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Determining the Correct Source of Hire: the First Step in Recruiting Excellence
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Determining the Correct Source of Hire: the First Step in Recruiting Excellence
One of the worst-kept secrets in recruiting is that source of hire data is inconsistently gathered and rarely accurate. To many corporate recruiters, the validity of source of hire data is a non issue; after all, once the hire is generated, their role is over.
However, if you view recruiting as a marketing and sales job (as I and many strategic recruiting leaders do), knowing what channels brought the prospect to the organization and what messages led to conversion (talented individual > applicant > candidate > hire) are by far the most critical bits of data the function can collect. Without this information, it’s extremely difficult to scientifically budget for sourcing or build strategic sourcing systems capable of impacting organizational performance.
Luckily, however, there is a simple approach that ensures much more accurate and helpful information that doesn’t rely on transaction-minded recruiters documenting the source of hire.
If you rely on weak sources, chances are you’ll get weak results.
Why Source of Hire Data is Almost Always Wrong
There are numerous reasons why corporate efforts to capture accurate source of hire data are almost always doomed to failure. Some of those reasons include:
* Recruiters don’t care — not all recruiters are involved in selecting the sourcing tools they will have access to or even using them in general, so coding applicants is an activity that realizes little apparent direct benefit. Even recruiters who do source or play a role in their organizations’ sourcing strategy tend to be overconfident that they already know which sources work and don’t need data to inform them. Other recruiters are just old-school and will use the same sources over and over no matter what. Unless recruiters are made aware of how identifying source of hire accurately is critical to their success, no one is going to spend a lot of time on capturing it accurately.
* Conflict of interest — while some recruiters may care about scientifically validating which sources produce which results, the truth is that capturing data that makes the recruiting function more efficient is seen by some as identifying ways to make line recruiters less necessary.
* Not asking in a systematic way — most corporate recruiting processes are relatively flexible and give the recruiter a lot of leeway in determining source of hire. It’s rare to find a process that forces recruiters to specifically ask candidates which source most influenced their decision to apply. In other cases, the way the question is posed to candidates is so inconsistent that it dooms the reliability of the answer.
* Not segmenting clouds the data — many organizations that do collect source of hire data do so in such a way that the value of the data becomes so diluted it is virtually useless. For instance, can you segment your source of hire data by manager perception of candidate quality (used to validate their assumptions) or by post-hire performance rating? Knowing how top and bottom performers approach the organization is much more valuable than knowing the most common source, or how the average employee is found. Further, knowing how sourcing effectiveness varies by job family or region is essential.
* Technology forces bad choices — many corporations use applicant tracking systems to capture the source of hire data at the time of application. Although this is a good concept in theory, studies show that asking prior to hire doesn’t always yield the accurate answer, but rather the answer the applicant thinks might result in the best result. When recruiters enter applicants who have come via internal channels or who have been direct sourced, they tend to choose the first source in the drop-down list available. Few systems send validating questions periodically to confirm applicant data downstream, so errors in the front of the process produce bad data at the end of the process.
* Forcing a single source — it is common for active candidates to use any and all sources available to apply to an organization, while passive candidates may first be exposed to an opportunity via one channel, but ultimately apply via another. Few data-gathering approaches identify how the opportunity was first encountered, what channels influenced a decision, and what channel ultimately produced the application.
Source:
http://www.ere.net/2009/09/21/determining-the-correct-source-of-hire-the-first-s
However, if you view recruiting as a marketing and sales job (as I and many strategic recruiting leaders do), knowing what channels brought the prospect to the organization and what messages led to conversion (talented individual > applicant > candidate > hire) are by far the most critical bits of data the function can collect. Without this information, it’s extremely difficult to scientifically budget for sourcing or build strategic sourcing systems capable of impacting organizational performance.
Luckily, however, there is a simple approach that ensures much more accurate and helpful information that doesn’t rely on transaction-minded recruiters documenting the source of hire.
If you rely on weak sources, chances are you’ll get weak results.
Why Source of Hire Data is Almost Always Wrong
There are numerous reasons why corporate efforts to capture accurate source of hire data are almost always doomed to failure. Some of those reasons include:
* Recruiters don’t care — not all recruiters are involved in selecting the sourcing tools they will have access to or even using them in general, so coding applicants is an activity that realizes little apparent direct benefit. Even recruiters who do source or play a role in their organizations’ sourcing strategy tend to be overconfident that they already know which sources work and don’t need data to inform them. Other recruiters are just old-school and will use the same sources over and over no matter what. Unless recruiters are made aware of how identifying source of hire accurately is critical to their success, no one is going to spend a lot of time on capturing it accurately.
* Conflict of interest — while some recruiters may care about scientifically validating which sources produce which results, the truth is that capturing data that makes the recruiting function more efficient is seen by some as identifying ways to make line recruiters less necessary.
* Not asking in a systematic way — most corporate recruiting processes are relatively flexible and give the recruiter a lot of leeway in determining source of hire. It’s rare to find a process that forces recruiters to specifically ask candidates which source most influenced their decision to apply. In other cases, the way the question is posed to candidates is so inconsistent that it dooms the reliability of the answer.
* Not segmenting clouds the data — many organizations that do collect source of hire data do so in such a way that the value of the data becomes so diluted it is virtually useless. For instance, can you segment your source of hire data by manager perception of candidate quality (used to validate their assumptions) or by post-hire performance rating? Knowing how top and bottom performers approach the organization is much more valuable than knowing the most common source, or how the average employee is found. Further, knowing how sourcing effectiveness varies by job family or region is essential.
* Technology forces bad choices — many corporations use applicant tracking systems to capture the source of hire data at the time of application. Although this is a good concept in theory, studies show that asking prior to hire doesn’t always yield the accurate answer, but rather the answer the applicant thinks might result in the best result. When recruiters enter applicants who have come via internal channels or who have been direct sourced, they tend to choose the first source in the drop-down list available. Few systems send validating questions periodically to confirm applicant data downstream, so errors in the front of the process produce bad data at the end of the process.
* Forcing a single source — it is common for active candidates to use any and all sources available to apply to an organization, while passive candidates may first be exposed to an opportunity via one channel, but ultimately apply via another. Few data-gathering approaches identify how the opportunity was first encountered, what channels influenced a decision, and what channel ultimately produced the application.
Source:
http://www.ere.net/2009/09/21/determining-the-correct-source-of-hire-the-first-s
