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Why is time-to-hire a terrible metric? Because it measures your team, but in a horrible way. It’s so variable, and there are so many other metrics that would be more beneficial to focus on. Let Simon Townsend change your mind in this recap of his ATC2024 5+5 Think Again presentation.
This article is an extraction of a presentation from Think Again 5+5, a session designed to re-examine established hiring norms that took place at ATC2024.
Why is time-to-hire a terrible metric? Because it measures your team, but in a horrible way. It’s so variable, and there are so many other metrics that would be more beneficial to focus on.
So much of what a recruiter works with is out of their control, so honing in on time-to-hire as a singular metric encourages shortcuts. Focusing just on time makes it all about action, action, action. The result? It places recruiters under a great deal of pressure.
You might say that when you put recruiters under a great deal of pressure, you get diamonds. But you don’t. The reality is you just get crushed recruiters. And obviously a team full of crushed recruiters isn’t going to align to business goals.
If we want to understand what metrics we should be looking at to measure the impact recruiters can make on the business there are three sets of metrics we should look at:
Each of these metrics provides a different way of providing incremental value and generating continuous improvement.
Image Source: Screen Grab from Simon Townsend’s presentation Time to Hire is a Terrible Metric at ATC2024.
As I’ve listed above, there are a lot of metrics we – as recruiters – can focus on. But if we focus in-depth on all of them at once, we risk overcomplicating things. So, let’s take an in-depth look at measuring operational efficiency via funnel conversion.
To measure funnel conversion, you would need to look at what steps happened at each phase in the funnel and understand why people convert from the top of the funnel all the way down to the bottom. Suppose you take the time-to-hire element out of the funnel analysis and instead look at the actual steps. In that case, you’re presented with a much more interesting metric that provides insight into your candidates, processes, systems, and platforms. In other words, fundamental insights into the work you’re doing rather than just the time in which you’re doing it.
Simple. Tell your exec that time-to-hire needs to be aligned to their business.
If they want us to focus just on the recruiting and this little hiring space that we’re looking after in an insular way, then that’s fine. We can do that.
However, if they want recruiters to have real business impact and drive success across the entire organisation, tell your exec you need to work with something that’s going to meet your goals and your needs so we can work together to develop the right metrics for that.
This is also where “show and ask” comes into play. And yes, it’s “show and ask” and not “show and tell”, because it allows us to show them our metrics and then ask, “will this meet your needs? Where else can we add value?’ Once you get your internal stakeholders talking this way, you’re able to understand what metrics you should be drilling into to understand their goals.
Want to hear from Simon directly? Check out the audio playback of his session from ATC2024 along with his slides. See if he can change your mind about whether time to hire is a good hiring metric!
