Organizations from big to small have their own way of doing things. Smaller companies might call a receptionist a “Front Desk Warrior” while a larger company’s job ad might say “Administrative Clerk”. There are dozens of titles for the same position. As recruiters and hiring managers get more creative with their titles, their jobs ads get less and less effective. This isn’t a wordsmith competition; there is a more scientific approach to job titles –metrics.

The Problem

This article reveals an interesting case of how a telecommunications company found their perfect job title. It’s no secret that telecommunications positions tend to have a higher turnover rate. According to a Chron.com post, “Across the entire industry, call centers replace 26% of their front-line agents annually.” This particular telecommunications company held monthly classes for 25-30 new candidates. This means getting a considerable amount of applicants in the door each month.

The Solution

Like most recruiters have done, this company’s hiring team decided to switch up the job title in an effort to get more bodies in the door. As the new ad was tracked, they quickly saw a decline in applicants. Obviously this means that the new job title was not the fix they were looking for, but what they realized is that they can use metrics to figure out what does work. The right talent management system makes tracking these metrics simple. When used correctly, these numbers can guide recruiters to the perfect combination of words.

Recruits can track multiple job titles for the same position. They are then able to see how many applicants each title gets and how relevant those applicants are to the position. Recruiting expert, Christopher Brabic says,

“To really understand what job titles work best, you need a combination of A-B testing and the metrics to understand which ones attract the most qualified candidates.  And in order to get the most bang for you buck, trust your recruiters to make the best decisions based on the real-time recruitment metrics that they have access to.”

The Tools

There have been a lot of “metrics in recruiting processes” posts lately, and for good reason. New technology and software make it easier than ever to track these things. As we get better about using this information, we can easily apply these metrics to each step of the recruitment process.  

The guessing games and perceived best practices of recruiting are no longer cutting it. As metrics get easier to acquire, processes get more refined and effective. Instead of assuming that candidates will understand the job title, recruiters can now make correlations between differing titles and the amount of relevant candidates that each produce. Improving processes is a numbers game, not a guessing game.

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photo credit: quinn.anya via photopin cc