Hiring Tools

Making sense of all the recruitment metrics in your organization—number of applications, screening calls, interviews—can be a daunting task, even for the most tech-savvy recruiters. This is where a recruitment dashboard comes in handy. It can help you bring together a rundown of all the recruitment data in your organization, and predict what’s going to happen and plan your next actions.

But, how to create a dashboard that curates all the recruitment data for you in one place?

In this article, you’ll uncover:

• 5 simple steps to help you skyrocket your recruitment process
• A free recruitment dashboard template

Let’s get started!

What is a recruitment dashboard?

A recruitment dashboard is a visual representation, often interactive, of various recruitment metrics and KPIs (Key Performance Indicators). Think of it as the control room of your recruiting operations. Just like how a car’s dashboard provides essential information about speed, fuel, and engine health, a recruiting dashboard offers HR insights into the hiring process’s effectiveness and efficiency.

Key elements typically displayed include:

Number of open positions: A simple count of how many roles you’re currently looking to fill.

Source of candidates: Breakdown of where your candidates are coming from – job boards, referrals, direct applications, etc.

Time-to-Hire: Average time taken from when a role is advertised to when an offer is accepted.

Application-to-Interview ratios: How many applications lead to an actual interview? This metric offers insights into the quality of applications.

Cost-per-Hire: An understanding of how much, on average, you spend to recruit a new employee.

Candidate feedback: Scores or feedback from candidates about their experience during the recruitment process.

Diversity metrics: Information about the diversity of candidates applying and being hired.

This dynamic tool evolves with your recruitment process, helping HR professionals, hiring managers, and even company executives get a quick snapshot of the hiring landscape.

Steps to Create HR Recruitment Dashboard Template?

Step 1: Know what you want

Create a list of questions you want to be answered. These questions will help understand your team’s performance better. Whether you’re a one-man/woman team or a 50-member team, this step is highly valuable. It will help you create a layout for the detailed recruitment steps required to hire the right candidates for your organization.

You can start with the following list: (feel free to add on to it)

1. How much time does it take for a candidate to complete the hiring process?
2. At which stage are the candidates dropping off
3. How many candidates does it take to close one role?
4. What percentage of the open roles is my team able to close in 1 quarter?
5. How many critical roles are there to fill (roles that are open for more than 60 days)?
6. On average, how much does it cost to hire a candidate?
7. How many applicants get past the screening stage?
8. How many candidates accept the offer and join?
9. How many offer dropouts do you have?
10. How many candidates drop off during the entire process?

Based on the industry or company you work in, there may be a lot more questions. List them out and get started.

Step 2: Identify key metrics

Once you’ve nailed step 1, achieving this step will be relatively easy. Take all the questions you have identified and find the relevant metrics for each of these questions. Also, identify the input metrics for each of these.

Input metrics is basically the data you need to calculate the key metrics.

For example, to calculate cost per hire, you need to know the total amount that was spent on recruitment activities and the number of open roles. Therefore, the amount spent and no. of open roles are your input metrics for the key metric—cost per hire.

Step 3: Collate the data

Gather your data for these metrics from all your sources. For example, your ATS, Excel sheets, or a combination of both. Many organizations also utilize HR software to streamline the collection and management of recruitment data. If you are looking for an efficient HRM tool already, it’s good to explore tomHRM alternatives that could offer additional features or better align with your specific needs.

Identify where you can get all your input metrics from and start adding them to an Excel sheet. Once you have the input metrics, it’s time to calculate the key metrics. You can use the formula below to get the numbers.

Side note: This process can get a little time-consuming. If you don’t want to set it up yourself, you can use the template where all the formulas are already set up. You just need to add in your input metrics.

Also read: Kaleyra Reduces Its Screening Time By 50% Using HackerEarth

Step 4: Make it look stunning

No dashboard is good enough if it doesn’t ‘look good.’ A few simple steps can make it look a lot better than just a list of numbers:

1. Use simple fonts
2. Use appropriate alignment
3. Use colors to differentiate the data
4. Use charts to help you depict the data better.

Step 5: Analyze data and present insights

Remember, the most important aspect of a dashboard is what you infer from it. How will it benefit you if you create the dashboard and send it out? You can establish your expertise by carefully analyzing the data and creating new action steps.

What Metrics Should You Track on Your Dashboard?

Let’s take a look at how a few of these metrics can contribute to proactive action steps:

Average time to hire

If your average time to hire is beyond your company threshold, then you know that you need to improve the recruitment process. The company threshold may vary for each company. If you are an extremely fast-paced company, then your limit might be less than 30 days. 60 days is an average across many companies and some companies are even ok with 90 days.

