Whether you are a recruiting manager who is responsible for assessing your recruiters or just an individual recruiter who’s interested in how well you are doing, you need a scorecard before you can accurately assess effectiveness. Unfortunately, I have found through my work with corporations that over 90% make little or no attempt to assess individual recruiter effectiveness. The reason for that is that most recruiting professionals have never been trained on how to assess effectiveness. To make matters worse, few consultants even attempt to provide services on the three key strategic issues of designing effective recruiting structures, selecting a recruiting strategy, and measuring effectiveness. Even such leading organizations as Staffing.org and the Saratoga Institute do not provide guidance on individual recruiter assessment. So what follows are the whys, the whats and the hows of measuring individual recruiter effectiveness. The best part is that, even if you can not afford to bring me in, these are free. So without further delay, here’s my recruiter’s scorecard template that you can adapt to your corporation’s needs. Benefits of Assessing Individual Recruiters Assessing individual recruiters is important for variety of reasons including:
- It gives successful recruiters a sense of confidence.
- It sends a clear message to recruiters about what the recruiting manager considers important (and what they do not consider important).
- It allows recruiting management to identify recruiters that need additional training or help.
- It serves as a basis for rewarding recruiter, according to their performance.
- It gives individual recruiters feedback and information they need in order to self-improve.
- You might find that the sum of individual recruiter results equals overall recruiting function results.
The Recruiter’s Scorecard: Areas Of Assessment It is important to realize upfront that many of the criteria listed in this scorecard require data or information that must be collected by central management. If you fail as a manager to take the necessary steps required to gather this information you are (whether intentionally or not) restricting every individual recruiter’s opportunity for praise, recognition, and continuous improvement. It’s also important to note, that it is common knowledge that individual recruiters do not have total control over each of the factors in the hiring process that influence an individual recruiter’s effectiveness. Rather than complaining about this the lack of control, recruiters must instead assume the responsibility of influencing managers and other process owners in order to ensure that the desired results are achieved. Rather than whining or blaming others, recruiters must accept their role as the “captain of the ship” if they are ever to be rated as excellent in recruiting. Following are the metrics I recommend for individual recruiters. (Note: These are listed in descending order of importance.) 1. Performance of hires
- Performance appraisal rating of new hires. What was the average performance appraisal score of the people the recruiter hired (ratings after six months and after one year)? How does that average compare to the average performance appraisal rating of all new hires? (This is a measure of the quality or on-the-job performance of the hire.)
- The number of new starts. How many new hires resulted from the work of the recruiter? How does it compare to the average number of hires for all recruiters?
- Hard-to-fill positions. How many hard-to-fill or key positions were filled as a result of the work of the recruiter? How does it compare to the average number of hard-to-fill hires for all recruiters?
- Voluntary turnover. What was the voluntary turnover rate of new hires (at the end of six months, and the first year)? How does it compare to the average voluntary turnover rate of all new hires?
- Involuntary turnover. What percentage of new hires had to be terminated within the first year? How does that percentage compare to the average involuntary turnover rate of all new hires?
2. Manager satisfaction with the results By sending a user survey to all managers (or a representative sample of managers) immediately after a hire is completed, you can assess their satisfaction with the primary recruiter on that hire. Each quarter you should summarize the results and then assess:
- Satisfaction with the hire. What was the average manager satisfaction score with the quality of the person hired (for each recruiter)? How does that satisfaction rate compare to the average manager satisfaction rate with all recruiters?
- Satisfaction with the quality of the final candidates. What was the average manager satisfaction score with the quality of the final candidates from each recruiter? How does that satisfaction rate compare to the average manager satisfaction rate with all recruiters?
- Satisfaction with the quality of the resumes submitted. What was the average manager satisfaction score with the “quality” of the resumes that were submitted to them for review (by each recruiter)? How does that satisfaction rate compare to the average manager satisfaction rate with all recruiters?
3. Diversity results
- Diversity hiring ratios. What percentage of all hires made by this recruiter this year were diverse? How did that percentage compare to the average diversity hiring rate?
- Diversity candidates presented. What percentage of all resumes and candidates presented to all managers were diverse? How does that percentage compare to the company average?
4. Employee referrals
- Percentage of referrals. What percentage of all hires came from employee referrals? How did that percentage compare to the company average? (Note: The extensive use of referrals is important, because a high referral rate has many added side benefits. As a result, it’s important for recruiters to actively encourage managers and employees within their assigned business unit or assigned job family to refer top quality candidates.)
5. On-time results
- Percentage of hires by “need date.” What percentage of hires were completed on or before the start date that the manager specified? How does that percentage compare to the company average? (Note: This requires you to put the “date needed” on all requisition forms. The date needed is a superior measure compared to the traditional time-to-fill metric, because hiring people fast when they are not immediately needed is a waste of resources. In addition, fast hiring relative to a fixed standard (the standard number of days to fill) means little if the damage to the business begins the first day after a position remains unfilled after the need date.)
6. Candidate, applicant, and new hire satisfaction By sending a user survey after a hire has been completed to all finalists and new hires, as well as to a representative sample of applicants and interviewees, you can assess their satisfaction with the primary recruiter on that hire. Each quarter you should summarize the results and then assess:
- New hire satisfaction. What percentage of new hires stated that they were “extremely satisfied” when they were asked to rate how satisfied they were with the services provided by the recruiter and with the overall hiring process? How does each percentage compare with the average of all new hires?
- Finalist’s satisfaction. What percentage of finalists (those who were given second interviews or the top five final candidates), when asked to rate how satisfied they were with the services provided by the recruiter and with the overall hiring process, answered “extremely satisfied”? How does each percentage compare with the average of all finalists?
