Time to hire, cost to hire, attrition rate. There are plenty of really comprehensive lists of HR and hiring metrics available online. But are we using them to measure what matters? Do metrics such as employee turnover or length of service tell us the full story? Or are we simply assessing the success of our own graduate recruitment processes?
Not all hiring metrics are equal
As we’ve found through our own research, all recruitment metrics are not equal. Diversity in hiring is one of many important assessment outcomes that really does influence business success. From our own assessment data, and our work with clients, we’ve highlighted three of the most impactful metrics here:
Diversity of hiring: A process that is fair, inclusive and free from bias are the foundations. By analysing factors including performance in role and readiness for promotion, and viewing it alongside demographic data, we can maximise positive business outcomes and minimise adverse impact.
Potential for performance: There are other indicators of potential, other than getting through to the next stage of the assessment process or doing a job well! Line mangers might rate team members highly if they keep their head down in the first year. However, people who have good conceptual thinking or question the way things are done may be more difficult to manage but tend to get promoted more readily.
Staying power: This is often considered as a too-hard-to-measure metric because of the time lag. What we need to know is: What is the profile of people who are a good role and organisational fit and stay with the business?
Ideas for talent assessments that make a real business impact
Historically the metrics that were easy to measure are typically those that measured the performance of recruitment. But, even if it is, you might still not be making the best decisions. You can get a short time to hire by making poor decisions or you can generate high application numbers with poor-fit candidates.
But if your process is working well at the organisational level, you’ll improve traditional recruitment metrics anyway as result. When we work with clients, we try to get them thinking about a range of business outcomes and we work this back to assessment design.
For example, you might want to consider:
- Diversity of hiring
- Offer ratios
- Quality of hire
- Level of potential
- Retention rate
- Progression through the organisation
- Candidate experience
In our Assessment Insights paper, we pose some questions in a workbook format that you can use to shape your thinking about what you really want to get out of your assessment process.
Find out more
At Sova, we have recently launched a new Community platform, for those working within the HR, talent and recruitment space to network and stay up to date on the latest developments within assessment. We also provide free courses, designed to help raise the bar of assessment, which focus on topics such as the future of digitalised assessment and how to make fairer, more equitable decisions about talent. Sign up to the Community to get started.
Alternatively, if you’d like to talk through a specific issue you are facing with your early talent recruitment or discover how we can help you measurer the things that count, please get in touch via email or our website.