Measuring hiring success in the tech industry attracts top talent and helps make data-driven decisions. Around 82% of companies consider data crucial for talent acquisition decisions. When improving recruitment processes, minimizing hiring biases or assessing candidates, these metrics offer insights into recruiting effectiveness.
This article looks at some tech hiring metrics, their importance and how to use them for data-driven decision-making and better recruiting.
The Importance of Tracking Hiring Metrics
Tracking hiring metrics can help tech companies to:
- Identify bottlenecks: Tracking and analyzing hiring metrics provides quantitative insights to identify inefficiencies in different stages of the hiring process. For instance, a high cost-per-hire may suggest inefficiencies in sourcing.
- Measure the return on investment: Metrics, such as cost-per-hire, time-to-fill and quality of hire, help companies optimize resource allocation and get a better ROI. For instance, high turnover shortly after hiring may indicate poor candidate fit or inadequate onboarding.
- Make Data-driven decision-making: Using measurable data can reduce errors in hiring decisions and help identify new trends. For instance, analyzing the quality of hire metric helps assess the long-term value new employees bring.
- Improve hiring outcomes and business results overall: Tracking hiring metrics helps align talent acquisition strategies with business goals. For instance, strong employee engagement scores may indicate more productivity.
Key Metrics and KPIs for Tech Hiring
Talent acquisition managers can use hiring KPIs for tech recruitment to retain top talent.
Time-to-Hire
Time-to-hire is the duration between a candidate applying for a job and accepting an offer. It measures the efficiency of a company's recruitment process and indicates how long it takes to hire a candidate successfully, from job application to signed contract. A quick time-to-hire can indicate efficient talent acquisition, while a prolonged one can result in losing good candidates to competitors.
The average time-to-hire across industries is 41 days. For tech roles, this number is 33 days. This length of time is average for recruiters to hire candidates in the USA and Canada.
Tips to improve time-to-hire include:
- Using recruitment tools, such as email automation, streamlines staff recruitment and enhances the candidate experience.
- Collaborating with hiring managers allows for more efficient time management and faster and better hiring decisions.
- Tapping into the connections and networks of existing employees can fill job vacancies within a company faster and get better hiring results.
Quality of Hire
Quality of hire measures the performance and retention of new hires in a company. It assesses how a newly hired employee fits into the company culture, meets the expectations and contributes to its long-term success. QoH also enables data-driven decision-making about hiring processes and strategies and helps identify recruitment bottlenecks.
Managers can determine this metric using the first-year performance rating with the QoH index and the following calculation:
QoH index = Indicator 1 (%) + Indicator 2 (%) + Indicator 3 (%)…etc. / Number of indicators
Recruiters can measure QoH using common metrics, such as job performance, employee engagement, cultural fit, retention and turnover rates. Tech companies can also consider technical skills assessment scores, the candidate's ability to learn and adapt to new technologies and their contributions to open-source projects.
Cost-per-Hire
Cost-per-hire helps track the performance of a company's recruitment and hiring budget. It's the average cost of hiring a new employee and varies depending on the hiring levels. For instance, recruiting entry-level hires may cost the company about 20% of an employee's salary, while the costs may be higher for senior-level and executive-level employees.
A Society for Human Resource Management survey indicated that the average cost to hire an employee is $4,683, while the executive cost per hire can be more than $28,000. Tech positions often have higher cost-per-hire due to competition and specialized skills. Recruiters can calculate this metric using the following formula:
Cost per hire = (Internal recruiting costs + External recruiting costs) / Total number of hires
Internal recruiting includes administrative, hiring manager, training and development, compliance and recruiting staff costs. External recruiting costs include advertising, agency fees, prescreening, background checks, signing bonuses and HR technology and software.
Candidate Experience
Candidate experience refers to the candidate's perception of the potential employer based on the hiring process and experience. It relies on the company and its job application process, from the initial job search to the final stages of interviewing and onboarding. About 58% of candidates report that a positive recruitment experience increases their likelihood of accepting a job offer.
Managers typically measure this through surveys and feedback forms, with calculations using the ratio of positive to negative responses. Some key components of a positive candidate experience include:
- Clear, transparent job descriptions.
- Smooth application process.
- Timely and prompt communication and updates.
- Fair and consistent assessment of skills and experience.
- Constructive feedback highlighting areas of improvement.
- Smooth onboarding experience.
Tech candidates also expect streamlined and digitally advanced recruitment processes, from the ease of use of the job portal to the seamless integration of communication platforms and assessment software.
Using Metrics to Improve Hiring Performance
Companies enhance hiring by reviewing metrics and setting recruitment benchmarks. Leveraging metrics to improve hiring performance involves:
- Identifying relevant metrics: Determining relevant metrics based on hiring goals, such as time-to-hire, cost-per-hire and quality of hire.
- Setting benchmarks: Establishing targets for each metric based on industry standards or historical data can measure progress.
- Collecting and analyzing data: Gathering data on the metrics and analyzing trends to better understand areas for improvement.
- Taking action: Using data-driven insights to make informed decisions and implementing changes to streamline the hiring process.
For instance, recruiters can analyze high time-to-hire data to find bottlenecks, such as extended interviews or inefficient screening. Decreasing time-to-hire can enhance the candidate experience and boost the chances of attracting top talent.
Implementing a Data-Driven Hiring Approach
These are the key aspects of implementing a data-driven hiring approach:
- An applicant tracking system and recruitment analytics tool gathers, stores and analyzes candidate data.
- Specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound, or SMART, goals for recruitment improvements provide a clear roadmap.
- A recruitment dashboard and AI-enabled tools help visualize key metrics and trends.
Elevating the Tech Hiring Process
- Tracking key metrics, such as time-to-hire, cost-per-hire and candidate satisfaction, gives insights into attracting top talent efficiently.
- Expanding metric tracking progressively can optimize every hiring stage.
- Using data smartly through AI and other recruitment tools can improve efficiency.
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