Metrics based goals- made simple- what you really need!!

This is the first in a 4 part series on Metrics and goals.

I have read over and over again about metrics based goals for staffing professionals and recruiters. I have created, reviewed, analyzed, and been held accountable to metrics'. However the one thing I have come to learn is, in general we make it way to hard. We tend to over analyze, over metric ourselves to death. Yes all the different metrics have a place, and you can gleam some great information from them. However with regards to a measuring the success of an individual in the staffing profession, we make it way to hard.

Please remember metrics' are designed to show us info, not the whole story. You will need to understand the; whys, and what happened to understand things fully.

So to that end the simple metrics to use to measure the success of someone in the staffing world. This will be based on their function, and we will only address the below functions or titles:

Staffing Professional(SP) - expert with the whole Staffing Lifecycle (SLC). Will perform all or parts of the SLC.

Recruiter - expert with most of the SLC, mainly from the executive or contracting point of view. Will perform all or parts of the SLC.

Sourcer - expert at research, boolean scripting and expert hunter.

The main reason only these 3, is because they are the most common, although they may have a different names the functions are the most common.

The main metrics that should be used are:

Hires - number of hires

Client Satisfaction - how happy are your clients with you. This will be your hiring manager if you are corporate.

Candidate Satisfaction - how happy were your candidate with you. Of course you take into account those that are not hired.

Tech screens - the number of candidate submitted that are tech screened. If your model does not have tech screens you can use..interviews- number who got interviews.

Now of course there are a plethora of other metrics' you could use. Such as: interview to offer ratio, hire acceptance ratio, time to fill, time to screen, source of hire, etc..

Most of those however are not needed to judge if your staffing person is doing their jobs. What they will tell you is, were the bottle neck is, were are you getting the hires, why are people turning you down, etc..

Now the question is which metrics to use for which position. The answer is very simple. Which metrics does that position have at least 50% input into? Example, a sourcer, who only finds candidates and screens them, has less than 50% input into the actual hire. What they do have at least 50% input into is; tech screens, candidate sat, and client sat. So you measure them on those things.

So for the staffing positions listed above here is a recommendation of metrics to use:

Staffing Professional and Recruiter, doing A-Z the whole SLC: Hires, Client Sat, Candidate Sat. Of course you can take away or add based on how much input they have to each metrics, the goal is 50% or more.

Sourcer - Tech screen, Candidate Sat, Client sat. Now this is tough, some will say, they have a better than 50% impact on the hires. But that depends on the way the sourcer is being used. If the sourcer only finds, and does an HR screen, and then sends it to another staffing professional who does all the rest, ie.., presents to the client, has tech screened, sets up face to face, interviews during face to face, and then makes an offer or turn the candidates down. In this case the sourcer has far less than 50% input into the hire. The handoff takes the sourcer out of it, with allot of the process still to come.

GOALS--Something to take into consideration with regards to these metrics'. Based on these metrics' you will create goals for your people. With regards to hires, you cannot give an SP who is hiring for junior level developers, the same goal as an SP who is hiring for Sr. level developers. The reason is, hiring for more senior levels is much harder, also there are usually fewer open positions for the more senior positions. So remember to take everything into account before you create the goals for your people.

Now of course again, this is very general, it is based on one of many staffing models that are being used. However it is simple accurate and takes into account the actual input each of the positions have in the entire SLC. No matter which model you use, if you utilize the 50% rule you will ensure you are using the right metrics' for the right job, function, role or title and of course make sure you understand, the whys, and what happened, when someone does not meet the goal or metrics.