Building a recruitment dashboard: How to upgrade your talent acquisition strategy in 3 easy steps

A signature on the dotted line used to be the only thing that counted when it came to successful recruiting. But times change! What matters today is attracting the right talent that sticks with your company for the long haul. Only then can your HR team give itself a pat on the back. 

Unfortunately, optimizing your talent acquisition strategy can be easier said than done. To fully understand what’s working and what isn’t, you’ll need to rely on data to do the talking. Choosing and tracking the right recruitment analytics are the only foolproof ways to boost your employer brand, target top talent and boost your retention. 

In this article, we’ll look at what recruitment metrics are and how to set up your recruitment dashboard in 3 easy steps. 

What are recruitment metrics? 

Think of recruitment metrics as a magnifying glass – they allow you to zoom in on certain areas of your recruitment process. For example, if you’re trying to evaluate your employer branding efforts, a well-set-up recruitment dashboard can give you an overview of how candidates perceive your company throughout the entire process. You’ll also know exactly which areas of your talent acquisitions strategy need improvement, optimizing your process and driving both retention and cost-efficiency. 

In fact, a Deloitte report found that 71% of companies consider people analytics a high priority. This shows that, in a market where candidates have the upper hand, and companies are competing fiercely for top talent, a well-structured recruitment dashboard is valuable currency. 

While there are many metrics to choose from, most companies rely on these recruitment KPIs to measure their recruitment process:

- Source of candidates: which hiring platform is sourcing the most candidates 
- Number of applicants: how many qualified applicants are applying for each opening 
- Time to hire: the length of the hiring process
- Cost per hire: the internal and external costs associated with hiring
- Quality of hire: how does the new hire compare to previous hires 
- Retention: how long are you retaining your employees for 
- Applicant-to-hire ratio: how many applicants and interview processes are required to fill the position

Which ones you should choose to focus on depends on the size of your company and how many open positions you are looking to fill at a given time. 

Building your recruitment dashboard in 3 easy steps

Now that we’re on the same page about why your company should make use of recruitment analytics, it’s time to start laying the groundwork. But how do you even get started building your recruitment dashboard? 

Let’s get into it.

1. Gather data, data, and more data

Obviously, nailing your recruitment analysis without data is going to be difficult. Therefore, you need to gather the analytics relevant to all aspects of your recruitment process and integrate them into a dashboard that can provide reliable insight at one glance. To speed up this process it’s worth thinking about investing in talent acquisition software like Talmundo that automates this process for you. 

Before you get started, here’s a couple of things to keep in mind. 

→ Figure out what you want to know 

Ask yourself the following questions: What do I want to know? What data do I need to draw the right conclusions? How do I best collect this data? To avoid biting off more than you can chew, start with one recruitment analytic and work your way to other ones. 

→ Set up a data structure and be consistent 

Once you’ve chosen the first recruitment metric, decide how to consistently track data. Figure out what data points you need and register them consistently in a data set. Without consistency, you won’t be able to draw comparisons, meaning your hard work will be wasted. 

→ Remember that everything doesn’t have to happen all at once 

Being critical about the quality of your data is a good thing – but remember that Rome wasn’t built in a day. It’s better to focus your time on fewer recruitment analytics (and collect and register data properly) than to choose them all, set up a sloppy data structure and be left with insights you can’t take at face value. 

2. Measure the candidate attraction process 

If you want to gradually improve your talent acquisition strategy, it’s time to take a look at your employer branding. How do potential candidates perceive your company? Do they see it as a great place to work? How long does it take to fill an open position? Your recruitment analysis can help you figure out the answers and reveal if your talent acquisition needs a revamp. 

These are the boxes you’ll need to check during this process:

→ Look over your website with a fine-toothed comb

Study your website closely to answer the following questions: How many people are looking at your website or career page at a given point? Which positions are they most interested in? Are you keeping your information up-to-date and relevant for job seekers? 

→ Assess the channels you use 

If you want to improve your employer brand, it’s important to get familiar with the ways you attempt to connect with job seekers: Which channels are people engaging with? How many clicks do your job listings get? Do people interact with your content? 

→ Examine your applicant-to-hire ratio 

Your applicant-to-hire ratio can say a lot about your employer brand. If you need 100 applications to get a qualified hire every time, or a lot of people are prematurely dropping out of the application process, you can safely assume that something about your talent acquisition strategy isn’t working. 

→ Evaluate what else needs to be done 

After you’ve checked the first three boxes, it’s time to decide what the next steps should be. Let’s say you’ve realized that you need over 100 applicants to find a qualified candidate. It might be worth examining the status quo of your cost-to-hire to outline how much this prolonged recruitment process is costing you. Then, you can look out for other recruiting channels that may be both more cost-efficient and popular with job seekers. For example, as 65 million people use LinkedIn to search for jobs every week, this channel would probably be worthwhile for your company to explore if you’re doing so already.

3. Continue reassessing your people processes even after a new hire has joined the company 

Picture this: You’ve found the perfect candidate for an open position. The onboarding process is going smoothly and you’re happy with the first steps they’ve taken in the role. That means you can stop thinking about your talent acquisition strategy. It must be a success, right? Not quite. It’s worth remembering that your recruitment process doesn’t actually stop until your employee has reached full productivity in your company, which can take up to a year. 

Just because you’ve hired a couple of great employees doesn’t mean you should stop optimizing your recruiting for the success of your company in the future. Instead, continue to reassess what your recruitment dashboard needs to report on the full picture of your talent process. 

To achieve this, keep the following in mind: 

 → Evaluate your onboarding process 

How successful your onboarding process is can greatly impact how long it takes for your employee to reach full productivity, as well as how long they stay working at your company. It’s worth doing a full audit of your current journey to highlight which aspects need to be improved or should be automated. Once you’ve done so, employee onboarding software like Talmundo can completely revamp your employee onboarding experience.

→ Assess your response time  

As response time can make or break the way that potential hires view your recruitment process, you need to be aware of how long your recruiters are taking to respond to applicants. Weeks of waiting for rejections or interview invitations can cause annoyance and deter candidates from applying for open positions in the future. 

→ Automate your recruitment dashboard to increase retention 

Once your employees have been fully integrated into your organization, you should keep collecting data to provide insight into their development within the company. That way you’ll know exactly how you’re doing in terms of retaining employees over long periods. To significantly save time, it’s worth investing in a tool that can fully automate this process for enhanced results. 

The takeaway

The right recruitment analytics are a valuable tool for your company. If you want to improve your hiring efforts and outcompete other companies for top talent, setting up a comprehensive recruitment dashboard by collecting data, measuring candidate attraction and continued reassessment is a must. Only then can you determine what process is working, what needs tweaking and what should be replaced for better results. 

However, to understand the full picture, the right software to do the heavy lifting is key. Talmundo's integrated talent acquisition tool allows you to fully enhance the hiring performance of your company. By offering tailored recruitment dashboards and analytics, you can easily report on aspects of your hiring, target the right candidates with ease, and optimize your recruitment budget allocation. 

Ready to take your recruiting strategy to the next level? Explore Talmundos integrated Talent Acquisition software today.