Identify the most important key performance indicators (KPIs) staffing businesses need to track and learn how to leverage them to measure and boost productivity

As the staffing industry adjusts to the new, remote normal, it is now more crucial than ever that staffing and consulting businesses are able to effectively measure the performance of sales reps, recruiters, account managers, etc.

Before we get into what key performance indicators staffing businesses need to track, it will be useful to understand who is the ideal person to monitor the KPIs and who you should be sharing the key performance indicators with.

Who tracks the Key Performance Indicators?

Key performance indicators need to be tracked from the top to the bottom of the organization: C-suite, VP, director, branch manager, and finally recruiting and sales managers.

KPIs should not be mandated. They should ideally be an organic part of the organization and embedded in the fabric of the staffing organization itself. 

If KPIs are being challenged by the sales teams or recruiters, you need to find out what is going wrong and explore what can be done to align your teams and KPIs. 

Who to share Key Performance Indicators with

Staffing businesses also need to be transparent about the key performance indicators. One of the most important things staffing companies need to do is share their KPIs with their clients!

If a client is taking too long to hire a candidate after an interview, or if there is a trend of too many candidates being rejected, you need to communicate the metrics with the client. By sharing the metrics, you can work with the client on improving the process and removing any inconsistencies.

You can also help them understand what the industry standard for success is, and you can help them to make sure they are measuring that.

Lastly, there are new technologies that can help staffing businesses track key performance indicators with detailed metrics. 

An AI-powered Applicant Tracking System (ATS) can help you make better submissions and improve the overall quality of hire. Video has also become a very important tool for staffing businesses. For instance, the ability to carry out video interviews is one of the easiest ways to improve the quality of hiring.

And without further ado, here are the top six key performance indicators a staffing business needs to track to remain competitive in the post-Covid world.

Top 6 key performance indicators to measure staffing productivity

1. Time to Hire

Before Covid-19, IT unemployment was at 1 to 2 percent. IT unemployment went up to 5% after the pandemic. It’s clear that there is still incredible demand in the market and short supply.

The time-to-hire key performance indicator can be broken down into much more specific actions and processes: submission to interview and interview to hire.

The submission to interview KPI will tell you how quickly your customer is moving. You must share this KPI with the client so you can work with them on improving the process. This will also help you understand which customers are better for your business and which aren’t.

2. Quality of Hire

The quality of hire is crucial for all staffing and recruiting businesses. Be it agency, corporate, or retail recruiting, setting the right benchmarks for candidate quality is an important key performance indicator for everyone.

To measure the quality of hire, the company needs to track all the variables between hiring and termination.

You must keep an eye out for negative trends. When you identify a problem, you must first check for internal issues, problems with processes and teams. You can then check external issues including negative trends at the customers’ end.
Also, with video interviews now becoming mainstream, it is crucial that you deploy video to improve the quality of hire. By improving the quality of hiring using video, you can instantly improve your quality of hire KPI.

3. Candidate Sourcing

Sourcing is vital to staffing companies. We have an unlimited amount of sources: Job boards, Linkedin, social media, sourcing partners, etc.

It is important for any staffing business to diversify sourcing and spread it across different media. The most crucial step any staffing business can take is to leverage social media for sourcing candidates.
You also need to track where you are getting the most submissions, interviews, and the best candidates. Once you know which channel works for you, you can start focusing more on it.

4. Cost per Hire

Leaders of staffing companies need to look at all end-to-end expenses: recruiters, salespersons, software, staff, infrastructure, etc. when evaluating cost per hire. They need to figure out the burden on the company by adding all the costs including payroll, overhead expenses, etc.

Salespersons and recruiters also need to know what the cost per hire is, so this key performance indicator needs to be transparent.

5. Candidate Pipeline

A good candidate pipeline is extremely important for any staffing business. When a customer hires a staffing company, they are looking for quick access to qualified candidates.
The customers expect the recruiters to have already established relationships with numerous candidates that have experience and that have already been vetted.

A staffing company must always maintain a list of ‘most placeable candidates. So when someone comes in with a requirement, you can immediately place the MPC who is a known quantity. You could also share lists of most placeable candidates with your clients to proactively create opportunities.

It is also important to use the right tools. An ATS or a Candidate Tracking System can help you build this pipeline and increase speed to market.

