Which KPIs to observe to drive an effective recruitment strategy?

For several years now, the job market has been marked by strong competition. Generation Z is discerning, and recruiting them requires finesse! Companies must therefore reinvent their recruitment and retention strategies. In fact, many employers face difficulties in recruitment. To address these challenges, the HR function is adapting and creating new attractiveness levers.

On the agenda? Social networks, inbound recruiting, CRM, content strategy, videos, events... Investments in People departments are increasingly converging towards innovative actions in favor of employer branding and recruitment to attract young graduates. To measure the relevance of these recent strategies adopted, HR dashboards are also evolving. An in-depth focus on the HR indicators (KPIs) to monitor.  

Improving and analyzing recruitment performance through marketing tools

HR marketing in service of recruitment

Today, recruiting Generation Z is more akin to a charm offensive. Gone are the lengthy processes punctuated by a succession of linear stages. The share dedicated to recruitment is increasingly weighing on budgets, as this HR aspect is perceived as strategic. To monitor the relevance of this allocation, the HR dashboard is expanding with new KPIs, sometimes bordering on those of marketing and communication.

Measuring the attractiveness of sourcing campaigns

A technique inspired by the approach of inbound marketing, Pull campaigns aim to attract so-called passive candidates. The goal? Bring talents to their career site through a content strategy: in-depth articles on industry challenges, practical guides, interview assistance, video series—all backed by SEO. In terms of KPIs, drawing inspiration from marketing is sufficient:

• Inbound traffic to the career site and number of views per page
• Specifically on the blog: number of views and bounce rate per article to identify topics and formats that work (videos, written articles, podcasts...)
• Number of spontaneous applications submitted via the career site.

Push campaigns, on the other hand, are impactful operations with targeted actions to capture key skills, scarce profiles, or meet specific needs (recruitment for a project, development of a career field, etc.). The favorite lever of communicators, social media campaigns (Snapchat, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter, Github...) are now the prerogative of recruiters. The advantage? A easily measurable return on investment (ROI) as the social network provides tools for measuring sponsored campaigns:

• Number of views
• Number of reactions (likes, shares...)
• Number of clicks on the ad
• Cost per click.

These indicators facilitate the ranking of the most effective social networks based on your objectives and targets (Gen Z, developers, salespeople, etc.). You can proceed similarly on each social network by identifying campaigns that work (formats, messages, channels...).

Analyzing qualifications & conversions

In a multichannel approach, the conversion rate is interesting to identify which channel converts the best: job boards, social networks, career sites, and more broadly forums and fairs, employee referrals, etc. For example, on average, the conversion rate for receiving a resume is between 3 and 7% on job boards.

Then, within each channel, refine the analysis: what is the number of resumes submitted per job posting, per campaign... The goal? Make decisions on budgetary investments, rework the editorial line, or simply the design of an ad.

Another key indicator is the qualification rate. Once the resume is received, what is the relevance of the profile compared to the expressed need? To do this, track the number of qualified applications per open position over a given period. In terms of analysis: if some positions are low in qualifications even though the number of submitted applications is high, perhaps the content of the ad needs to be reworked? Be more specific about the requirements?

Improving candidate experience

Faced with more volatile and demanding younger generations, monitoring the duration of the recruitment process remains fundamental today. For reference, 39% of candidates believe that recruitment processes are long and complex. Here are three key KPIs to improve your candidate experience:

• Candidate response rate. Did you know 65% of candidates never say they never or rarely receive notice about their application. 
• The time between submitting the resume and the first response (negative or positive or personalized). According to CareerBuilder, 66% of job seekers would wait only two weeks for a callback before moving on to other opportunities.
• The average time between submitting a resume and the final step (positive or negative): the more efficient the process, the more points you score.

60% of applicants would like to receive feedback from recruiters, even in case of rejection. Remind those who have taken the time to apply to your offer and ask for their feedback. What better way to optimize the candidate experience? This feedback is rich in lessons to identify bottlenecks in your recruitment pipeline and your employer brand! It may be that the steps are too long, the process poorly organized, or not in line with the target...

