Tracking matters: top recruiting metrics your business must monitor

Even if recruiting seems to be all about writing job descriptions, screening and interviewing candidates, or processing orders from clients, there's one more thing every recruiter is supposed to do in order to further enhance the entire process. Monitoring key recruitment metrics, a task often forgotten by many recruiters, helps to save time and render the process much more effective. Here are 7 essential metrics you need for your businesses to thrive on talent and expertise of top candidates on the market.

1. Conversion rate

This is easily one of the most important metrics for recruiting. Conversion rate displays the number of users who clicked on your posting and completed the application managed by your applicant tracking system. The metric basically shows you whether your job postings attracts candidates, but it's also essential to spotting problem in your application process.

Before publishing a posting, check how it performs in different browsers. This is how you ensure that candidates don't run into technical issues while applying for a position. Developing an application process without measuring its conversion rate is simply inefficient and will make you loose some of the great talents.

2. Click-through-rate (CTR)

The click-through rate refers to the number of people who saw your job ad divided by the number of clicks the posting actually received. CTR is the best metric out there to assess the quality of your job posting titles. If they receive plenty of impressions, but very few candidates click on them, it means that your titles are unclear, unattractive or simply irrelevant.

Your goal is to attract and maintain candidate’s attention long enough for them to check out your posting. A high CTR means that you're doing a good job with your titles. To boost your CTR, try different title formats – you can add locations, experiment with punctuation or use calls-to-action.

3. Cost-per-acquisition (CPA)

Cost-per-acquisition is basically the expenses of your marketing and employees divided by the total number of your followers. Once you're measuring it, it's a good idea to check cost-per-application as well – it shows you the cost of getting one candidate to apply for a job. You can check which platforms and job boards bring you best results and are most cost-effective. At the same time, you will be able to establish which platforms fail to deliver top talents to your business and only generate losses. Once you have done that, it's usually a good idea to further strengthen your efforts with the former ones, while getting rid of the latter.

4. Influence

The strength of your recruiting strategy to a large extent depends on your reputation as an employer. And social media are the best when it comes to boosting your employer brand. This is where the metric of influence is most telling. Use social listening tools like Facebook Grader or Twinfluence to check key data about your social media presence and do your best to reach, engage and convert more candidates.

5. Blogging data

Since most companies run blogs, it's clear that you can also use a platform like that to build a strong employer brand. Measure the number of visits to learn which types of content resonate most with your audience. It's a good idea to track the source of these visits – are candidates checking out your company blog because they've seen your social media profile first? Or maybe they Googled you? Knowing how candidates learn about your brand and which outlets engage them enough to follow a link and check you out is extremely valuable.

6. Social engagement

Another key metric for checking how many candidates are actively engaging with your employer brand is social engagement. Track the number of followers who join discussions on your profiles, and make sure to measure the ratio of good to bad comments. You should also measure the engagement on your careers website. What you should track is the average length of visit per candidate. It shows you the extent to which candidates are engaged with your brand and whether your recruiting message resonates with them.

7. Return-on-investment (ROI)

You can't build a recruiting strategy without periodically checking your ROI. It shows you whether all your activities add up to make for a strong and effective recruiting system. Compare how much you spend and how much you gain in return, check the positive business impact of your hires and deliver reports to supervisors showing that investment made in recruiting pays off. Compare your last year's ROI with the current one and be sure to check the ROI of other business departments.

Without recruitment metrics you won't be able to monitor the performance of your recruiting strategy or adjust when something changes in your business or industry. Have a look at these metrics regularly to keep tabs on what's happening on the job market and build a solid employer brand that attracts and converts the most talented candidates out there.