So if your threshold is 60 days and your average time to hire is 65 days, then you know that business is getting affected and the recruitment process needs to be optimized. To do this, it’s important to understand which phase is the bottleneck.

Also read: Reduce time-to-hire developers with coding assessments.

Bottleneck bucket

This one’s straightforward, the phase that is your bottleneck bucket needs a revamp. For example, if your bottleneck bucket is the interview phase because 50% of the candidates don’t show up for the interview, then you probably aren’t selling the role well enough.

Remember, as a recruiter it’s your job to ‘sell’ the role and it’s the candidates’ job to ‘sell’ what they can do for the company in the interview. So once you find your bottleneck bucket try to fix what’s not working.

Conversion rate

If your conversion rate is low, then you know you’re putting in a lot of effort to close one position, and if that’s going to continue, then your team will burn out or be in a ‘perpetually busy’ state. That’s not where you want your team to be.

Fixing this ties back to the previous metric of the bottleneck. Find out at what part of the process is the biggest bottleneck and try to fix that. That will have an impact on your conversion rate. Or it should at least point you in the right direction of what needs fixing.

This way you analyze all your metrics—where they stand and what are the actions you need to take to fix it. Add these action steps to the dashboard and send them across to your team to be a Rockstar recruiter!

Now that you know that you need to create a template, you can either get started from scratch or you can download the template here:

How to use the recruitment template included?

In the template, most of the important metrics are included and ready to use. Let me give you a quick tour. This template is designed for a quarterly review. You can convert it to suit a monthly review too. You need to use the following three sheets:

1. Role tracker sheet: This sheet gives you an overview of all the roles that have been opened and the status of each role.
2. Candidate tracker sheet: This sheet tracks the status of all the candidates that have applied for any role. If you use an ATS, you can export the data from the tool into this sheet.
3. Dashboard sheet: This sheet gives you a summary of the performance of your recruitment process. It includes twelve (ten in the chart above and two below) of the most important metrics that most companies track. All these metrics are automatically calculated based on the inputs of the role tracker sheet and the candidate tracker sheet.
   1. Overview of the current status of roles:
      1. No. of target roles for the quarter
      2. Total roles closed to date
      3. Open roles
      4. Roles in the offer stage
      5. Roles on hold
      6. Roles open beyond 60 days
   2. The efficiency of the recruitment process:
      1. Average time to hire
      2. Amount spent this quarter
      3. Cost per hire
      4. Qualified candidates’ rate
      5. Offer acceptance rate
      6. Application drop off rate

There is a sheet that gives you all the instructions on how to use the template and what each of the terms means. You can always refer to this sheet to understand how to use this sheet.

Tools needed to create a recruiting dashboard

With advancements in online software, creating a recruitment dashboard has never been easier. Here are some of the top tools to consider in 2024:

Tableau: Renowned for its data visualization capabilities, Tableau allows you to craft detailed, interactive dashboards by connecting to various data sources.

Microsoft Power BI: A powerful tool, especially for those familiar with the Microsoft ecosystem. Power BI offers extensive customization options and can integrate seamlessly with tools like Excel.

Google Data Studio: A free tool by Google, it’s excellent for those just starting out. With integrations to Google Sheets and other G-suite apps, it’s a convenient option for many.

Zoho Analytics: Specifically designed for business intelligence, Zoho offers a plethora of pre-made templates, including those for recruitment.

Trello and Airtable: While not traditional dashboard tools, by leveraging their integrations and plugins, recruiters can create visual boards that give a snapshot of the recruitment process.

Recruiting software with built-in dashboards: Many ATS (Applicant Tracking Systems) and recruiting platforms now come with built-in dashboard functionalities. Examples include Greenhouse, Workable, and SmartRecruiters.

I hope that this guide and template will help you get one step closer to understanding how to create a recruiting metrics dashboard.

Recruiting new people is exciting. But, the additional costs that come along with it? Not so exciting.

In fact, these costs can be dreadful if you have not planned a recruiting budget to keep a bull’s eye on your overall costs.

Recruitment Budget Template

That’s what we have:

• put a detailed guide on the 6-step process to create detailed recruiting budget sheet
• created a free recruiting budget template downloadable for you to get started

What is a recruitment budget?

A recruiting budget is the financial plan adopted by businesses and human resources teams to manage all the expenses related to hiring processes. This includes:

• posting jobs
• investing in tools and services like ATS, assessments, video meeting software
• using external recruitment agencies
• doling out bonuses for referral programs.

