We talked recently about how to measure quality of hire effectively.

But why is it such an important success metric?

Measuring quality of hire helps you to identify other similar candidates

Once you have highlighted a quality candidate, you need to be able to recruit more of them. Think of it as going back to the beginning of the circle and filling in what you now know: where did this quality candidate come from? Measuring your quality of hire can indicate which sources deliver not the highest volume of candidates, but the highest quality.

Then add in additional data, using your ATS reports. What was the cost of hiring your quality candidate? What was the time to hire?

By doing this, you can build a bigger picture – a profile of where and how you recruited your top quality candidates. This can then form a roadmap for you to recruit candidates of a similar standard.

Measuring quality of hire enables you to build a strong business case

Crucially, this roadmap also equips you with the evidence you need to demonstrate to senior stakeholders that you should be focusing on a certain source or undertaking a specific campaign in order to recruit high-calibre candidates.

With your quality of hire data and accompanying time-to-hire, cost-per-hire and source reporting, you can lay out a business case such as this:

Joe Bloggs was promoted after a year. His PDR was fantastic. He has stayed with the business. He came from this job board/social platform/agency, which cost us £X amount to use. His time to hire was 40 days… and so on. As such, we should direct spend and time on this job board/social platform/agency, supported by XY and Z in order to recruit for [this] position…

With this level of data, you can not only recommend where future spend is focused, but also where you would advise changes be made. In the above example, the time-to-hire was relatively long, and Joe Bloggs expressed frustration that there was a long time between him applying and being invited to interview.

Could you propose improvements to internal processes in order to shorten this period and subsequently lessen the risk of quality candidates losing patience and dropping out?

Measuring quality of hire allows you to ascertain success in greater depth

We’ve already touched upon using quality of hire to understand which sources are best-performing. It can also be valuable if you’re looking to re-evaluate your agency usage – perhaps by trying to reduce the number you use.

Understanding which agencies have consistently delivered high-quality hires will help you to make informed decisions about your continued agency use and the ongoing development of your PSL.

Why should you measure quality of hire?

Ultimately, quality of hire is an essential success metric because it demonstrates an ROI that is based on long term data.

It also signifies benefits across the wider business – we’re talking not just about candidates, but about employees who are actively contributing to their business function.

Find out more

The 3 ATS reports you need to be using

How to reduce your recruitment advertising spend

Discover flexible applicant tracking technology