10 QUESTIONS TO ASSESS THE EFFICIENCY OF A TECH RECRUITER OR A RECRUITMENT CAMPAIGN - A GUIDE FOR HIRING MANAGERS

Being a tech recruiter is no joke. For an outsider, it might seem that all it takes is being friendly, communicative, and introducing things into a database. But an insider knows that IT recruitment is like the stock market, always having to keep up to date with the plethora of changes that occur in the trends of the market, the necessities of the company, and the preferences and changes in the priorities of the candidates. A tech recruiter needs to operate fast, without losing grip on the quality of both the research of the market and the constant interaction with the hiring managers and the candidates.

The purpose of this article is to 1) shed light on the responsibilities of a tech recruiter and the dimensions that are key to their performance and efficiency and 2) to help Hiring Managers/HR managers measure the efficiency of a recruitment strategy for a campaign by providing a list of useful questions to do so.

SO WHAT EXACTLY DOES A TECH RECRUITER DO?

In order to give an as-complex-as-possible representation of their responsibilities, we gathered information from job descriptions from several top-tier tech companies like Meta, Spotify, Google, etc, and also added to the list the aspects we, at Human Direct, consider non-negotiable. In this manner, we managed to put together what we think is a reliable list of skills, abilities, and responsibilities of a tech recruiter and we would like to share some of the most important ones with you.

In-house tasks and abilities:

• Manage full-cycle recruiting for multiple, complex searches

• Create innovative sourcing strategies and engagement to bring the best talent to each role

• Good knowledge and understanding of the local/targeted market in terms of roles and responsibilities

• Ensure that the recruitment process holds a high validity and that candidates are being assessed in a quality-driven way

• Regularly manage pipeline activity and maintain data integrity

• Recommend ideas and strategies related to recruitment that will contribute to the long-range growth of the company

• Stay informed of trends and innovative recruiting techniques in order to be competitive in state-of-the-art recruiting practices.

• Coordinate closely with recruiting team members to innovate the research strategy for talent pooling, market mapping, and competitor analysis

• Have strong knowledge of the existing profiles and technologies, even if you did not yet have the chance to work on such profiles

• Provide an efficient, high-touch, and memorable experience for every candidate and referral.

Stakeholder/Client Engagement & Hiring Plans:

• Interprets client’s business and the industry landscape and talent pools to guide the client to adopt optimal staffing solutions

• Understands factors relevant to the business and hiring managers' needs (e.g. time to hire, location, budget) and use this knowledge to develop and implement an end-to-end hiring plan aligned with the needs of the business group

• Develop strong relationships with customers by managing expectations throughout the hiring process

• Research the role you are recruiting for, asking additional questions to Hiring Managers for a better understanding of the profile before sending the first recommendation, while also proactively returning with additional questions from the candidates

• Elicits interest in active and potential candidates by telling the business story

• Provide frequent status updates on recruitment efforts

• Analyze relevant data and trends to provide insight

Long story short, it is not a walk in the park to manage the interactions with the candidates, the recruiting team, and the hiring managers, to constantly be aware of the business’s and the profile’s needs and specificities, as well as to proactively look for ways to improve and fine-tune the process and the strategies as you go.

QUANTITATIVE AND QUALITATIVE KPIs - THE FOUNDATION OF THE RECRUITMENT PROCESS

As hiring managers, you probably want your vacant roles to be filled asap with high-quality software engineers who are going to bring value to your company both professionally wise and team-wise. In order to properly assess the efficiency of a recruitment process, it is very important to keep in mind some KPIs (Key Performance Indicators). View the process in the light of these elements and you’re going to be able to recognize if the recruitment strategy delivers the needed and expected results.

“Recruitment KPIs allow you to eliminate the guesswork from your recruitment process and show you where you’re doing things right and where you’re going wrong. They also allow you to understand whether the changes you’re introducing have positive or negative consequences and make sure your hiring process is structured and replicable. “ (Devskiller, 2022)

Make your hiring process data-driven by taking into account some of the following quantitative KPIs:

• Candidates per Hire: number of candidates interviewed before a position is filled

• Candidate Drop-Off Rate: how many candidates abandoned the recruitment process out of the ones who agreed to enter it?

• Interviews per Hire: how many interviews you had to conduct for an accepted offer?

• Number of Qualified Candidates Ratio: how many of the recommended candidates by the recruitment team did you actually consider qualified?

• Time to fill the position: speaks for itself

• Cost per hire: take into account both internal and external costs!

• Quality of Hire: here you want to look at several scores for job performance, ramp-up time, engagement, and cultural fit

• Retention rate: if recruitment is done right, then the new team members will probably hang around for a while - at Human Direct we are proud to say that the retention rate of the candidates that we recommend has been 98% for the past few years!