6. Offer to Acceptance

A vital element in the staffing business, offer to acceptance is a crucial key performance indicator. 

Staffing businesses always try to retain their workers, and to do so successfully, they must first understand what drives the candidates. Failure to do so can increase rejection rates.

You can leverage an ATS to help you do this. If you see rejection go up, you can check internal processes to identify the issues. You could then go to the customer to find out the root of the problem. 

If the pay rates are too low, you can negotiate with the customer and decrease the experience required to match the budget.

Also, engagement with candidates is now more crucial than ever. You need to understand why a candidate rejected an offer and try to change your processes to improve acceptance rates. 

After Covid-19, rejections have been low as people wanted to hold on to their jobs in an uncertain business environment. But these will start to increase once people feel the market is healthy. 

So it’s vital to track the offer-to-acceptance KPI and communicate it with all the stakeholders.

We will evaluate each of the key performance indicators in detail, explore their meaning in the context of staffing, and learn how tracking these KPIs can save you vast amounts of time, effort, and resources.

As a CXO, recruiter, or HR manager, one key task on your plate is to find and leverage a great Applicant Tracking System (ATS). This article on the ATS evaluation toolkit will help you learn how to analyze pricing, features, integrations, security, support while buying an ATS.

An ATS is an essential component of a recruiter’s arsenal to find and hire stellar talent. Obtaining a highly intuitive and feature-rich ATS will make your job much easier. On the other hand, investing in a poorly-performing or confusing ATS is not only likely to cause headaches, but may also cause your company to lose out on opportunities. 

That being said, the actual process of buying an ATS isn’t necessarily straightforward. There are all different kinds of ATS software on the market today. Along with this, ATS systems may offer different pricing. For as great as a particular ATS may be, it simply may not be an option if it is out of your company’s price range.

 

A Novice’s Journey to Evaluating an Applicant Tracking System

 

Pricing

To start this guide on buying an ATS, we first want to discuss pricing. In some other guides, you may see pricing as the last variable that you should consider. We believe, however, that pricing is one of the most important variables because it directly affects the types of features that you can find in your ATS. In other words, the sleekest and best possible features won’t mean much if you can’t afford the ATS that has those features. 

So in terms of pricing, you will find that ATS subscriptions start at free and go up to hundreds of thousands of dollars per year. That being said, typical ATS subscriptions range from $25 to $250 per user per month.

Annualized, this comes out to $300 to $3000 per user per year. This is just the average range, however. There are some ATS plans that go for as low as $15 per user per month while others eclipse $500 per user per month.

As you can see, the specific price of your ATS is often correlated with the number of users or employees that you’ll have. However, you’ll want to read the fine print and understand how your targeted ATS is calculating the total price.

Some other ATS programs charge based on things like the number of active positions or job openings and available features. There are then other ATS vendors that charge a flat monthly or yearly rate. 

The good news for you is that there are plenty of options. Often, the best thing to do is to start with your budget and then create a shortlist of ATS candidates. By doing it this way, you can substantially increase the odds that you’ll find an ATS that is within your budget.

Nonetheless, the fees listed above are just the costs of subscribing to the ATS. You may find yourself paying other fees like data migration fees and onboarding charges. Keep this in mind as you are reviewing your shortlist. Next, in this ATS evaluation toolkit is ATS features.

 

Features

Let’s delve into the diverse attributes available in various Applicant Tracking System (ATS) software. When conducting an ATS evaluation, pricing and the spectrum of features should be your main focus points. Given the multitude of ATS providers available, you’ll observe nuanced differences among them; however, most have common key functionalities, including:

• Customizable Career Page: Superior ATS software provides the flexibility to create and tailor your own career page. As this page creates one of the first impressions candidates gain about your organization, it’s imperative it reflects your brand identity and is sleek and refined.

• User-friendly Application Process: The application procedure facilitated by your ATS should be straightforward for candidates applying for open roles. A complex, hard-to-navigate ATS can deter potentially outstanding job applicants, impacting candidate engagement adversely.

• Streamlined Application Review: Depending on your organization’s scale, you might receive hundreds, if not thousands, of applications for a single role. Your ATS should simplify the application review process, effectively pushing the most promising candidates through your recruitment pipeline. This can encompass tools ranging from interview schedulers to tools facilitating collaboration with hiring managers.

