Outbound recruiting has not let up in this time of the recession. With increasing pressure to meet targets, in tighter timelines than ever before, like you, most recruiters are turning to outbound recruiting as the one-stop solution to hire the right folks.

Lost in your daily tasks and quarterly goals, you miss out on keeping track of your efforts. This is simply because you’re spending so much of your time on outbound — identifying suitable candidates, building a talent pipeline, drafting messaging templates, and outreach timelines. However, keeping track of the metrics to measure the success of your outbound recruiting efforts is key to impactful recruiting in the long scheme of things. 

Here’s why you should keep track of outbound recruiting metrics

• Identify bottlenecks where the recruitment process is not working as effectively, so you can make tweaks and adjustments to month-on-month strategy 
• Establish a pattern over a longer time period, to identify trends, make better predictions and log in to work with a peace of mind
• Easily convey the value of your recruiting efforts to leadership/stakeholders, so you can justify why you need the resources that you do

Let’s always remember that the most important part of recruiting isn’t speed. It’s cognition. It’s awareness. It’s longevity. And to get it right, you’ll need to spend some time to really zoom out, and measure the fruit of your labour.

Here are the 6 ways to measure the success of outbound recruiting efforts

Diversity and Inclusion Metrics

Thumb rule of recruiting: You’ve got to remember that there’s a unique person behind every outreach that you do. This is usually lost in the process of chasing targets. And that unique person is going to add a whole lot of value to the company, not only because of their skills, but because of their identity as a whole. 

That’s why diversity and inclusion in your hiring processes becomes the most important factor. Tracking metrics such as gender, race, ethnicity, and age, and ensuring you’re bringing in a diverse team with different perspectives adds incredible value to the business. 

Candidate Engagement Metrics

You’re spending so much time on just reaching out to every eligible candidate that you don’t really take into account the kind of responses in return. Tracking response rates, follow-up interactions, and the channels that get the highest engagement, is recommended to understand how impactful your recruitment strategy is.

What’s more, tracking candidate engagement metrics can help you identify and prioritise candidates who are most likely to be a good fit to the team. For example, candidates who are highly engaged with recruitment messaging on your brand’s social media channels are more likely to be a good cultural fit for the organisation.

Time-to-Fill

‍Simply put, this is the amount of time it takes to fill a job opening from the time it is posted to the time a candidate is hired. 

If this is longer than industry averages, it may indicate that your business is having difficulty finding qualified candidates or that the recruitment process is too lengthy. In a highly competitive job market, top talent may receive multiple job offers, and a long time-to-fill can lead to the loss of a highly qualified candidate to a competitor. If time-to-fill is consistently longer for certain job positions or departments, you may need to adjust their recruitment strategy or increase your hiring efforts in those areas.

Cost Per Hire

This is the total cost of filling a job opening, including recruitment advertising, recruiter salaries, and other recruitment expenses, divided by the total number of hires made. 

By tracking cost per hire, you can identify areas where you may be overspending on recruitment efforts and make cost-saving adjustments. You can determine which channels are most cost-effective for attracting qualified candidates. This can help businesses make wary decisions about where to allocate their recruitment budget to get the best return on investment. 

Referral Rates

The number of candidates referred by current employees. 

This is a metric that’s often sidetracked, but it’s a crucial one to keep track of. This is because a high referral rate can indicate that your org’s employee satisfaction is optimal, since referrals are often made by current employees who are satisfied with their jobs and are willing to recommend the company to others.

Talent Pipeline Metrics

This is the total number of candidates who are actively engaged in the recruitment process and have the potential to become future hires, including candidates who have applied for a job opening, as well as those who have expressed interest in future opportunities.

With this metric, you can identify areas where you may need to improve their recruitment process, such as optimising job descriptions, improving candidate engagement, or streamlining the application process.

This can also help companies plan for future hiring needs. By maintaining a robust talent pipeline, companies can ensure that they have a pool of qualified candidates to draw from at any point in time. This can help to reduce the time-to-fill for job openings and ensure that your company has perennial access to the best talent.

Bonus: With Kula, you can access all the metrics in one snapshot. Book a demo!