For example, if your organization invests in job posting platforms, and recruitment tools like skills assessment and video interview software, and conducts employer branding events, then you need to calculate the overall costs for these activities.

These activities are handles by the HR department. A specific amount of money is allocated to each HR manager for these activities. They need to inform the HR department before making these investments so they can approve them and keep in the records.

Essential components of a recruiting budget

Drafting a recruitment budget goes beyond just looking at how much you want to spend on job ads. Consider the following critical components:

Job advertising: Allocate funds for platforms like LinkedIn, job boards, and niche industry sites.

Recruitment technology: Include costs for Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS), AI recruiting tools, and other software that streamlines the process.

Talent sourcing: Set aside funds for strategies such as headhunting, talent pools, and referral programs.

Candidate experience: This encompasses costs related to improving the interviewing experience, like travel reimbursements, meals, or gifts for candidates.

Training and onboarding: Consider the resources needed for onboarding new hires, including training programs, workshops, and materials.

Background checks: Budget for third-party services that conduct background verifications, drug tests, etc.

Recruitment events: Whether it’s hosting job fairs, attending university recruitment drives, or setting up booths at industry conferences, there are associated costs.

Agency fees: If you’re using a recruitment agency or external consultants, their fees need to be accounted for.

Internal costs: Think of HR salaries, office supplies specific to recruitment, and other overheads.

Miscellaneous and contingency: Always set aside a portion of your budget for unforeseen costs or opportunities that might arise.

How to create a recruitment budget

Step #1: Calculate the number of hires

The primary expense for any organization: its employees. Before starting with the math, get on board all the managers to understand their requirements in terms of new hires in the coming year.

Circulate a sheet similar to the following one and ask all stakeholders to fill it. This will help you understand how many new hires they may need in the coming year.

Based on this data, the recruitment cost analysis can be done more accurately.

Along with these number, you will need

• Expected designation: Knowing if the roles are for interns, managers, senior managers, etc. will help estimate what the likely expenses, both quarterly and annual, are for specific teams.
• Skills: In case you need to collaborate with external agencies, having a good idea about the niche skill sets your organization is looking for help; also, you might have to start this process early.

According to Sharon Jautz, Head of HR, WGSN

Not accounting for the length of time role will stay open. I have a rule: If you have met with at least 10 candidates and the role is still open, you need to reevaluate the role, decide if you need it and reevaluate your interviewing criteria.

Along with these numbers, what is needed to be taken into account is the turnover rate for each team and for the organization. The HR team needs to have a good understanding of how many employees would be leaving the organization in a particular year.

So, if the turnover rate is 10% and your total employee count is 2000, it means that 200 employees would be quitting the company next year. Hence, if you are looking to hire 160 new employees (from the above table), your actual count increases to 360. 200 for employees who have quit and 160 new employees.

Going back to past few years number and calculating turnover (If you do not have the number refer to average turnover over rate for industries from the web) for each team, give you an exact measure of the number of hires you would be hunting for in the coming year.

Step #2: Estimate basic recruitment costs

Recruitment costs refer to basic expenses associated with the hiring and recruitment process. These expenses are mostly recurring and often billed early in the year.

This cost may vary for each organization, but you have to consider common expenses across boards to have rough estimates.

• Job boards: They are a great starting point to draw attention from candidates, and are frequently used by major corporations. For example, Cutshort, Indeed, LinkedIn and Stack Overflow.
• Salaries: Occasionally, teams collaborate with contract-based recruiters and agencies on yearly basis. Don’t forget to add their salaries too.
• Employee branding: Branding campaigns, career page optimization, and video campaigns—these are just a few ways you can amplify your employer brand and educate employees about why they should work in your organization.

Look at the following sheet to understand better.

Also read: Nirvana Solutions uses HackerEarth Assessments to Reduce Cost Per Hire by 25%

Steps #3: Calculate the fixed cost

Fixed cost are costs associated with your recruitment process happens yearly and is usually processed in an orderly manner like salaries, partnerships, recruitment agencies, etc.

• Internal Salaries: Calculate internal salaries for existing employees. Make sure to add your HR team. The rules say for every 50 employees you should have 1 HR. Budget your internal salaries accordingly. Also, take into account the expenses if you are looking for new team members.
• Partnerships: Calculate the cost of any yearly partnerships which you plan to commit to. These partnerships can include an external recruitment agency, event agencies, social media promoters, and others.
• Recruiting events: Make a list of all upcoming virtual recruiting events like conferences you plan to take part in, in the near future and budget them in your sheet.

As Neil Williams from AVI-SPL says

I found that fees associated with events such as job fairs including air travel and lodging can be easily missed. Remember to think of each event from start to finish and all the necessary logistics involved.