• Resume Storage and Candidate Search: An exceptional ATS should come equipped with a comprehensive resume storage and candidate search system, enabling you to build a rich pool of potential candidates for future reference and sourcing.
• Comprehensive Analytics: Evaluating an applicant tracking system, the presence of detailed analytics proves invaluable. It gives you insights into how candidates interact with your ATS. A user-friendly dashboard allows quick access to understand which job posts are generating interest (or lack thereof) amongst your applicant base. Armed with this data, you can modify your job post wording to attract more high-caliber applicants.

These are just some of the features that you’ll likely want to note when thinking about how to buy an ATS. Therefore, make sure that you carefully study the ATS on your shortlist. Ensure that they not only have these features but other features that will help you recruit and filter through great candidates. Next in this ATS evaluation toolkit, let us look into integrations.

 

Integration 

Next, let’s talk about integrations. For as many features as an ATS may have, it may not be a great choice if it is time-consuming and/or expensive to integrate within your current technology stack. 

The simple fact is that ATS is just one part of any business’s recruiting and hiring process. Because of this, the last thing you want is for your ATS to slow down—or disrupt entirely—your recruiting procedures. 

The best way to go about this is to first take stock of the current recruiting and HR tools that you use. From there, take a hard look at the ATS applications on your shortlist and see if they offer integrations with those recruiting and HR tools. For instance, your organization may use tools like Salesforce, Paychex, and Indeed.

Whatever the case may be, you need to ensure that your ATS seamlessly works with your current stack. If not, you should seriously consider an investment in another ATS. You’ll also want to ensure that your ATS has integrations for tools that you think you may use. For example, if your organization is thinking of switching from Paychex to Ceridian soon, ensure that your ATS has integrations for all potential products that you’ll use in the next few months or years. This will save you from massive headaches down the road.

You can refer to  Oorwin Marketplace for more details. Moving forward in this ATS evaluation toolkit, let us look into ATS installation.

 

Installation

We alluded to this in the features section, but it is worth speaking about in more detail. When thinking about how to buy an ATS, you need to complete some due diligence on installation. 

The unfortunate reality is that some ATS applications are more difficult to implement than others. Whenever you are installing an ATS, you’ll follow a simple three-step process. That process is customizing your system, importing relevant data, and then inviting your colleagues to the ATS. It seems relatively straightforward, yet there are some that are difficult to install.

The natural question is what ATS vendors make the installation process much more difficult than it should be. While we don’t want to single out any names, the best way to find out is to speak with current or former customers of an ATS.

By seeking out these referrals and having candid conversations, you’ll quickly discover which ones are easy to install and which ones aren’t.

 

Security

You must also consider security when buying an ATS. This is true when purchasing any type of software, but this is especially true here. This is because any ATS handles confidential applicant data.

This can be everything from an applicant’s home address to their phone number. Any data breach, no matter how small, can severely harm your company’s applicants and your company’s reputation. In all likelihood, great applicants will apply somewhere else.

So when considering an ATS, take some time to understand how the ATS protects user data. Also, see if the ATS has reliable service and maintenance. Hackers and bad actors are working around the clock to obtain valuable user data, so you need to ensure that your ATS takes security seriously. Again, one way to tell is to speak with current or former users of your target ATS.

This is a great way to get beyond the marketing copy and truly understand whether a particular ATS invests in security. Moving forward in this ATS evaluation toolkit, let us look into the final parameter: Support.

 

Support

Finally, you need to make sure the ATS vendor provides round-the-clock technical support to instantly resolve any issues you might face while using the tool.

Checking reviews in industry-leading publications and reading online customer reviews is one of the easiest ways to find out how the vendor fares when it comes to customer support.

You should also ask the vendor if they are willing to develop features and functionalities tailored to your needs and to make your user experience better. If the vendor leaps to grab the opportunity to work with you on developing custom features, you know you’ve found your match.

 

Choosing the Right ATS

Ultimately, this question of how to buy an ATS is relatively straightforward. By focusing on the five factors that we discussed above, you and your colleagues will be in an excellent position to choose the best ATS for you.

