Originally posted on SmashFly's Recruitment Marketing Blog.

I’ve been reading Inbound Marketing by Dharmesh Shah and Brian Halligan (of Hubspot fame), and am currently reading their thoughts on when a Website Redesign is needed. They make 3 points that I think are ultra-important:

1. One of the most common mistakes organizations make is having a website re-design for the wrong reasons. Just because you’re bored with the new website you created 6 months ago doesn’t mean it’s ineffective and customers don’t like it.
2. The right reason for a website re-design is to better realize the ultimate goal of your website. Did you create your website to collect client contact information? Make a sale? Provide information on your company/product/industry?
3. You need to determine how to measure this goal and take a before and after snapshot of your re-design. Did it work? The best website re-designs are not one time constructions but a consistent evolution and optimization of your website and its content.

Now the question is how can you apply these great website re-design concepts to your recruiting strategy? Well, for most organizations I would assume that the goal of all recruitment marketing efforts is to attract and hire A-level talent. So before fully jumping on the social recruiting bandwagon (although I definitely recommend a little experimentation) or utilizing the tools that you’ve used in the past, ask yourself if your current recruitment strategy today is optimizing this goal?

Start by determining what metrics and trends could help you best determine how successful your recruiting efforts are in finding A-level talent. To help you in this process, here are a few possible signs that your recruiting strategy may not working (and metrics that can help you identify them):

1. Out of my Price Range – Utilizing the same job board or online tools is getting more expensive every year and putting a strain on your recruiting budget with no immediate external benefit.
   This is important because you want to get the most out of your recruiting dollars and ineffective channels can lead to a significant opportunity cost (in not utilizing another recruiting channel).
   
   • Possible Metric: Measure the Cost Per Applicant for every job board / social network in your recruitment funnel. Be sure to include time as a cost (Social Recruiting isn’t free as some may believe.)
   
   
2. Bueller?… - You aren’t getting as many applicants for similar positions as you have in the past. This is important as an increase in the # of applications you receive, means an increased
   opportunity for you to find qualified candidates.
   
   • Possible Metric: Measure the number of candidates that apply for a similar jobs over time. (Factors such as economic climate and job post messaging can affect this number, but overall this should give you a good understanding of your recruitment
     funnel.)
   
   
3. Where’s the Quality?- The number of applicants you receive is steady but the quality of applicants you receive has decreased.
   
   • Possible Metric: Measure the number of qualified candidates that apply for a specific job. Could be determined through some sort of recruiter ranking system in your ATS.

In order to run an effective recruiting strategy, you need to determine the vital metrics that determine overall success (The three above are my favorites) and measure them. These metrics can then act as guideposts along the way, letting you know when your recruiting strategy is out sync or when it’s time to take advantage of new recruiting opportunities. The best part of it all, is that once you start following these metrics you can make these informed strategic decisions more quickly thus strengthening your recruiting efforts.

What metrics or guideposts do you rely on for your recruiting strategy? Let me know in the comments or send me an email at chris@smashfly.com.

About the Author: Chris is a Marketing Analyst for SmashFly Technologies. SmashFly provides an enterprise recruitment marketing software platform that enables companies to launch and more importantly measure all their recruiting efforts anywhere on the web.