And don’t forget about the qualitative KPIs:

• Understanding the organizational culture and having the ability to pass it on to candidates

• Give and receive real-time feedback to and from clients and candidates

• Consultative and follow-through approach of the recruitment team

• Good interview experiences for candidates

• Prioritizing candidates in entering the next stage according to the timeline

• Knowing the status of candidates in real-time (e.g. other interviews, motivation, etc)

CHOOSE YOUR TECH RECRUITER WISELY

We encourage hiring managers to apply to their chosen tech recruitment team a similar thought process they would to assess their future candidates. A short screening you may call it. Gather information about their team, their processes, and strategies, and don’t be afraid to ask for data-supported examples of the way they assess, check, and fine-tune some of the above KPIs. Knowing these pieces of information is not only relevant to gather during and about the recruitment process for your team, but also as a precursor to determining whether there’s a fit between your hiring goals and a recruitment team.

The prosperity and the well-being of your team are at stake, so you might even want to meet some of the tech recruiters, and see where they stand in terms of tech knowledge and experience and how your interaction with them feels. Most probably, the tech recruiters are going to have a similar attitude towards candidates as well, so it is your right to decide if they can represent your company accordingly. Set your non-negotiables and start from there. Are they open and friendly? Tech-savvy? Compassionate? Do they have the necessary skills to counsel, coach, and motivate candidates who find themselves at a cross-road? Besides the scenario in which a candidate is familiar with your company and your branding, the tech recruiter is probably going to be the first representation of your company that the candidate has.

To sum it all up, we considered it might be useful for hiring managers to have a short, but mighty “cheat sheet” to help them evaluate if the tech recruiter assigned for their vacant roles is efficient or not. So here it is:

10 QUESTIONS TO ASSESS THE EFFICIENCY OF A TECH RECRUITER:

1. Do they have good knowledge and understanding of the targeted market in terms of roles, technologies, and responsibilities?

2. Are they constantly adapting their messages to offer the most relevant information while personalizing them to suit the candidate’s professional history and interests?

3. Do they provide a qualitative and memorable experience for every candidate and referral?

4. Are you experiencing a thorough and swift collaboration that keeps you up to date with the recruitment process?

5. Does the recruiter have an accurate understanding of your business and can they represent and showcase it accordingly?

6. Did they develop and implement an end-to-end hiring plan aligned with the needs of your team in terms of time to hire, location, budget, etc?

7. Are the referrals you receive from them aligned with and qualified for the vacant role?

8. Do they have the necessary skills to counsel, coach, and motivate candidates who find themselves at a cross-road?

9. Are they providing strong, comprehensive feedback from the candidates in regard to the presented role and their expectations?

10. Are they flexible to change or adapt their approach according to the possible fluctuations in your business’s needs?

We said 10 questions in the title, we know, but IT recruitment is such a complex matrix that sometimes additional aspects need to be covered. This is why we want to provide hiring managers with another 9 questions for when they feel they need to dig a little deeper in the recruitment campaign and shed some light on the areas that might not be fructified enough. We are confident that looking into the following aspects will ensure a pipeline that can result in valuable hires.

1. What is the number of candidates in the sourcing stage (candidates selected to be contacted) and what is the total number of specialists that correspond to your selection criteria? If out of 5000 Java developers in a city, 100 were sourced and none ended up being hired, this might give an important hint on the way the pipeline is built.

2. What was the candidate response rate to the approach messages of the recruitment team?

3. Why were the candidates who gave a negative response not interested in the role? This question can reveal valuable insight about missing information from the primary message received, what could represent a plus if added to the existing role, or what objections about the company or the role they have can be solved.

4. How long from the first interaction with the candidate does it take to get to the interview phase with the HR/Hiring Manager? How long does it take for candidates to receive feedback? Every contact with the candidates needs to be handled timely, kindly, and professionally in order to foster a positive candidate experience.

5. How does the recruitment team analyze the reports/pipelines and what are the conclusions they can extract from those? The recruitment team should have the ability to track meaningful KPIs and use data from the campaign to suggest and implement improvements.

6. What are the questions the recruitment team asks the Hiring Manager to ensure they understand their recruitment needs and the desired profile for a particular role?

7. What strategies do they implement in order to make sure they did their best to close a role? For example, on what platforms do they search for candidates? Are they checking in with the Hiring Manager about the candidates they find to see if they are heading in the right direction with their searches?

8. What percentage of the hiring comes from their own effort (sourcing)? Where do the other hires come from? Other sources may be: internal referrals, applicants, internal mobility between departments, or returning of ex-employees.

9. What is the average closing time for an internal role? What can be done to reduce this time and what is the reason behind such a long process?

So many things to take into account! Oh, well, the best we can say now is simply: Good luck! (and pick your recruitment team wisely!)