Recruitment analytics are playing an increasingly important role for recruiters and HR managers. With the help of recruitment analytics, you can make better, data-driven choices when it comes to sourcing, selecting and hiring. In the 6-part series, we take you step by step and teach you everything there is to know about recruitment analytics. In part 3 we look at how to create a strong recruitment analytics dashboard.
What is a recruitment dashboard?
A recruitment dashboard is a collection of metrics, key performance indicators (KPI) and reports that give you an overview of the recruitment funnel and the recruitment process. Most important questions are answered visually, providing immediate insights for future recruitment decisions. Visual elements in the form of graphs and charts make it easy to gain insights and therefore allow you to make better decisions.
To build a dashboard you need to export and clean up your data. This is generally quite easy as most recruitment tools offer the ability to export data. Using relevant recruitment metrics, the dashboard paints a clear picture of your recruitment funnel. You can see how many applicants move from one stage to the next, and know which stage to focus on to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of your process.
How to create a recruitment dashboard?
Now you know what a recruitment dashboard is but how do you get started? Here are the three steps to creating a successful dashboard.
1. Why do you want to create a dashboard?
Before you can create a dashboard you need to know exactly what questions you want to be answered. This information may differ between the HR manager and the executive. So consult together. Here are some examples of interesting questions:
- How long does the recruitment process take?
- At what stage do most candidates drop out?
- How many candidates drop out during the entire process?
- How much does it cost to hire a candidate?
- How many employees leave within a year?
Depending on the sector or company you work in, there may be many more questions. Write them down and get to work.
2. Use relevant metrics
The next step is to take all the questions you have identified and find the relevant metrics for each of them. Depending on your goals, there are many recruitment KPIs you can track. The KPIs you choose are based on your company’s recruitment and growth objectives, these are best to start with. Be sure to read the previous article in this series: 6 Best Recruitment Metrics to Optimise Your Recruitment Process.
3. Integrate data sources and create your dashboard
There are different applications for each function within HR. And you should see each application as a potential data source, for example your ATS. Then you can add this data to an Excel sheet and it is time to calculate the most important metrics using formulas. Not an Excel expert? Then you can also use tools specialised in data and dashboards such as HRlinkIT and OnRecruit. Each dashboard tool offers a set of data representation charts. But if a dashboard doesn’t ‘look good’, it is not good enough. With a few simple tips, you can make sure it looks much better than just a list of numbers:
- Use simple fonts.
- Use colours to make the data stand out.
- And use graphs to make the data look better.
Series
In the 6-part series, we’ll take you step by step and teach you everything there is to learn about recruitment analytics. This was part 3.
In part 4 we will discuss: How can recruitment analytics optimise your hr process?
