HR Analytics: Recruitment Process Efficiency vs. Effectiveness

by Ramesh Ponaganti

Recruitment must be a core strategic asset if people are truly contributors to competitive advantage.  Many organizations depend heavily on having the right people in the right place at the right time.  Recruiting process efficiency and effectiveness are very important to any organization.   The goal is to reduce hiring costs and hire quality resources.

Recruitment process map

 

Recruitment Candidate pipeline activity

What is Recruitment Efficiency?

Efficiency is a measure of speed and cost.  Hiring more people in less time is critical to fulfill the company/project immediate resource needs.  This can improve the critical metrics of recruitment success like Hiring Cost, Time to Hire, etc.  The following metrics are useful for executives/managers to assess the efficiency of their hiring process.

• Resume Submit Count
• Resume Screen/Review Count
• Avg. Days between Submit to Screen/Review
• Approved Resume Count 
• Avg. Days between Screen to Approve
• Phone Screen Count
• Avg. Days between Approve to Phone Screen
• Interview Count 
• Avg. Days between Screen to Interview
• Offer Decision Count
• Avg. Days between Interview to Decision
• Generate Offer Count
• Avg. Days between Decision to Offer
• Accept Offer Count
• Avg. Days between Offer to Accept
• Total Candidate Experience Time Days
• Time between Offer accept & start date

Reports like the sample report below help executives and managers to evaluate how efficiently the recruitment process is being executed.   

1. How efficient are we at each recruitment step?

2. Are there any stages having bottlenecks (based on certain thresholds)?

3. What is the candidate total experience? etc.

What is Recruitment Effectiveness ?

Effectiveness is a measure of quality.  Recruitment always carries a cost and depends on the ability to gain a returns on the recruitment investment by hiring quality candidates.  The following metrics are useful to assess the quality of new hires.

• New Hire Performance Rating ( Normally the 1st qualified rating after the hire)
• New Hire Vol. Terms (Who left the company voluntarily in X number of months)
• New Hire Invol. Terms (Who are terminated by the company in X number of months)

The following dimensions associated with the above metrics are useful for hiring managers and recruiting managers to improve the strategy of recruitment.

• Job Attributes like Job Type, Family, Level  etc.
• Recruiters
• Sourcing channel
• Agency 
• Referrers etc.

Recruitment Efficiency Vs. Effectiveness

Hiring effectively is often more important than hiring efficiently to gain more return-on-investment (ROI).  Efficiency vs. effectiveness challenges often do exist and depend on certain recruiting situations.

Examples:

• Skill set of the job openings
• Volume of recruitment
• Time sensitivity of the Requisitions/Positions
• Long term Vs. Short term benefits of the positions etc.

Additional info:

The following Requisition process metrics are also being used to evaluate efficiency vs. effectiveness.

• # Open Requisitions
• # On Hold Requisitions
• Time to Fill
• Age of Open Requisitions
• Vacancy Filled Rate etc.   

Ramesh Ponaganti is Business Intelligence Architect at KPI Partners.  He has specialized in the Oracle BI Applications and his work has been recognized with an Oracle Excellence Award. Check out Ramesh’s blog at KPIPartners.com.