Talent Analytics 101: How to Interpret Your Data - Glassdoor for Employers
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Talent Analytics 101: How to Interpret Your Data

What’s your cost-per-hire? The average cost-per-hire for American employers was $4,000. If your company isn't keeping track of data like this, they may be missing out on other crucial insights that can help guide the hiring process.

As recruiting becomes increasingly data-driven, it is important for employers to understand how they can effectively use data to improve their hiring pipeline and employee experience. This process — called talent analytics — can help recruiters save time, money and effort, all while attracting the best hires. Here are three key metrics we’ve taken from the treasure trove of talent analytics that can be found in Talent Analytics for Dummies, available for download on Glassdoor’s website.

1. Employee Satisfaction

How to Track It: Measuring employee satisfaction can be achieved through keeping track of a variety of metrics, such as employee retention time, rates of absenteeism and Glassdoor ratings. Of course, getting long-form feedback on various aspects of the employee experience, as well as ratings of certain areas of the business, is crucial for evaluating overall employee satisfaction.

How to Interpret It: Ratings that current employees give their employer affect the decision of others when deciding whether to work for your company. Employee satisfaction is also linked to how likely current employees will be to recommend your company to the next crop of talent. Be sure to benchmark employee satisfaction ratings with the company’s vertical or market segment to be able to understand them more in context.

[Related: Are You Getting the Most Out of Talent Analytics?]

2. Interview Satisfaction

How to Track It: Interview satisfaction is an essential metric to track during the hiring process, especially if there is a trend of recruiters missing out on key hires. One way to measure this is through finding out the average length of both individual interviews and the entire interview process. On top of that, Glassdoor interview ratings are a key resource for finding out what went well — or not! —  in the hiring process. In addition, make sure to note current employee reviews that mention your hiring process.

How to Interpret It: In order to learn how to improve your current hiring process, you must learn from the people who went through it themselves. Take stock of positive, neutral and negative experiences, so you can understand where your hiring process excels, and where it’s in need of help. Be sure to cross-compare metrics, too, as there may be more insights than you think laying in the data. For example, Glassdoor’s Chief Economist Andrew Chamberlain published a report in 2015 that showed that in six countries, the more difficult the job interview, the higher the eventual employee satisfaction.

3. Employer Brand Awareness

How to Track It: Employer brand awareness, while one of the more nebulous metrics to track, is absolutely critical for your long-term recruiting strategy. One of the most concrete ways to track employer brand awareness is through inbound traffic from people who come to research and interact with your brand. Traffic can be measured through social media, job boards and web searches. Another way is through using visual word clouds, like those available on Glassdoor, to analyze key pros and cons from employee reviews on-the-spot.

How to Interpret It: To attract a diverse crop of candidates (and generally, the larger the pool, the better the catch), understanding your brand’s performance in the marketplace is critical. By gathering analytics on your brand awareness, adjusting your message to attract the right job-seekers and garner a wide talent pool to choose from are much easier.

Learn More & Download:

Talent Analytics For Dummies®