Finally, if you just started the hunt or have been looking for an ATS for some time, we recommend that you check out Oorwin ATS. 

Oorwin is an integrated ATS, CRM, and HRMS that helps solve many business problems with no hassle.

We provide one platform for many of your business needs, which can help you save both time and money. To learn more about our company and how we can help you, you can check out our official website.

 

Frequently Asked Questions

What is candidate engagement in ATS evaluation?

It refers to assessing how well an applicant tracking system facilitates interaction and communication with candidates, improving their experience and engagement throughout the hiring process.

How is evaluating an applicant tracking system beneficial?

Evaluating an ATS helps determine its effectiveness in managing recruitment processes, enhancing candidate engagement, and ensuring seamless integration with other HR tools, improving overall operational efficiency.

What factors are considered in ATS evaluation?

Factors include ease of use, customization features, integration capabilities, reporting analytics, candidate engagement tools, customer support quality, and cost-effectiveness.

Why is candidate engagement vital when evaluating an applicant tracking system?

Candidate engagement is crucial as it can influence a candidate’s perception of your organization, affect application completion rates, and ultimately impact your ability to attract top talent.

Recruitment automation refers to the use of technology to automate tasks in the recruitment process. This can include sourcing candidates, screening resumes and job applications, scheduling and conducting interviews, and hiring new employees. A recruitment automation system will be essential in helping organizations find, attract, and recruit top talent efficiently.

Recruitment automation can be carried out using various tools, such as applicant tracking systems (ATS), which can manage job postings, resumes, and other recruitment-related data. 

Purpose of Recruiting Automation

Recruitment automation aims to make the recruitment process more efficient and effective by reducing the amount of manual work involved and allowing recruiters to focus on higher-level tasks, such as evaluating candidates and building relationships with clients. Recruiting automation can also help ensure fairness and consistency in the recruitment process by standardizing tasks and providing objective measures of candidates’ abilities.

Enhancing Recruitment Process

Recruiting top talent is crucial for propelling innovation. It is no longer enough to find suitable candidates, which might we add, has become a feat by itself. Recruiters must rely on something other than the candidate to show off their skills to win a job opportunity. Passive and social hiring strategies make attracting and engaging talent just as important.

The increasing pressure on companies to attract and hire ideal job candidates demand an enhanced hiring process and practices. Recruitment automation rises to the challenge.

Ensuring Efficiency When Recruiting at Scale

Corporate job offers attract 250 resumes on average. Of those 250, four to six get called for an interview, and only one gets the job, according to a Glassdoor report.

The sheer amount of information about candidates, from online profiles to inbound resumes, tests the ability to recruit teams to process. Most hiring teams don’t have enough time to adequately source, assess, and screen candidates.Recruiting automation systems can help companies analyze candidate data quickly to help them make better decisions, fast. 

Retaining Competitive Advantage

A while ago, we would have said recruitment automation was inevitable for companies looking to increase their competitive advantage in hiring. That is no longer the case.

Today, a candidate’s hiring experience is just as necessary as the process. This calls for automating mundane and repetitive tasks so that the recruiters can focus on more quality tasks.

As more and more companies use Automation in their hiring process, several others are adopting it to stay up-to-date and relevant to retain their competitive advantage.

Eliminating Bias

Unconscious bias continues to be on top of the minds of talent acquisition leaders. Recruiters believe the most significant barrier to hiring diverse talent lies in the sourcing and qualification process.

Recruitment automation systems can address this challenge. Companies can work around unconscious bias by adding a layer between recruiters and candidates in processing applications. 

Benefits of Recruitment Automation System for Staffing Firms

Ease of Gathering Data

Automation can help capture and organize data about job candidates, such as resumes, job applications, and interview notes. This can make it easier to search and filter through candidates and track recruitment efforts’ progress.

Save Time

Automation can save time by automating tasks such as scheduling interviews, sending emails and messages, and posting job openings. This can allow staffing firms to focus on more high-level tasks.

Increased Efficiency

Automation can increase efficiency by streamlining and standardizing recruitment processes. For example, an automated system can ensure that all candidates are asked the same questions during an interview, which can help with fairness and consistency in the selection process.