- Interviewee satisfaction. What percentage of interviewees stated that they were “extremely satisfied” when they were asked to rate how satisfied they were with the services provided by the recruiter and with the overall hiring process? How does each percentage compare with the average of all interviewees?
- Applicant satisfaction. What percentage of randomly selected applicants stated that they were “extremely satisfied” (for positions controlled by the recruiter) when they were asked to rate how satisfied they were with the services provided by the recruiter and with the overall hiring process? How does each percentage compare with the average of all applicants?
7. Responsiveness By using “mystery shoppers,” or asking selected candidates and managers about the time it takes for a recruiter to return a call or inquiry, you can assess a recruiters’ overall responsiveness to their customers. It is important to note, however, that the recruiter’s total req load should be used as a mitigating factor when you assess an individual’s responsiveness.
- Response time. What was the average number of hours it took for a recruiter to return a call or inquiry from a candidate or a manager? How does the response rate compare with the average for all recruiters?
- Response accuracy. What percentage of answers provided by the recruiter could be judged to be accurate when a sample of these answers are assessed by recruiting management? How does that accuracy rate compare with the average for all recruiters?
- Time to fill. What is the average number of days it takes a recruiter to fill a position? (Note: The time to fill is only important if it is considered simultaneously with the quality/performance of the hire. Also, as noted earlier, time to fill is always less important than the number of positions filled by the need date.)
- Internal cooperation. How well and how often does this recruiter cooperate with other recruiters and other HR functions? (Note: Although this is a subjective assessment, it can be measured through an anonymous survey among all recruiters and HR professionals that are some how involved in recruiting.)
8. Other indirect indications of a quality recruiter Although these are not specific recruiting results, each of these actions can eventually have a direct impact on overall recruiting success.
- Contribution to branding. How many talks were given by this recruiter? How many audience members attended? How many articles was this recruiter quoted in, or how many articles were authored by this recruiter this year? Did this recruiter actively participate in the team whose goal was to have your firm listed on the different “best place to work” lists? Did this recruiter actively participate in the employee referral team?
- Sources used. What is the utilization rate by this recruiter of the sources that produce the best-performing hires?
- Use of agencies and executive search. What percentage of this recruiters hires required the use of outside sources? How much money did this recruiter spend on external search help, compared to the company average?
- Names. How many new names did this recruiter add to the company’s candidate database?
- Relationships with new hires. Does the recruiter have evidence that they routinely ask new hires for the names of other potential candidates at their old firm? Do they also ask the candidate what worked and what didn’t during the hiring process, in order to improve it?
- Hires from competitors. How many hires that came from direct competitors was this recruiter responsible for? (Note: In these cases, your organization gets competitive intelligence, and the competitor’s performance is likely to decline)
- Complaints. What is the number or percentage of employment-related inquiries, complaints, or lawsuits (EEOC, OFCCP and civil) this recruiter was responsible for?
Metrics That I Would Not Track Not all metrics in recruiting return a high value. As a result, it is important to avoid those measures that are too expensive to collect, too easy to manipulate, or that provide little help in improving recruiting effectiveness. Some of the metrics to downplay include:
- The number of requisitions a recruiter is responsible for (since so many requisitions are “phantom” reqs, tracking them without looking at the number and the quality of hires is misleading).
- The number of resumes provided to managers (quality is always more important than volume, and tracking this might cause managers to be flooded with resumes).
- The number of resumes you must screen in order to get one interview (this metric is too easy to manipulate).
- The number of interviews required in order to get one hire (this metric is too easy to manipulate, and indecisive managers can skew the results).
- The offer acceptance rate of this recruiter (this metric is too easy to manipulate, as recruiters learn not to make “formal” offers until they are sure they will be accepted).
- The number of recruiting events attended (attending does not guarantee results).
- The cost of the average hire (unless the average cost per hire of this recruiter significantly exceeds budget limitations, there is no need to track this. In fact, attempts to limit expenditures may lead to low quality hires. The focus should be exclusively on the quality of a hire, not the cost of the process).
Comparing Recruiter Performance: Some Difficulties It is important to realize upfront that some performance comparisons between different recruiters can be unfair. For example, some recruiting is more difficult because there are fewer qualified individuals residing in the geographic region (for example, recruiting for African American surfboard designers in Utah). Recruiting for certain job families can also be more difficult because of the relative shortage of qualified individuals (for example, recruiting nurses). These two problem areas make comparing individual recruiter performance and success between different regions and job families more difficult. As a result, I recommend that when you make individual recruiter performance comparisons, you limit direct comparisons to year-to-year comparisons:
- Within the same job family
- Within the same geographic region
When assessing recruiters, it’s also important to realize that not all positions have the same impact on the company. As a result, some recruiting managers prioritize or “weight” key position results more heavily in their overall assessment. In some cases, in order to save resources, assessment is only done for key position requisitions. In addition to these three restrictions, sometimes adjustments must also be made when assessing recruiters that work with hiring mangers with a documented history of weak hiring. This is because even great recruiters can produce results when working with continually non-responsive managers. Conclusion Many organizations have strived to become more strategic, and as part of that process, they initiate measures of overall recruiting success. Unfortunately, many stop at that point, rather than continuing down to the level of the individual recruiter. That’s a major mistake though, because individual recruiters cannot improve if no one assesses their work and periodically provides them with feedback on areas that need improvement. It is important for all senior recruiting managers and individual recruiters to realize that you cannot improve what you do not measure. If you care about effectiveness and continuous improvement, monitor it closely.
