Back

June 14, 2024

8 Analytics Every Staffing Firm Should Track

Jan Jedlinski

Co-Founder & CEO, Candidate.ly

While the prospect of collating and analysing data and statistics can feel daunting, analytics are vital for every successful business. As well as providing impressive data points for stakeholder reports and marketing campaign copy, collecting actionable insights will ensure you pour your energies into relevant activities that drive genuine change.

One of the quickest and most accurate ways to track the success of your various operations is to invest in analytics software. Unfortunately, most staffing firms lack the technologies they need to collect high-quality data. As our recent report with Talent Tech Labs shows, only 13.3% of firms rate their analytics technologies as “excellent”, while 23% of those surveyed labeled their technologies as “not good” or “terrible”. At the same time, the average rating for the capabilities of firms’ existing analytics technologies sits at just over 3/5. That simply isn’t good enough!

At Candidate.ly, we believe that staffing firms should invest in the very best analytics technologies to ensure they remain competitive in a tough market environment. If you need any persuading, we’ve put together a list of top metrics to track, including a few tips about how they can inform your business practices.

1. Profitability

Perhaps the most obvious metrics to track are gross margin and gross profit. These figures will tell you how much money your business makes throughout the year, highlighting any potential cashflow issues at an early stage. Of course, these figures alone won’t help you get to the bottom of any problems. As such, it’s also important to measure stats such as:

  • Average profit per interview
  • Average profits per team or industry niche
  • Marginal difference between candidate sources

Once you’ve collected enough data to paint a satisfactory picture of your profitability, you can start drawing up some strategic goals for improvement. You could, for example, redirect your energies into a smaller number of recruitment activities to maximise candidate engagement or even cut out the least successful segments of your business.

2. Fill rate

A fill rate represents the proportion of total job orders that your firm has successfully fulfilled. If your fill rate is low, your team members may not be spending enough time promoting individual candidates. Indeed, they may be swamped with work and unable to complete their tasks to a satisfactory level. In this case, it may be worth hiring more staff members.

3. Time-to-fill

This metric assesses how long it takes your team to fill vacancies. The longer it takes to fulfil clients' needs, the more money you waste on advertising and staffing. A poor time-to-fill rate could indicate that you need to improve your advertising materials or adopt more industry-specific strategies.

4. Redeployment rate

This metric assesses the proportion of workers leaving certain assignments who are redeployed by your firm to another assignment. A high redeployment rate suggests that your candidate retention strategies are strong and profitable.

5. Time to submit the first candidate

This figure represents the length of time between receiving an order and submitting the first candidate for the client to consider. The lower your time to submit, the more efficiently your business will run and the more clients you’ll retain. If the figure is a little high, it’s worth assessing your workflows and addressing potential bottlenecks.

6. Time to schedule the first interview with a candidate

The length of time it takes to schedule a candidate’s first interview could make or break your talent pool. Candidates who don’t receive interviews quickly may feel disheartened about their job search and look for alternative employment channels.

7. Candidate engagement

How often are your candidates logging on and engaging with your team members? The more actively engaged your candidates are, the more likely they will fill vacancies quickly. If your engagement rates are a little low, you may wish to improve your communications strategy and ensure you’re making the most of the latest communications platforms.

8. Hiring satisfaction rates

Once you’ve helped place a candidate in a new role, how happy are your clients with their quality of work? Measuring the satisfaction rates of your clients will help you ascertain the strength of your candidate-matching capabilities. If your satisfaction rates are high, you’re more likely to maintain a strong base of loyal clients. If they’re low, you may need to find new matching strategies.

Ace your candidate submission analytics with Candidate.ly

Are you tired of inadequate and uninspiring analytics technologies? Perhaps you’re struggling to identify what areas of your business require improvement? Well, Candidate.ly is on hand to help! Our live analytics features allow staffing agencies to assess the quality of their candidate submission process, providing a range of actionable insights. With our cutting-edge technology, you can also automate follow-ups for non-responsive clients candidates - great news if you want to reduce the time spent chasing talent. For more information about our product, check out our website today!