With no end in sight in the war for talent, at least one thing is clear: data-driven approaches remain a key piece of talent acquisition strategy. At the foundation of every successful people analytics program is the integrity of the data.
Deloitte’s recent Talent Acquisition Analytics report found that a high percentage of organizations surveyed are under-equipped with their people analytics programs, leaving them at a disadvantage in a challenging hiring market.
Whether it’s better awareness of candidate fit, process and technology optimization, or increased understanding of talent acquisitions impact on the business, analytics is a powerful force in the quest to source and hire top talent.
Deloitte – Talent Acquisition Analytics Report
So, how do employers get there?
In our recent Talent Analytics community meeting, we tapped into the experience and expertise of Brad Cook, VP Global Talent Acquisition at Intuitive. Here are some key takeaways from our conversation.
Brad wants us to remember that data analytics “metrics are a journey” instead of a one-time project. As we build these metrics, expect to identify new goals and areas for process improvement.
To get started, Brad recommends determining the end goal that you want. By selecting the metric you’d like to prove or disprove, you can build the process around that. In this process, you can “come up with a hypothesis, pull some data, and say ‘Well, I thought that was going to come out completely opposite,’ go and fix the process, identify data integrity issues or human errors, work to fix those, and then do it again.” It’s a tedious yet critically important cycle.
Three core areas of focus:
- It’s imperative to identify and fix data issues initially.
- Then, you can address data engineering and how to get the data out.
- Finally, you work to link the data sets together.
The final product is a robust talent analytics program that “can deliver insights critical for improving operational and business outcomes”(“Talent Acquisition Analytics,” Deloitte).
We asked Brad what the main challenge is once you have your system in place. “Getting humans to do things in a consistent way…” Luckily, that’s a challenge we can work through together in the CXR community.
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Members can watch the entire workshop here.