Ease of Recruitment

Automation can also help with recruitment efforts by posting job openings on various job boards and social media platforms and reaching out to potential candidates through email or other means. This can help staffing firms expand their pool of qualified talents.

Steps of Recruitment Automation

The steps of recruitment automation can be decided by looking at the recruiting funnel, from job specifications to talent sourcing to the final hiring decision. It supports both candidates and recruiters through the hiring process.

Here is where companies find recruitment automation software the most useful:

• Sourcing – 39.6%
• Candidate qualification – 15.8%
• Interview scheduling – 15.8%
• Engaging candidates – 11.9%
• Team collaboration – 7.9%
• Candidate nurturing – 6.9%

1. Sourcing

Automation can help with sourcing candidates by posting job openings on various job boards and social media platforms and by reaching out to potential candidates through email or other means. This can expand the pool of qualified candidates and make finding the right fit for the job easier.

2. Pre-screening

More than 50% of companies perform background checks to improve the quality of their new hires, according to SHRM. Recruiting Automation can reduce the need for background checks and make it easier to send background checks as needed. 

By deploying AI solutions or automated skill tests, hiring teams can bypass the need to verify a person’s credibility independently. Skills assessments allow candidates to showcase their talent in a real challenge making the results more valuable to a hiring manager than, say, a reference check.

Some tools can scan online databases to verify a candidate’s background information while complying with employee rights and protection. 

3. Screening

Up to 88% of resumes received for a role need to be qualified. A recruiter spends 23 hours on average screening resumes for a single hire. Resume screening is still one of the biggest bottlenecks in recruitment.

Recruiting Automation can help screen candidates by automatically sorting and filtering resumes and applications based on predetermined criteria, such as education, experience, and skills. This can save time and ensure that only the most qualified talents are considered for further evaluation.

4. Assessments

Various types of assessments can be automated, including aptitude tests, personality tests, skills assessments, and knowledge tests. Automated checks can be administered online, which can be convenient for recruiters and allow a larger pool of potential employees to be assessed.

Automated assessments can also ensure fairness and consistency in recruitment by providing standardized and objective measures of candidates’ abilities. This can be particularly useful when evaluating a large number of candidates or when hiring for roles that require specific skills or knowledge.

5. Scheduling

Recruitment automation system can track the progress of candidates’ applications in the hiring process. Some systems can automatically place successful applicants into open interview slots with the help of a pre-built scheduling module capable of syncing with the schedule of all line managers.

This is a great way to make the best use of time and fill up slots with candidates across a shorter period to allow a more precise and accurate comparison of their interview performance. Recruiters can also send automated reminders to keep candidates up-to-date on the next steps, like upcoming scheduled interviews and assessments due. This, in turn, makes the candidates more prepared for the forthcoming steps.

6. Nurturing

Candidate nurturing is an essential aspect of building and maintaining an employer brand. Employer branding is a company’s ability to promote and differentiate its identity to prospective employees. Everything that companies do (and don’t) adds to the candidate’s experience with the company.

It is, therefore, essential to maintain a relationship with candidates throughout the entire hiring process. Recruitment automation makes way for candidate nurturing tools that allow companies to engage candidates through email automation.

A lot of communication between recruiters and candidates can be automated to ensure that candidates stay informed about the updates and are engaged in the hiring process. Automated email flows hire the candidates throughout the hiring process, so they maintain interest in the position.

Introducing Oorwin’s automation-ready ATS

For companies that recruit frequently, applicant tracking systems (ATS) and recruiting software solutions are also beneficial. These systems with recruiting automation are likely to become increasingly popular as they allow companies to track and monitor the progress of their recruitment process quickly.

Oorwin’s intelligent ATS can automatically harvest resumes, screen candidates, test applicants, schedule interviews, manage the hiring process, check references, and complete new-hire paperwork. With Oorwin ATS, you can reduce your time to hire by 70% and the cost per hire by 60%.

Sign up for a free trial today to explore all the fantastic features Oorwin offers.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is recruitment automation?

Recruitment automation refers to using technology to automate tasks and processes in the recruitment process. This can include sourcing talents, screening resumes and job applications, scheduling and conducting interviews, and hiring new employees.

Why is recruitment automation essential?

Recruitment Automation can help staffing firms save time, reduce costs, and improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the recruitment process.

