The cloud-based enterprise has entered the business world, flooding leaders and employees alike with monumental heaps of data to sift through. Coming from internal and external sources, companies have to transfer the data into knowledge in order to meander through the increasingly favored mentality of organizational transparency. This information, then, has to be easily absorbed by company leaders so they can understand how their decisions affect domestic and peripheral future business interactions.

Organizations now use the data candidates put out onto social media to aggregate more information on making an educated hiring decision. While the gut instinct of recruiters and hiring managers to find the best candidate is invaluable, it can only be bettered with the integration of big data. This can become a problem, however, when there are millions of bits of information floating about in the company. The best solution is a system that can take the aggregated information and compile it into digestible pieces to show company insights. This adds a level of strategic complexity to hiring decisions and how those decisions impact the organization as a whole.

Putting it all into Practice

Once you’ve found a platform on which to parse and make sense of all the data involved in your hiring processes, you’ll want to start using the insights it uncovers. Here are some ways to get started applying the science in tandem with the art of recruiting: 

Reassess Hiring and Retention Strategies

Your hiring managers and talent acquisition team may realize that things like educational background, level of experience, and former job titles are not the indicators of success they initially thought. Qualifications and skills may be even less prized than before. The talent team can use these findings to recalibrate everything from job descriptions to ATS settings. Joseph D. Roman, President and CEO of the Greater Cleveland Partnership, said: 

“When Interviewing prospective employees, look for qualities that indicate the potential hires are willing to commit their best efforts and learn. Those who are more likely to make a long-term commitment are generally more self-motivated and interested in developing professionally.” 

Cut Costs and Time-to-Hire by Focusing on Potential

Over time, many organizations have defaulted into longer and longer hiring processes, often made even more circuitous for candidates due to qualifications and hard skills assessments. During the same time period, increasing amounts of research point to softer skills and EQ being more important in many positions. Screening out candidates with high potential not only hurts the bottom line in terms of compensation, it can also eliminate those with a strong desire to learn or a solid work ethic.

Training as a Competitive Advantage

Many of today’s job seekers are looking for a place to learn how to navigate the constantly changing workforce.In fact, 1 in 25 new employees will leave a company due to poor or lack of training during their onboarding period. A good training program can be used as a leverage point for recruiters to tell candidates. When your talent acquisition team has access to a database of skilled talent who can develop emerging leaders within the organization (and your competitors in the market do not) it can affect negotiation and the type of talent that applies at your organization. 

A/B Test Recruiting Hunches

Keep in mind that gut instinct is not always wrong. On the contrary, having historical data and predictive modeling can prove many hunches right in the end. By testing theories backed by data, the talent acquisition budget can grow in the correct areas and operate as a leaner, more data-driven machine.  

Looking to the Future

Companies that want to grow and thrive in tomorrow’s competitive landscape must learn to wade through their Human Resources data (internal) and the social and competitive data that affects their industry and company (external) and make sense of how the two funnels align and can impact future business decisions. The added layer of complexity within the talent acquisition and employee layers make this increasingly difficult to do without an open and transparent system that can not only organize the data but show insights and predict future success or failure when it extrapolates from existing information.

Bio: Kelly Robinson

Kelly Robinson is the founder and CEO of Broadbean Technology, a sourcing and recruiting technology company. Broadbean Technology has created a strong global presence with offices in the US, Europe and Australia The company remains true to the core fundamentals of its inception: “Keep it light and fun while getting the job done!” Kelly writes about leadership and culture, as well as reducing friction in the candidate experience.