Metrics That Matter

Pull up a chair and grab a beverage kids, we’re diving in to METRICS!! Everyone’s FAVE subject especially if you suck at Excel and data makes your eyes glaze over (just me? oh, carry on then).

Waaaaay back in my agency days I was taught to dial the phone 100 times a day. That’s right. Pick up the handset, dial 100 different phone numbers in an effort to connect with at least 10 people. Out of those 10, you could hopefully find one qualified, interested candidate for your open role(s). Good times.

Fast forward to the internet where everyone’s a marketer. Lord save me from girls I went to high school with trying to sell me pink drinks and essential oils. Now it’s all about connects, retweets, and page likes. We still somehow / some way have to get CANDIDATES connected to HIRING MANAGERS, but there are still some die hard phone enthusiasts out there, God love them.

People are easier than ever to find, yet harder to engage. We have to rise above the noise and whatnot. This post though, isn’t about THAT. If you want more about how connect with prospects (or at least not send shitty inmails) check out this post. If you don’t believe me, hear straight from the source on this post. But come back because this is important, y’all.

Ok so METRICS! YAY! What should I REALLY be thinking about and measuring? How do I know I’m doing a good job? What the hell is a funnel anyway?

Here are the key measures of talent acquisition success, plus a true story to back it up – I’ll lay out definitions and rough process based on my completely biased yet accurate experience at multiple tech companies.

Pass Through Rates (PTRs) That Matter –

• Submittals : Tech Screens
• Tech Screens : Onsite Interview
• Onsite Interview : Offer Extended
• Offer Extend : Offer Accept

For our purposes, the candidate process looks like this –

• Submittals – prospect has been fully vetted for interest / fit by a sourcer or recruiter
• Tech screen – conversation between hiring manager or other qualified person and candidate
• Onsite interview – you should know this one
• Offer extend – I am giving you a letter with numbers on it
• Offer accept – you like my letter and numbers

• We were seeing lots AND LOTS of resumes. In fact, the pipeline is increasing month over month. We liked most of them enough to talk to them.
• Our ratios were relatively strong, considering the expectations of the roles (variety of engineering/PM/data science roles across levels)
• We actually had an extra step in the form of a 2nd tech screen – potentially a factor in timing, interview fatigue, or part of why we were trending above OS:OE PTRs
• We were extending a decent # of offers and trending above company norms of 20-25%
• CLOSING was our pain point