Episode 2: How to get your recruiting metrics right in 2020 ft. The Crown

Welcome to the second episode of #NetflixandHire where we learn some great ways on how you can get your recruiting metrics right!

For this, we’ve chosen a TV show we LOVE and we can all learn from—The Crown.

Why? Because Queen Elizabeth sums it right—“In an increasingly complex world, we all need certainty.”

P.S. If you haven’t already gone through our previous episode, here you go! – Episode 1: How to drive inclusive hiring in tech ft. Orange Is the New Black

Source: Pop Culture Times

The show delivers an important message on how, as a leader, you are responsible not only for the well-being of yourself but everyone else around you, and that it never hurts to be informed. Through the seasons, you realize that as a constitutional monarch, Queen Elizabeth, though not having any political power, is always in a position to advise the Government. You can also see how she strives to be informed—by hiring a private tutor and staying on top of official documents—just so she can keep things in check.

Now, being a tech recruiter is no less than being a monarch. You’re tasked with connecting with the right developers, bringing in the right talent, and making sure your kingdom, (ahem) organization, flourishes. But can you be so sure of doing these things without the right metrics? We think not! In fact, the Recruitment Operations benchmark report by Yello vouches for the same.

The key takeaway—Recruitment operations is all about streamlining hiring processes, cutting costs, and driving greater efficiency.

Source: Yello

Now, let’s look at how you can measure and tackle each of the above metrics, ‘The Crown’ style:

1) Reducing your time-to-hire

“There is one thing I’ve learned in 52 years of public service is that there is no problem so complex, nor crisis so grave that it cannot be satisfactorily resolved within 20 minutes.” — Winston Churchill

Source: Pinterest

Did you know that 52% of the recruiters take more than 3 hours to actually make a hire! Hence time-to-hire is the first recruiting metric that we will cover.

Honestly, if Churchill could solve political emergencies in a matter of minutes, we could surely solve the time-to-hire problem with a little help.

The 2 biggest pitfalls that recruiters face when it comes to closing positions are:

• Screening candidates
• Scheduling interviews 

How can you screen developers and schedule interviews better?

Use personality tests

From Minna’s 16 developer profiles to Hackernoon’s 9, developers exhibit a myriad of profiles. Different projects need different behaviors and value profiles apart from skills. Hence, it’s important to get to know prospective employees and their work ethic to understand if they would be the right fit for your organization. Here are some questions from Alistair Doulin’s programmer personality test that you could use.

Use skill-based assessments

Using skill-based assessments to test technical competencies is a great way of making sure that you only have the right candidates in the interview stage. It gives both recruiters and hiring managers enough bandwidth to concentrate better on testing candidates in the later stages of the interview. It is no wonder that skill-assessments can bring down your time-to-hire by 50%.

Create a take-home coding test for free

Use live video interviews

An easy and time-tested method for scheduling interviews better is to use a live video interview tool. Some cool benefits of using such a tool:

•  Scheduling interviews gets a lot simpler when assessing remote developers.
• You can watch candidates as they code and evaluate them for job readiness.
• With access to interview history, you always have data on hand to make the right hiring decision.

Did you know that by adding a live video interview tool in your hiring process, you can bring down your average time to hire to 10 days!

2) Decreasing your cost-per-hire

Season 3 sees Prince Charles’s investiture as the Prince of Wales and the demands of the royal family for the deployment of 15,000 troops, 21 gun salutes, and a battery of Royal Field Artillery among other things. However, the then Prime Minister, Harold Wilson, understands that a penny saved is a penny earned and he advises Charles to “Go and study there and address the country in Native Welsh” to make a more meaningful impact on the people of Wales.

Source: The Digital Weekly

It’s time we took a leaf out of Wilson’s book and saved some money by cutting down unnecessary hiring costs.

How can you reduce your hiring cost?

Did you know that recruiters spend 35% of their annual recruiting budget on external agencies to hire 10 technologists! No wonder this recruiting metric is really important to recruiters. Here are some ways on how you can reduce your hiring costs by minimizing your dependency on external agencies: 

Leverage social media to build a developer brand 

Prospective employees would like to know all the cool things that your company has been up to and see the kind of work culture in store for them. Setting up live Q&A sessions, building a talent pipeline using your company’s Linkedin profile and attracting Gen Z developers through Instagram, Snapchat and Pinterest could be some ways in which you can gauge their interest.

Attend local meetups

Look for local developer meetups and conferences. You can find a lot of free events in your locality on Meetup. Shortlist for events that align with your recruiting goals. You could make some connections a couple of days before the event so you know whom to spend time with on the day of the event.

Make your tech team your brand advocate

Your tech team is first-hand proof of what you stand for as a developer brand. Hence, it is very important that your developers are your strongest advocates. Try incorporating a referral program and encourage developers to share their experiences working with you to ensure a greater recall.

3) Boosting your retention rate

“Keep one eye on the future. The distant future” – King George VI

The series portrays King George VI as the monarch who rose to the occasion at the expense of his physical and mental health. You can clearly see his preparedness when he urges Churchill to let Elizabeth undertake the commonwealth tour to ease her into her future role as Queen in order to keep the monarchy standing in the case of his demise.

Source: Business Insider

It’s time we channeled our inner King George and thought about the future of our workforce. Is all that sweat and blood that went into recruiting your dream tech team going to waste? This brings us to our 3rd recruiting metric: retention. Taking some steps to retain your tech team for the long run is the only way forward.

How to increase retention in your tech team?

We had recently written this detailed article on how to ensure your tech talent pool is poaching proof. Here’s the gist:

1. Provide autonomy and purpose to your developers
2. Develop a community internally
3. Provide perks and privileges your developers can’t say no to
4. Have an open discussion with your employees in the incentive process
5. Provide creative freedom and growth opportunities

There you have it—our royal advice on how to get your tech recruiting metrics right this year. Let us know if any of these have solutions have helped better your hiring process in the comments below. See you soon in the next episode! Until then, #NetflixandHire 😎

Soumya Chittigala Author 14 Blogs