Sourcing Data: Look under the hood and get more out of your ATS.

A good part of my daily activities focuses on analyzing data – the ROI from an SEM campaign, career site traffic patterns, landing page metrics, ratio of views/clicks/applies to determine job posting performance, etc. Don’t get me wrong, I love crunching numbers and seeing what comes out.

The only area where it’s often very difficult to get good data – data you can use to make tough decisions, I’ve found is “Source of Hire data.” In my experience, very few companies (no matter how big or small) truly know where their hires come from. Frequently, I’ve seen clients rely on Source of Hire data reports from their ATS to make decisions about how to spend their recruitment budget.

Makes sense right? But how do you ensure the data is accurate? And what happens when the data is at best confusing or at worst – completely inaccurate. Recently, I assisted a client with delving deeper into their application process and how their ATS was set up to track sources of hire. After meeting with their ATS Account Manager, we discovered a slew of things that were creating inaccuracies. So, what areas would I recommend any HR/recruiting staff to look at “under the hood?”

1.) Automate your Source of Hire identification. Point A: You might as well label the “self select” option as “useless” because job seekers are notorious for selecting inaccurately (clicking on the first source on the list or what they “think” you want them to select). Point B: In this Web 2.0 world, job seekers are probably touching various points on the Internet (LinkedIn, a big job board, Google, Indeed.com, blogs, tweets, etc.) to find out more about your organization – asking them to choose “one” source is bound to be inaccurate.

2.) Analyze your Source of Hire definitions (aka Source List options) and be sure they are updated to ALL the sources you are using (ie. LinkedIn post; a Facebook fan page, etc.)

3.) Use unique URLs in all media placements that include your now squeaky clean Source of Hire definitions (ie. A very basic example: http://ATS.company.aspreq#&source=SOURCECODEHERE! (yes, I’m shouting this out – it’s that important!)

4) Verify, test, verify, test – make sure your unique URLs are working & train your team to use tinyurls to shorten for other placements offline. We all know GI = GO, so don’t put garbage in your ATS anymore. Verify the data coming through on the back end, run reports frequently and troubleshoot areas/questions.

5) If your ATS has a tracking capability to follow “applicants” as they navigate through your application process, analyze this data. What is your drop off rate from the ”click to apply button” to “completes application process?” If it seems high (and it most likely will be) you really need to review your application process and streamline it to its shortest possible length.

6) Update all links on your corporate site that direct traffic to your career site as a defined “source ID.” These links will help you identify who came through directly from your corporate site vs. going to another site(s) first. (#6 isn’t fool proof at determining which hires originated from the corporate/careers site, but identifying this traffic as a “source” is better than not identifying it at all.)

7) Establish an Onboarding Questionnaire that asks the newly hired employee where they heard about this opportunity. Enable a new hire to insert info/data in the “Other:” field. Heck, allow them to tell multiple sources or their story of “how I got hired.”

8.) Use your ATS’ email templates!! This could be another post/discussion all together. ATS email templates are your friends! Design them, use the personalization capabilities, send graphics, links, promote your employee blog, email a monthly newsletter, etc.

With your sparkling clean Source Data, your reports will certainly be able to tell you where your recruiting budget should be allocated. Next step: a Media Plan/Recruiting Goals based on facts not anecdotes.