Attraction Before you
dive into the data deluge, ask yourself:
“what do I want to achieve?” Setting ambitious, yet realistic, goals for your attraction
Measuring Up
strategies will help you decide what you should and shouldn’t be measuring.
Impressions, click-through rates, dwell time, engagement rates, social reach, applications, attribution modelling, A/B testing, cost-per-hire. Today recruiters have unfettered access to data. But just because it’s out there, doesn’t mean you should be measuring all of it. Nathan Perrott, Head of Digital Strategy, AIA, explains why identifying the right pieces to measure is critical when formulating your attraction strategy...
E
instein sums it up best: “Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that
counts can be counted.” Effective attraction strategies measure and analyse the right data, then refine their approach based on the results. But how is this achieved?
Identify your goals Before you dive into the data deluge, ask yourself: “what do I want to achieve?” Setting ambitious, yet realistic, goals for your attraction strategies will help you decide what you should and shouldn’t be measuring. Be it a reduction in media spend to focus on a direct sourcing model, reducing time to hire, increasing quantity of applications, or improving the quality of hire (this should be a given!), you need to determine what your primary goals are.
Get to first base With your objectives defined, what has to be measured to optimise your strategy? A ready-made example for the importance of measuring the right data can be seen in baseball. Depicted in the film Moneyball, the Oakland Athletics turned accepted practice on its head to rival opponents with far greater resources than their own. Instead of trusting the scout’s eye, the team’s General Manager, Billy Beane hired data analyst, Peter Brand. Between them, they determined that on-base percentage (a measure of how
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often a batter reaches base) was the best indicator of scoring runs and, ultimately, winning games. Using this statistic, they recruited players that other teams had overlooked. The result was a record- breaking winning streak of 20 games and a place in the end-of-season play-off finals.
What then, is your equivalent of the on-base percentage? In reality, the right data exists across different channels. If your marketing collateral sits in a variety of places, your first port of call should be to determine what your level of spend is across your attraction platforms, and what the most prolific sources of applications and hires are. Armed with this knowledge, you’ll quickly be able to see what’s working and what’s not from a media perspective, allowing you to refine your strategy – and budget - accordingly.
Put it into action Global electronic systems company, Thales, have benefitted enormously from switching to a model that focuses on measuring the right data, and acting on it. “We understand the importance of measuring the key elements of our attraction strategy,” says Miranda Davies, Emerging Talent Director, Thales. “Working with AIA Worldwide, we have identified the data that really matters. We’ve also attributed applications and
hires to particular media collateral. This has enabled us to be more efficient with our budgets, and helped us achieve a 53% reduction in media spend whilst still being able to fill our roles with quality candidates.”
Another client, a global investment bank, wanted to recruit graduates to work in finance. By analysing all the necessary data points, they reduced their media spend considerably, but the real benefits were realised in their recruitment statistics: total hires increased by 69% and cost per hire fell by 71%. The amount of applications per hire was also significantly reduced by 23%. These numbers demonstrate that a smarter approach can lead to more quality candidates at a fraction of the cost.
Test and learn Whatever your overarching goals, your careers website plays an integral part in the recruitment cycle. It’s the fulcrum which is fed by the rest of your marketing arsenal. So if your candidates are going to apply for your roles, they’ll need to find their way there and be compelled by what they discover. This is an area that’s been explored extensively with Thales. “For our careers website, we’ve used techniques such as heat mapping and web analytics to enhance the candidate experience,” adds Davies.
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