Mike Alaimo — September 5, 2017 — September 5, 2017
TeroVesalainen / Pixabay
What if you could predict the job performance and longevity of your next tech hire? The signs are there if you know what to look for. Enough data exists in your organization and through public and private resources to transform your candidate searches from gut reactions to repeatable formulas.
At best, only 15% of hiring managers prioritize hiring with predictive analytics in their recruitment strategies. That short-term approach prevents them from gaining a renewable search criterion that improves overall employee performance and cuts down attrition levels. Fortunately, there are a number of solutions to improve the regularity of high quality hires across positions.
Eliminating Useless Search Criteria
What does your perfect employee look like? The prototype probably already exists in your organization. Yet what limits candidate searches from getting dependable results is they’ve relied too heavily on intuition and assumptions. Accurate measures are muddied when placed alongside unproven bias. So, the whole process needs to start by separating what’s verifiable from what’s unsubstantiated by the facts.
What technical skills and interpersonal competencies matter? Test everything. Google applied their passion for data to their People Analytics division (formerly HR) and examined which assumptions held up. In the process, they found that their beloved brainteasers did little to identify exceptional future Googlers. So, they accepted the evidence and cut those questions from their interviews.
Assessments need to be reevaluated regularly. Unreliable data sets can be just as bad as no data at all. Consider employee engagement assessments. Personal benchmarks and perspectives vary between employees, making it difficult to compare responses without a healthy margin for error. Tracing backward from satisfaction to the goals and personality that make employees happy in your company assumes consistent responses. Even then, anonymous surveys still tend to lean toward more positive comments (to protect candidates if their identities are found out).
Leveraging Data-Driven Resources
Certain tests clearly are not a good gauge of a candidate’s future performance, but there are tests that help to distill candidate performance into the right search criteria. Data-driven platforms and services are providing better results for predictive analysis.
Want to use your top performer as a measuring point? Companies like Pairin evaluate their employees’ soft skills and mentality, which among other things can be used to predict which candidates will be a strong fit. Part of their goal is to make hiring easier by identifying what is important in a specific job role and the overall organization. With claims that they can increase employee retention by 67%, their behavioral tests and data analysis has a strong potential to improve your workforce.
Trusting the Right Recruiting Metrics
Hiring with predictive analytics requires a look at recruiting metrics just as much as performance metrics. Does any recruiting data indicate where to find exceptional future employees? Is there a candidate goldmine out there? Are you even targeting perfect candidates in the right way? Combining your findings and those of your IT staffing firm (we’re meticulous about data gathering) creates a better understanding of the answer.
There are many frequently used recruiting metrics that can identify where to find future prospects (and if you are actually doing enough to reach them). According to Jibe, 57% of talent acquisition professionals are gravitating toward metrics like source of hire to narrow down their future searches. Finding out whether your best candidates come from LinkedIn, social media, networking events, referrals, or other strategies is the first step in the process. If your business is not reviewing the origin of that candidate connection, then you are already falling behind. Though referrals are often ranked among the best sources for candidates, companies should still be targeting equally strong sources.
Is your company even effectively reaching your perfect candidate? Once you have measured the right blend of technical and soft skills, it’s important to see whether the target audience is reached through employer branding and social engagement. Only 22% and 13% of hiring managers review these recruiting metrics respectively, but that data helps to assess your own talent acquisition efforts.
If the number of qualified candidates coming from social channels is low, that doesn’t mean the channel is without merit. Content and social media engagement needs to target the right audience while differentiating you from competitors. There’s a balancing act that companies need to walk as marketing increasingly exerts a greater influence over candidates.
Why Hiring with Predictive Analysis Requires a Good Staffing Partner
Data-driven hiring helps to remove incompatible candidates from the hiring process, but businesses still need IT staffing services capable of encouraging the right candidates to take the position. An effective staffing partner can use the data gathered to locate quality IT professionals, screen them for your precise cultural fit, and convince the candidate your company is the next great step in their career.
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