How businesses can use data analytics to improve their recruitment processes, from identifying the best candidates to predicting future hiring needs.

When it comes to recruiting new employees, you want to find the right people as quickly as possible. But you have so many other responsibilities, and doing the job right means taking your time. Right? 

Maybe. But there are tools that can help you find high-quality candidates who are more likely to be a great fit for your position in an informed and efficient manner. How? Data analysis. 

Here’s how utilizing data analysis can help you make an informed decision when it comes to recruiting and hiring your next candidate. 

Review resumes faster by searching for keywords.

Incorporating artificial intelligence can help you not only strip away any unconscious or conscious bias when it comes to reviewing resumes, it can speed up the process of looking for people whose resumes contain references to the skills and work experience you need for the job you’re looking to fill. By utilizing AI to analyze the content of resumes, simply by providing the most important words and phrases associated with the job (think job description language and your preferred experiences and skills), only those candidates whose resumes contain those words will be brought to your attention. You won’t be taking the time to review candidates whose backgrounds don’t match what you need. 

Use analytics to understand your own internal hiring trends.

When you’ve gone through the hiring process a few times, you might be curious about what’s working for your company and what could be improved. By using data analytics to dig into the trends of your own hiring practices, you might begin to glean some useful information to make the process even more efficient and effective, for your team and the candidates. For example, you can determine where the best candidates have been found (LinkedIn? A job board? Partnering with a staffing agency like FurstStaffing ? More on that in a moment). You also can determine the real cost of recruitment, hiring, and onboarding new candidates, any shared attributes or traits that make someone a good fit for your company, areas, and steps within your hiring process that are costing you time, money, and candidates that should be improved. Even the efficacy of your onboarding process to make new hires feel integrated into the team faster. 

Have exactly the number of solid candidates you need without over- or underhiring.

By looking at your own data, you’ll understand the trends in your company’s patterns. Do you go through a cycle of business where you might need to bring in extra people every so often — whether that’s seasonal employees or full-time permanent ones — only to need to “right size” your staffing the following year or season? By identifying these trends, you’ll understand the kind of employees you need, whether they’re temporary or permanent, and when, so you can be ready to address the changes before they happen. This can also help your company prepare for any patterns you might notice (or not notice) when it comes to turnover, so you’re ready to weather that storm the next time it comes up. This saves you productivity, as you won’t be short-staffed for long, in addition to the time needed to recruit new hires. 

Meet your diversity goals.

Knowing the demographics of your clients, customers, and community is vitally important. You want your team to reflect the people you do business with; statistically, companies with a more diverse team are more successful than those who are not. Data analytics can help you make sure you’re meeting your benchmarks by indicating whether you’re on the right path toward better reflecting these important standards and practices, in terms of race, gender, ethnicity, and veteran status. 

Improve your interview and onboarding experiences.

Companies often lose quality job candidates because too much time passes between initial interviews and follow-up. If you’ve ever lost a candidate to a competitor who offered them a job or offered them more money, this is a trend you need to know about. The best way to do that is to track the time it takes from initial contact — whether that’s receiving a resume or first email or phone call — through to the end of the hiring process. Find out the average time for your industry from meet to hire and see where your company’s timeline falls. If you’re taking too long, you’ll miss out! Candidates want, and need, to know if you’re interested in them and how they stand in your hiring process and data analytics can help you determine if you’re hitting the target. 

Are you using all available tools?

Recruitment is a huge time commitment, but it can be sped up if you’re utilizing all the tools at your disposal. Do you have chatbots set up on your website? Are you using technology and analytics to search LinkedIn for qualified candidates, or highly skilled people in your industry who might be perfect for a job even if they’re already working? Are you working with a staffing firm that can handle all this for you and more? Staffing companies like FurstStaffing are poised to take all the information you provide about your hiring priorities and invest time in searching the far corners of the internet and social media to find qualified candidates, people who will be well-suited for your open positions. We’ll bring those resumes to you for review and you’ll know, right away, that everyone is a potential match. 

Time is money — that expression has become a cliche but it’s true. You don’t want to waste either one by taking too long to find qualified candidates or by hiring the wrong person. Relying on cold, hard data and facts can help speed up the process and bring you to a more successful conclusion. 

Discover Top Talent Today

 FurstStaffing is standing by and ready to help you integrate data analytics into your hiring process. We can also help find outstanding job candidates quickly and even offer skills assessments to make sure you’re finding candidates that meet your exact needs. Ready to learn more? Call FurstStaffing today!