For Metrics Sake

In the growing world of Recruitment and Big Data (yes, I said it) metrics are making a bigger and bigger impact on our world.  This is good and bad news I reckon.
I remember my first agency job when, after a few iterations of management, we were given set metrics for a daily goal.  These goals had to be reported on a daily basis in-front of the whole team.  I hated it, from what I was told they were arbitrary numbers with no meaning for me.  I just hit them.  Well, not always the dollar ones I suppose.  They were metrics for metrics sake, a total waste of time in my estimation.  It didn’t prove that x amount of calls equalled y amount of sales..
At the beginning of another job, a predecessor of mine had this  awesome looking report she used to hand to management on a monthly basis.  It had stats like, “amount of resume’s received” “first interviews”  etc etc.  It all looked really good, and she would put almost a whole day into ensuring this report was ready for the monthly management meeting.  I was a bit daunted when it was handballed to me to do.
However on close inspection, and putting my management hat on, those numbers really didn’t mean that much.  Putting my (pretend) CEO’s hat on, I thought, “so what?” .  I did something really weird. I asked the Executive what they did with this information? The answer? “we filed it in the round bin”
The numbers meant nothing to them.  It didn’t help with any business decisions or add value to them in any way shape or form.  So I stopped doing the report.  Much angst was felt in the HR dept.
So here is my take on Metrics.  It’s pretty simple.
Before you start “deep diving” or whatever the cool hip term is for it, know what it is you want to measure and why? What is the reason behind it? What value will it add? What insight will it give you that you didn’t have before?   Then the big step is HOW are you going to measure it? AND how are you going to report it, to whom?
Not rocket science I know, but I really do hate metrics for metrics sake.

Related articles

Leave a Reply

XHTML: You can use these tags: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>

Sign up to our newsletter

Get a weekly digest on the latest in Talent Acquisition.

Deliver this goodness to my inbox!