Changing the attitude of recruitment towards data

A move towards a culture that embraces data

Once, there was a time when the concept and use of ‘data ‘was restricted to the finance function and the senior executive level. For the rest of the business its use of was quite limited, and for some, it usually meant only one thing: Sales targets.

For those with roles indexed to sales, such as recruiters, ‘the sales figures’ were almost exclusively used to judge performance, and in many environments the detail about how you got over the line didn’t matter too much, as long as no one got hurt!

For some, sales targets could be a bone of contention. Too high… unachievable… the suspicion was that they were unfairly set to prevent winning commissions. And then they might be capped, which meant that a particularly good month or quarter might not yield the full benefit to the consultant.

The management view of data could also be quite narrow. For some, it seemed that data simply piled up, accumulating and costing money to store and archive.

Today, we have access to more data than ever before and it means so much more. Data can be used for far more than just setting sales targets and commissions. In many agencies, data can be used in a much more forensic way. This enables a shift towards a culture that is more in tune with the use and benefits of data.

‘Fingerprints all over it’ – the forensic use of data

The forensic use of data helps:

• Identify the contribution made by specific activities towards productivity
• Compare specific data points to identify the differences in recruiter performance
• Pinpoint specific action points that are likely to improve productivity

Depending on the data you have available, some examples of how these help include identifying the influence of such factors as the number of phone calls, total time on calls, time spent interviewing, time spent on new business development, the number of candidates put forward, and the number placed.

The data on all this, and much more, is available from the many systems that are used in today’s recruitment industry. Many of today’s technology tools can be linked together with a function specific integration, usually through a secure API. An example of this might be taking ETZ’s timesheet information directly into an accounting system like Xero for analysis.

However, if you want to make greater use of your data from across all the technologies you invest in, then you need to take data from all of these systems and concentrate it in one place, as a single mass, something that’s known as a data lake.

Caspian from the team behind ETZ

Caspian is a business intelligence data management tool that allows this mass of data to be turned into a data warehouse. A data warehouse lets you generate standard and custom reports to gain a far more detailed view and deeper understanding of the performance dynamics within your agency.

Besides helping to improve the performance of individuals, such detailed and customisable reporting helps to determine general agency practices and set out the policies that influence productivity across the entire agency.

Shift agency attitudes to data with Caspian from ETZ

Caspian enables a shift in attitude away from the narrow perception that data is just about targets, sales figures and commissions. The tactical use of data enables everyone in the business to become more ‘data aware’ and understand the role that daily activity makes towards the overall performance of the business.

Caspian is the latest addition to the range of RecTech tools available to the recruitment industry. This business intelligence tool is complementary to ETZ’s market leading timesheet, invoicing and payment solution that lets recruitment agencies transform efficiency of back office processing. To find out more about how we simplify the complexity of RecTech for agencies like yours, call us on 0800 311 2266 or book a demo.