Here’s Why Sourcing Channel Effectiveness Is The Metric You Need To Measure
10 February 2020
By Jose Marchena, Talent Partner, Talentful, London.
Picture this scenario – you’re paying £14,000+ a year on LinkedIn Job adverts that haven’t produced any hires. Scary right?
Would you rather invest that money in a source that’s generating many more relevant candidates, or at the very least scrap that investment altogether?
LinkedIn’s “The Future of Recruiting” article looked at the seven ways a recruiter’s role will change in the future. The report identified the top three metrics that will matter more for hiring managers in the next several years – the quality of hire, assessment effectiveness, and what I think is most critical – sourcing channel effectiveness (SCE).
In this blog, I will detail what the SCE metric is, why it matters and how clients can use it to make better hiring decisions.
What is SCE?
Analyzing SCE gives you insights into your different sourcing channels and how many candidates each channel delivers based on the level of investment you’ve made. Your insights can be used in different ways. For example, tracking which sources generate the most candidate offers or hires.
How do you measure it? To measure, pick a relevant time frame (before and after implementing new hiring strategies and channels) and count the number of candidates each channel generates. For a more qualitative approach, look at which sources generate the most interviews and hires, not just the number of CVs. Compare each source and see which ones give you the most – or least amount of (qualitative) candidates.
Why is measuring SCE important? Keeping constant track of the best and worst sources of hires helps you not only get more hires but can also save you tons of money by identifying which areas you shouldn’t be investing money in!
We recently made essential changes in SCE for a fast-growth scaleup client in London. Within a few weeks of working with them, we noticed their recruitment strategy consisted mainly of advertising their tech roles in as many LinkedIn adverts as possible. With about 30 jobs sometimes costing around £40 a month per advert, you would easily be looking at a cost close to £14,000 a year in LinkedIn job adverts. And this doesn’t take into account the time and effort spent on reviewing this source.
In practice, our team noticed that a substantial percentage of their actual hires came from proactive headhunting, meaning that the client would have invested tons in adverts that would not have produced the ideal results. We cancelled the LinkedIn adverts and then implemented a more proactive headhunting strategy that improved both the qualitative and quantitative amount of candidates that were submitted, which in turn resulted in better and more cost-effective hires.
Here are two quick tips for creating the strongest SCE for your team.
- Stick to the basics of SCE; track your sourcing channels to see how many hires they’ve made.
- Give a critical look at the costliest channels and – if the results do not justify the investments you’re making, do yourself a favor and cancel that £14,000 a year subscription.
You might be able to reinvest this in a source that helps you ramp up your hiring in no time!