• External recruiting agencies: Most of the companies tie up with external recruiters agencies or independent recruiters who help them hire candidates, especially for niche skills. Think of the approximate number of hires you plan to make for the year. Factor in the cost associated with each hire (paid to the external recruiter) when you prepare the budget.

Step #4: Estimate recruiting technology costs

Technology is a great enabler. As HR evolves with enabling technologies like talent assessment software and video interviews, companies can expect better recruitment and overall management.

Coding assessment software

While candidate sourcing is managed by multiple agencies, job portals, and social channels, it is imperative you evaluate candidates on the right parameters. Coding assessment tools like HackerEarth Assessments helps reduce hiring costs by 10X.

Companies have also been using HackerEarth talent assessment software for university hiring by evaluating candidates remotely—reducing large cost (travel, stay, man-hours, etc.) associated with campus placement.

Also read: 5 Best Practices for an Effective Hybrid Campus Hiring Strategy

Video interview software

While assessing candidates can be managed by technical interview software, an organization should evaluate the candidate in person before selection. However, candidates are often scattered across the globe and the cost associated with their travel becomes too high. This is where video interview software like EasyHire and Kira Talent comes in.

HackerEarth’s coding assessment software is accompanied by video interview software called FaceCode, which helps you assess candidates on their real-time coding skills while interviewing them. Since these features are bundled, there are more savings to be had!

Background check service

A background check is an essential service used by organizations to verify a candidate’s credibility. Major global organization work in this field and charge relatively high fees in verifying all the relevant information.

With the increasing usage of social media and networking, referral hiring is a good way to save on the background check service. Calculate the cost accordingly.

Pre-boarding software

Candidate pre-boarding has evolved a lot over the last few years. With multiple options in hand, candidate ghosting has been a major menace for the recruiters. It is extremely essentials to keep your candidates way before joining, helping them understand their role, responsibility, and progression.

Companies using pre-boarding software have seen reduction in drop-off by more than 45%. Some of the top pre-boarding software available are Beamfox, BoardOn, Talmundo.

Application tracking system (ATS)

Application tracking systems have not evolved much since their inception in the mid-90s. But due to high dependency on them, most of the organizations still prefer to have a good part of their expenses dedicated to ATS.

Application tracking systems help follow the entire journey of a candidate, from sourcing, interviewing, joining, to exit. Some of the top ATS across the globe are Taleo, Greenhouse software, iCIMS, JobVite.

Also read: Remote Work and Recruitment: An ATS Story

Step #5: Estimate your miscellaneous hiring costs

Tying in the ROI on the unexpected expense with the broader strategic HR and/or organizational plan helps get stronger buy-in for unexpected added costs

Ensure you make allowances for miscellaneous expenses that pop up frequently in your hiring cycle. A few expenses relate closely to the internal campaigns you decide to run with referral bonuses taking up the major chunk.

Next, average out all incentives paid in the last two years to have an approximate idea about the budgeting for incentives to be rolled out in the appraisal cycle. It is essential to keep a check on inflation and the industry-standard before zeroing in on a certain amount.

Some companies regularly offer bonuses to their employees, sometimes in the festive season or when the business has had a great year. Discuss with the leadership on the target goals, and any bonus roll-out in case targets are achieved.

Step #6: Calculate cost per hire

And the most important step, calculate the cost per hire before finalizing the budget. If you have a previous budget to refer to the cost per hire for earlier years, then calculate expected expenses for the coming year.

According to Neil Williams, HRBP, AVI-SPL

Calculate it by adding the actual recruiting expenses from last year and divide by the number of hires you made. Then, multiply your average cost per hire by the number of hires you plan to make this year. Add all projected internal and external costs.

The basic formula for cost per hire is

Cost per hire = Internal Cost + External Cost / Total Number of Hire

Make sure that your cost per hire should not increase exponentially for any given year and should be in sync with inflation, revenue growth, and a number of hires.

