Day two of Yello’s 2019 STRIVE talent acquisition conference kicked off with a keynote by Adam Godson, SVP of Global Technology Solutions at Cielo. As one of the world’s largest RPO companies, processing over 10 million candidates every year and filling over 150,000 roles, a well-oiled recruiting machine is paramount to Cielo’s success. Adam’s role is to implement technology solutions that increase efficiency and provide measurable results for Cielo’s recruiting team.

At STRIVE, he shared how to build a recruiting operations strategy that is measurable, maximizes ROI and improves the candidate experience.

What is recruiting operations?

Recruiting operations is a function that defines work processes, helps talent acquisition teams run more efficiently, and oversees logistics like interview scheduling, offer processing, and onboarding. In other words, recruitment operations maximizes an organization’s ability to hire quickly, reduce costs, and ensure resources are used effectively.

“People think they’re hiring Cielo to find better candidates. And while we will help you do that, what most people don’t know is that they’re actually investing in a more efficient process to source, engage and hire the right talent.”

And while recruiting operations is just as important to a successful talent acquisition team as sourcing, candidate engagement or employer branding, it often gets lost in the shuffle because recruiters don’t  properly demonstrate return on investment to the rest of the organization.

Why measure your recruiting operations ROI?

Tracking your recruiting operations ROI not only provides measurable milestones for your team’s work, but it also helps you:

  • Identify areas of improvement
  • Decide where to focus your recruiting efforts
  • Use company resources more efficiently
  • Prove the value of your efforts to leadership
  • Build stronger business cases for new recruiting solutions that will drive efficiency

“Talent acquisition is quite literally our business. Anytime we’re not operationally excellent — we forget to call a candidate back, we let somebody fall out — that’s money that’s gone.”

Methods for measuring recruiting operations ROI

There are a few key metrics that are important to keep an eye on when measuring your recruiting operations efforts.

Direct labor savings for recruiting team

A strong recruiting operations team identifies areas where increased efficiency could drive cost savings for the company.

Interview scheduling is one of the most time-consuming and costly steps in the hiring process, and for Adam’s team, it was racking up about $188,000 per month in labor costs. By implementing interview scheduling software, Cielo reduced time-to-fill by 1.7 days, which amounted to about $80,000 in savings per month.

✓ ACTION ITEM: Invest in technology and automation to free up your team’s time for more important aspects of the recruiting process.

Measure your subcycle time ribbon

How long does each step in your hiring process take?

There are so many steps to filling an open role that the answer can be different depending on the company. Take the time to break down each subcycle in your hiring process: from posting a new job to screening applicants to scheduling interviews, making a final decision and extending an offer. There are plenty of opportunities to speed up the process if you can identify where your time-to-hire is slowing down.

✓ ACTION ITEM: Measure how long each step in the hiring process takes on average, then focus on how to improve efficiency in the areas that are most time-consuming.

Candidate experience measurement

Above all else, putting candidates first is key to building a strong recruiting strategy. Candidates should always know what’s next in the hiring process, and personal outreach is a must. They should also know who to contact if they have questions, and responses should be quick and easy to understand.

✓ ACTION ITEM: Map out your candidate experience journey to identify where there might be gaps in communication. Then put together a plan to make sure your candidates feel valued, are always in the loop, and won’t drop out of your talent pipeline.

“Leaky bucket” measurement

Many times, recruitment teams lack efficiency due to a “leaky bucket” (or details that fall through the cracks) — like a forgotten phone call to a candidate, delayed response times after receiving an application, or lack of follow-up during onboarding.

“Treat candidates as if they’re worth money — because they are.”

Measuring the impact of these forgotten details can help you find ways to improve. For example, one of Cielo’s clients found that 37% of people that accepted an offer with their company never actually started. By doing an analysis of hiring communications, the company realized that candidates weren’t getting the information they needed when it came time to do their onboarding paperwork. By implementing additional checkpoints after extending an offer, the company was able to reduce non-starting employees to 9% in 3 months, directly saving the company $52,000 per month and indirectly saving $1.2 million over the year.

✓ ACTION ITEM: Identify areas where candidates are falling off in the hiring process and focus efforts on increasing efficiency in those areas.

While it may take extra time upfront, measuring the ROI of recruiting operations will help you maximize efficiency in the long run, allowing you to save resources, prove your value and improve processes throughout your organization.

Watch Adam’s full presentation here: