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Four ways analytics can help recruiters provide more value for clients

September 10, 2015  /   No Comments

Kevin Savage

Recruiting the right talent is essential in the competitive strategy for any business. Responsible for finding the talent to deliver on a company’s vision, recruiters are also charged with providing valuable insight on factors that influence hiring, talent development and how those might impact overall company growth.

In markets where specific skill sets are in high demand, recruiters become an integral part of a company’s ability to execute.

Until recently, however, recruiting has been more art than science, requiring a combination of hands-on digging, an extensive personal network, and a healthy budget. While these attributes are still valued, the evolution of HR data in the form of facts, probabilities, and market clues has helped the whole HR function to be more strategic. At the same time, there has been a large increase in positions that require the integration of critical data into the daily workflow.

Using HR metrics as they relate to supply/demand for talent can help recruiting professionals become more strategic in their work with clients. Adding understanding of market data and how this can be used can extend existing and well-researched tactics in order to provide greater market context to a variety of operational decisions for HR department clients, and help to differentiate recruiters from their competitors as well.

There are four areas in which recruiters can use analytics to more proactively support their clients: hiring strategy; linking to staff development; forecasting and planning; and operational strategy.

Hiring strategy

A recruiter’s ability to succeed around filling a given role improves when using data. For example, looking at how difficult a role might be to fill can provide clients with valuable insight around whether the salary proposed was competitive and how many other organisations are vying for the same skills. HR metrics can supplement the process by helping recruiters understand the conditions that impact talent availability, salary and benefit decisions. At the same time, it can also provide more realistic insight into potential hiring timelines. In turn, this helps set expectations within both HR and the rest of the business.

External market data, when gathered from multiple sources and then filtered, can provide critical insight and give recruiters the ammunition they need to recommend specific staffing options. Armed with relevant metrics, recruiters build immediate credibility and transform their roles from advisors to strategic decision makers.

Staff development

Talent acquisition data can also help inform a business’ decision making around a role and determine the best approach to attract candidates for hard-to-fill positions. For example, data points might show that certain skills are in higher demand than others. Using this information, HR professionals can make the case for looking at more junior-level recruitment rather than aiming for someone who is the complete package right now. For recruiters, the discussion here should include the option of looking at potential employees that are not the finished article but may be more widely available to fill a given role with training.

Forecasting and planning

HR data can help forecast the feasibility of future plans. For organisations that commonly submit bids for projects, for example, availability of talent can be critical to the success of a pitch. Recruiters can help these clients by analysing the talent supply in a specific location before submitting a proposal. If the needed skills in the project area are scarce, it may not be feasible to bid on the project. Conversely, a talent-rich location will give the business the confidence needed to succeed. This then becomes a future source of revenue for the recruiter as well.

Talent is often the most valuable asset for a business, and by applying data science to decisions made around forecasting, recruiters can arm their clients with some of the information needed to experience more rapid growth. At the same time, this kind of data can help recruiters decide on where to concentrate their own business development activities and support moves into new geographical or vertical markets over time.

Operational strategy

Backed by talent data, HR professionals within companies can help their businesses make important operational decisions. The choice of a location for a new manufacturing plant or office expansion should include an analysis of the local talent pool to build a viable staff.

This kind of analytical approach for local workforce conditions can help a business estimate the pace of hiring – and the budget required – when expanding operations. For recruiters, providing this kind of market data helps clients see the true value in partnering with a firm.

Looking at data can provide HR professionals with insight into what is taking place within the market, as well as what their competitors may be planning in the future. For recruitment companies, this kind of market insight can be used to increase the amount of value that the company can deliver to its customers. By working with data in this way, recruiters can improve both their own decision-making abilities and also increase the chances of success for their customers as well.

Kevin Savage is the UK managing director of WANTED Technologies.

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  • Published: 9 years ago on September 10, 2015
  • Last Modified: September 9, 2015 @ 7:25 pm
  • Filed Under: Industry Insider

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