What are the benefits of recruiting automation systems?

The benefits are it improves the consistency and quality of hiring, increases the HR team’s productivity by reducing the workload, saves time, increases the open positions’ social reach, improves recruitment tactics, streamlines the gathering of data, and enables businesses to locate the best people.

4 Major Challenges Service Companies Face with Talent Sourcing

The acquisition of top talent is a critical aspect of organizational success, and it remains a challenge for companies of all sizes, from small startups to multinational corporations. Recruiting the right talent is particularly difficult for technology and product-based firms, making it one of the most challenging aspects of human resources.

To overcome challenges faced in talent acquisition, companies often rely on consulting and staffing firms, as well as a vast network of recruitment vendors and sub-vendors. However, identifying and attracting the right candidates remains a persistent hurdle, requiring a strategic approach that leverages cutting-edge technologies and innovative recruitment methods.

Despite the challenges, organizations that are able to successfully navigate the talent acquisition landscape stand to gain a significant competitive advantage. By assembling a world-class team of skilled professionals, companies can drive innovation, improve productivity, and enhance their overall bottom line.

These sourcing agencies are the key activity partners who manage all the recruitment activities. They build candidate networks using social media channels and various other modes. But, today these agencies face a lot of challenges, especially with respect to the sourcing of candidates in the IT industry.

Major Challenges in Sourcing faced by Talent Sourcing Specialists

There is no doubt that the candidate landscape is changing with evolving technologies. Some of the major factors that continue to bother recruiting specialists are as follows:

• Ever-changing candidate base: It is vital for recruitment specialists to understand the job market from time to time. They should keep track of the changing candidate pool and understand the unique needs and desires of Millennials and Baby boomers to deal with them.

• Demand for emerging technology specialists: There has been a jump in technology as new emerging technologies like Artificial Intelligence (AI), ML, NLP, Robotic Process Automation experts are in more demand. There is also more need for Data Scientists and the jump in technology obviously creates a divide majorly at the candidate level and at the talent acquisition specialist’s level. The right approach at this level is a priority.

• An intrinsic need to generate great candidate experience: During the hiring process, it is important for the recruiters to enable a good experience else it creates a negative impact on the branding of the company. Even if a candidate is rejected, the recruiter has to generate a good experience such that it does not impact the future talent pool.
• Emerging trends (AI-based) in recruiting technology: With the changing times and needs, the recruitment sector has seen some automated AI-enabled recruiting solutions gaining importance. Thus, with the technological need at a higher end, recruitment agencies should adopt recruitment solutions leveraging AI to ease the hiring process and to get quality hires faster.

How AI Helps Overcome Challenges with Talent Sourcing

In the age of Artificial Intelligence, sourcing the right talent has become a challenging task for consulting agencies. To overcome the challenges in sourcing, it is crucial for these agencies to be smart in their approach and select candidates with the required skill set and domain expertise. However, this is easier said than done.

Thankfully, the integration of AI-enabled ATS, HRMS, and CRM platforms has revolutionized the recruitment process. With these tools, consulting agencies can easily identify and source the right fit for a particular role. By leveraging AI algorithms, these platforms improve recruiter efficiency and reduce the time to hire by a significant 40%.

In summary, while challenges in sourcing talent persist, the integration of AI-enabled tools provides a powerful solution for consulting agencies to overcome them and achieve success in the competitive talent landscape.

See the Magic of Recruiting with Oorwin Intelligent Integrated ATS, HR, and CRM Platform

Efficiency- Challenges with Talent Sourcing – Oorwin

Frequently Asked Questions

What are the most common challenges faced in talent acquisition?

Some common challenges faced in talent acquisition include a shortage of skilled candidates, high competition for top talent, lengthy recruitment processes, inadequate employer branding, and difficulty in sourcing passive candidates.

How can companies reduce the length of their recruitment process?

Companies can reduce the length of their recruitment process by streamlining their hiring process, leveraging technology to automate repetitive tasks, using data to make informed hiring decisions, and collaborating with hiring managers to set realistic timelines.

How can companies overcome the challenge of a shortage of skilled candidates?

Companies can overcome the shortage of skilled candidates by investing in training and development programs, partnering with educational institutions, expanding their recruitment sources, and creating a positive employer brand.