Recruiting dashboards provides talent acquisition leaders with a quick snapshot of important recruiting metrics and trends that are customizable to the individual and the organization.

Like a dashboard on your car, recruiting metrics clue you into essential pieces of information. Things like gas level, oil health, and tire pressure allow you to make sure your car is operating at maximum efficiency, so you can get to your destination quickly and safely.

Recruiting Metrics to Include On Your Dashboard

Like the indicator that tells you how much gas is left in your car, your recruiting dashboard offers quick information encouraging you to dig deeper at a time that’s more convenient for you. It lets recruiters measure trends and performance quarter-over-quarter or compare one region to the next to see if there are some best practices to share across offices.

Maybe you’re trying to measure referrals as a recruiting metric. Your recruiting dashboard could compare referral numbers per quarter for the different regions you are responsible for. Using the car dashboard analogy helps when you’re communicating to your team and to executive leadership.

Using Your Dashboard to Drive Productivity and Results

Recruiting dashboards can be a great way to see the performance across the board not only by region or geography, but for individual performers as well. Dashboards can provide a quick snapshot of the time spent focused on specific recruiting processes by segment and activities. This includes time spent:

• Sourcing
• Reviewing candidates
• Conducting initial candidate screenings
• Scheduling interviews
• Gathering interview or hiring manager feedback
• Onboarding

When analyzing this data, the focus is on scaling and streamlining the process by measuring the service and value that the recruiting function brings to the table.

Lobbying for Investment Using Recruiting Reports and Dashboards

While dashboards are a great way to display trends, it’s important to remember that this data should help improve processes and drive efficiency. Recruiting is challenging to scale. By simultaneously monitoring recruiting metrics like time to fill, you can uncover trends that show how an investment in recruiting can produce results that can make a large impact on the revenue of the company.

One of my favorite recruiting metrics is lost productivity. By tying a dollar amount to lost productivity when a position is left unfilled – even for a day – you can demonstrate to leadership the broader impact of recruiting while also making a great business case for how a new technology can decrease lost productivity by shortening time to fill.

Taking Recruiting From a Cost Center to a Revenue Center

This small change in presentation changes recruiting from a cost center to a revenue center. This allows you to ask for investment for new technologies by using forecasts that demonstrate how the adoption of a process change can impact the larger bottom-line.

It’s extremely challenging to measure and communicate the value that recruiting brings. As HR grows in complexity, it becomes more involved in business forecasting and establishing ROI that could be directly tied to future business success. HR pros are now strategic business partners involved in the success of organizations by evaluating – not just hiring, firing and filling traditional advisory roles. We are now challenged with “proving” the value of what often is not measurable, pivoting recruiting from a cost center to a revenue center. Recruiting dashboards and metrics are a great first step to moving the conversation forward in the broader organization around the value that recruiting brings.

Finally, company leaders value transparency, and more and more are understanding that talent acquisition is key not only to company productivity, but also to employer brand and culture. McKinsey and Company’s recent CEO study indicates that talent is a top priority for CEOs in 2018. The report, which polled newly promoted CEOs about what they wished they had done when they first assumed the role, found that the majority wished they had focused more on talent within the organization. Recruiting dashboards and metrics are a great way to partner with your CEO on this initiative.