A few years ago, I worked with a company that started an initiative that was called Customer Touchpoints.  This initiative was designed to track and ultimately enhance every interaction that an end customer had with our brand, products, employees and company as a whole.  With the thought being that enhancing these interactions would make for happier customers that lead to a better bottom line.  This is nothing new.  Companies, in particular marketing organizations, have been trying to better understand what activities promote buying behavior for a long time now.  I know for our organization we are continuously looking at every one of our marketing and sales channels and consistently making improvements in our overall strategy and process.

For recruiting, it’s not that much different.  You have a customer (the candidate) that you ultimately sell on working for your company.  The real question is how are you reaching these candidates and how well you are converting the top candidates into employees with your first, second or third interactions with them.

I fully encourage you to start looking at the your interactions with current qualified candidates and recent hires to start to understand what you can do to enhance your overall candidate experience and get more qualified applicants entering your ATS.

Here are a few Touchpoints you should be keeping track of with your recruiting metrics:

First Contact Source: This is a big one and if you can only do one this is it.  You need to be able to track and understand what recruiting channels (referrals, job boards, social networks, email, mobile recruiting, career site) are providing the most value in attracting qualified candidates to your company.  Most importantly, determine what channels are bringing you the most hires as these are the channels that you want to use more often.

Multiple TouchPoints: Where are candidates going before and after they apply?  Are they visiting your Career Site, watching your Employer Branding YouTube videos, downloading your Resume Tips White Paper or following you on one of your social profiles (Twitter, Facebook)?

It’s important to track how candidates are getting information on you as an employer.  Also, it’s important to see how often active candidates apply for positions and how “qualified” they are.  If you see that candidates that do this research are better fits for your company, you may want to find better ways to reach out to and convert these candidates.

Lastly, understand what the typical flow is for a candidate to become an applicant.  Do they go to your Career Site before or after they apply?  Do they engage with you on social profiles before they apply?  These insights can provide you with valuable insight on how you should be connecting with potential candidates.

Success of your Talent Network: Your Talent Network is a community of candidates and contacts that can be used to fill future job positions.  It’s important to engage with these contacts and measure the success of this engagement.  How many communications (email & SMS) about job positions does it take to get a contact to apply?  How long does it take a typical contact to apply for a position?  Are communications about jobs more effective at getting applications than ones about the industry and training?

It’s important to track all the interactions you have with potential candidates.  Collecting recruiting metrics can provide you with an understanding of what initiatives are working and not working in your recruitment marketing strategy.  The fact is a great candidate rarely will apply on the first interaction with your recruiting organization and it’s important to understand how to make that 2nd, 3rd and 4th interaction occur and be effective.

Figure out how you were successful in recruiting your best hires and try to emulate that candidate experience for all your future job campaigns.  It will be a constantly evolving process but improving always is.

Originally posted on the SmashFly Recruitment Technology Blog.