Tips for managing tech recruitment budget

Here are some tips for managing your tech recruitment budget effectively throughout the year:

1. Plan ahead: At the beginning of the year, take some time to plan out your hiring needs for the year. This will help you to estimate how much money you will need to spend on recruitment.
2. Set a budget and stick to it: Once you have a good understanding of your hiring needs, set a budget for recruitment. Be sure to include all of the relevant costs, such as job postings, advertising, recruiter fees, and background checks.
3. Track your spending: It is important to track your spending so that you can stay within your budget. This will also help you to identify areas where you can save money.
4. Use free and low-cost recruitment tools: There are a number of free and low-cost recruitment tools available. For example, you can use social media to post job openings and to connect with potential candidates. You can also use free job boards, such as Indeed and LinkedIn.
5. Partner with recruiters: If you have a lot of open positions, you may want to consider partnering with a recruiter. Recruiters can help you to find qualified candidates and to manage the hiring process. However, it is important to note that recruiters typically charge a fee for their services.
6. Invest in employee referrals: Employee referrals are a great way to find qualified candidates. Encourage your employees to refer their friends and colleagues for open positions. You can also offer incentives for employee referrals.
7. Hire for soft skills: Soft skills, such as communication, teamwork, and problem-solving, are just as important as hard skills in the tech industry. When hiring, be sure to assess candidates’ soft skills in addition to their hard skills.
8. Negotiate salaries: When negotiating salaries, be sure to factor in the cost of living in the area where the candidate will be working. You should also consider the candidate’s experience and skills.
9. Offer competitive benefits: In order to attract and retain top talent, you need to offer competitive benefits. This includes benefits such as health insurance, paid time off, and retirement savings plans.
10. Review your budget regularly: It is important to review your recruitment budget regularly to make sure that you are on track. You may need to adjust your budget based on changes in your hiring needs or the market conditions.

Plan your recruiting budget effortlessly

Make sure that your cost per hire should not increase exponentially for any given year and should be in sync with inflation, revenue growth, and a number of hires. Download a sample budgeting sheet for the coming recruiting year.

HACKEREARTH – TECHNICAL RECRUITING SAMPLE BUDGET SHEET

What’s the one thing that’s made HackerEarth?

Our employee-centric culture, they chorus.

Surprise! Surprise!

Energy tanks are refilled here!

Put on party shoes every other day...

One “thank you” isn’t enough

Consider the following:

• Nearly two in five companies (37 percent) use social networking sites to research job candidates, according to a survey from CareerBuilder. – CareerBuilder April 2012
• According to a 2013 study by The Lucas Group, nearly 50% of employers admit to checking the social media sites of potential hires.
• Fast forward to 2018 and according to a white paper by Robert Walters 65% of hiring managers say they have viewed a job seeker’s LinkedIn profile and activity feed.

Step One: Be Active

Step Two: Smile!

Step Three: Headlines Sell Papers

Step Four: Content is King

What is FaceCode?

Benefits of using FaceCode for your tech interviews

• Accurately evaluate a candidate’s coding skills: FaceCode gives you a real-time collaborative code-editor that supports over 30 programming languages such as Java, PHP, JavaScript, Python, Ruby etc. You can give technical questions to candidates and let them write, edit, and compile code in real-time. At the same time you and the other interviewers can view the code in the collaborative editor and suggest improvements or ask for a follow-up questions.
• Run high-quality video interviews: The product is also optimized for a video-call experience. When you don’t want the candidate to write code but for instance want them to explain an application architecture, you can use full-screen video mode and have a high-quality video call. The improved quality of video streaming enables for a real-time sync between all the participants in the interview.
  
• Provide a holistic interview experience with a user-friendly UI/UX: The new UI/UX has been made both intuitive and engaging to makes it easier for interviewers and candidates to interact seamlessly. Encompassing several user-friendly features like the multi-room text chat, the design allows effortless communication between participants.
  
• Maintain consistency of interview process across multiple interviewers: FaceCode helps you eliminate the issue of inconsistency in interviews across different interviewes in the organization. You can create a pool of standardized interview questions, add them to your question library and let different interviewers use the same set of questions for their interviews.
  
• Easily collect feedback on candidates: We understand that collecting feedback from multiple interviewers can be a challenging task. FaceCode makes it super-easy for you to collect interviewer feedback. At the end of the interview, every interviewer is prompted to give a rating on a 10-point scale and fill in subjective feedback.
  
• Better interview management through dashboards: The FaceCode dashboard lets you view interview details for every candidate such as average rating and feedback. It also lets you to copy/share interview links and reschedule ongoing interviews.
  
• Keep a track of interviews through activity logs: The interview logs give you a detailed analysis of every interview conducted so you can backtrack and look up information at any point of time.
  
• Effortless scheduling: We understand how scheduling interviews can be a pain. With FaceCode, interviews can be scheduled and rescheduled (if necessary) at the click of a button. FaceCode can be integrated with Recruit so that you can directly schedule interviews for candidates who have been screened via an online tests. FaceCode also comes with a Google Calendar integration.
  

A step-by-step guide to using FaceCode

1. Creating a new interview
2. Interview interface
3. Adding interviewers
4. Adding questions to your interview
5. Providing feedback about the candidate