Don't forget your internal customers: the business operations that have expressed their need for reinforcements. Be vigilant about the average processing time for a request when a position opens.

Appreciating your employer brand : the test of truth 

72% of candidates who have had a poor candidate experience report having shared that experience online on an employer review site or social site, or directly with a professional or personal contact. In the era of e-reputation, tracking what is said about you and understanding how you are perceived is essential.

Monitor employer brand reputation

No need to be very original, just "hack" marketing monitoring indicators. How? By following the number of mentions and content written about your employer brand and HR image on Google, Glassdoor, or LinkedIn. You can use certain tools such as:

• Mention, to receive real-time information about what the internet thinks of you.
• Talkwalker, which analyzes all comments and consumer reviews in 187 languages.
• Rankur, a site specialized in corporate e-reputation management, social media monitoring, and data analysis. This service monitors 252 countries and internet user messages in 53 languages.

For your HR showcases on different social networks, measure the progression of followers on your pages and groups, the impressions (views) and reactions per post, and mentions on other accounts.

Analyze the perception of your employer image

To measure the feelings of candidates and employees, rely on rating sites such as Glassdoor or Indeed. 

Quantitative indicators to follow include:

• Percentage of recommendations
• Overall rating out of 5
• Percentage of people who approve of the CEO
• On interviews, it's also possible to have a rating of the candidate experience

These quantitative items are necessary... but not sufficient. To go further, it's about coupling them with qualitative reviews. Through semantic analysis, you can identify trends, positive points, or areas of caution.

Monitoring employee engagement to improve your employer brand

57% of Gen Z do not envision staying in the same company if it does not meet their expectations. To avoid falling into the statistics of "The Great Resignation," as Rick Wartzman put it, it's better to anticipate using a few key internal indicators.

Read more in our 2023 career barometer

Appreciate the impact of onboarding

Just 38% of new employees who have worked at a company for less than six months plan to stay at their organization for three or more years. Onboarding remains a pivot of the employee experience: good integration increases by 58% the rate of new recruits who stay at least three years within the company.

How to measure its impact? By following the percentage of new recruits still in position a year later, for example (compared to recruits who did not undergo onboarding).

Understand and refine turn-over 

The turnover rate remains a must-have of the HR dashboard. Within the inter-generational company and in the face of societal trends, some adjustments are necessary to more finely understand it. For example, should it be adapted to the sector (digital, ESN, industry...), to the different professions internally, and segmented by population (seniors, Millennials...)?

Indeed, if we take the example of the younger generations, their average time spent in a company is 2 years, and as mentioned earlier, they indicate that they will leave their company within two years. For them, the turnover rate will therefore likely be higher regardless of internal factors.

Measure employee engagement

It's a complex and very individual notion, yet certain indicators facilitate its decoding:

• The NPS (Net Promoter Score) allows knowing how many employees recommend the company to their network. They just have to answer on a scale of 0 to 10 to the following question: "Would you recommend your company as a pleasant place to work?"
• The average level of engagement itself can be assessed through regular internal surveys. Pulse surveys, in particular, are recurring, very short questionnaires that, over a given period, allow for identifying trends. A good way to anticipate risky periods, teams in difficulty, or items to work on (meaning, cohesion, culture, compensation...). The all-in-one platform Supermood allows for continuous listening to employees.

Monitor well-being and quality of life at work

In addition to engagement surveys, the absenteeism rate and the number of sick leaves must be closely monitored. If you have launched initiatives in favor of health prevention (sport, listening cell, relaxation, training on psychosocial risks...), it might be interesting to calculate the absenteeism rate before/after. One of the things to watch closely will be feedback on workload, managers... These are among the elements that can lead to burnout at work.

Similarly, the pulse surveys, mentioned above, can cover a specific item on conditions and quality of life at work. A way to gather qualitative information and QVT trends. Note that labels such as Bcorp and GreatPlacetoWork, thanks to their regular external surveys, report on working conditions within companies.

No doubt, the HR dashboard contains a wide range of KPIs to follow. However, the challenge is not to adopt all of them at all costs! But rather to pick indicators in line with your priority objectives in order to effectively steer your budgetary decisions.

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