Seasoned employees have to assist with training and compensate for their new coworkers which can cause resentment and low morale.
If the retention rate is low in one particular department, it could indicate that an evaluation of the department manager, supervisors, staff, and procedures need to be completed to fix an underlying issue. Retention rate can lead to improvements in vital processes and pinpoint leadership shortcomings.

3. Diversity Talent Funnel

Diversity is a key metric for the modern Talent Professional. The executives care about it because it is proven that companies with a diverse workforce outperform their peers in revenue, productivity, and innovation. Diversity contributes to positive company culture and a mindset of inclusion and belonging.
Answering the following questions will provide some insight into your current workforce diversity:

• What are your company diversity numbers at the top of the funnel?
• What is the passthrough rate by ethnicity groups, gender, veterans, and under-represented groups?

These metrics may help you determine where under-represented groups are falling out of the process. It may also shed some light as to how you can resolve these issues in your hiring process. If your diversity talent pipeline is not what you desire, it’s time to strategically set up a proactive talent sourcing model.
One of the ways to quickly get help in doing this is to hire an RPO recruiting partner to work on outbound diversity sourcing. These individuals will network with diversity groups. An RPO partner knows the latest techniques in talent outreach to get candidates that may be interested in working for your company.

4. Passthrough Rates

This is your pipeline forecasting for expected hires. To get the passthrough rates, you need to identify where candidates are sitting at the various stages of the process.
For example, are the candidates in the application, phone interview, onsite interview, offer, or hired stage? The passthrough rate will allow you to predict new hire starts and identify the number of days to fill for the various role profiles.

5. Source of Hires

An important metric to always look at is where your team is successful with your advertising and tool investments. This data will identify your best and fastest sources of hire so you can invest more efforts where needed, spend wisely, and know where to pull back.
Understanding your source of hire also optimizes your recruiting metrics, recruiting team and the time the hiring managers and interview team invests in making a selection. Prudent and wise spending is always appreciated by the team.
In the end, if you need to reallocate some of that cost to test out new methods, sources, websites, and machine learning tools, to meet the objectives for diversity and finding qualified sources of talent, this is going to be key.