Ways a Recruiter Can Improve Their Job Performance

As a recruiter, you’re constantly analyzing the candidates in front of you and weighing their strengths and weaknesses. But when was the last time you did the same thing to yourself?

When you reflect on your performance, you’ll recognize your strengths and pinpoint areas that need improvement. This process helps you become more efficient and perform better, streamlining your work in the future. 

This reflection process is often neglected in a field where recruiters are in high demand by an ever-increasing number of hopeful applicants. However, as with most careers, slowing down can be just the thing necessary to speed you up. These expert tips may change your recruiting methods and guide you into better, more efficient methods that improve your job performance.

1. Analyze Your Performance

How are you monitoring your successes and failures? Are you using metrics, key performance indicators (KPIs), or other numbers to gauge productivity? These recruiting metrics are one of the best ways to determine your strengths and gaps so you can grow as a recruiter.

The better your ratings in various areas, the more likely your organization is running efficiently. Low ratings show improvement opportunities, allowing you to work on these KPIs and boost your recruiting performance. Knowing these numbers can be an impactful way to land new clients and solidify your reputation as a top talent in the recruiting industry.

This data is integral, guiding you as you adjust your recruitment process. If you’re the hiring manager, the data will reveal areas you may overlook in your recruitment funnel. For example, if you’re looking for a highly skilled, diverse engineer, but your turnover for previous hires is high, you may be using the wrong pipelines to source your applicants. (This article by Obsidi® explains more about this particular hiring challenge.) Data revealed through metric analysis frequently makes these areas of improvement obvious.

You don’t need to analyze every metric. Consider your overall performance and start with common areas such as time to fill, time to hire, source of hire, quality of hire, and hiring manager satisfaction.

2. Look For Inefficiencies in the Hiring Process

You’ve analyzed your performance and the metrics that show your strengths and weaknesses. Now, it’s time to review the hiring process to find inefficiencies, bottlenecks, and outdated systems.

If you’ve been a recruiter for years and never changed your processes, there’s a good chance you could be working more efficiently. The past few years have brought significant technological advancements that streamline and automate nearly every industry. 

Where might you need evolution in your current hiring process? Walk through each step and look for areas where tech could help, such as:

• Writing job descriptions to ensure they are clear, accurate, and concise, as well as targeted to your desired audience,
• Sourcing talent from a diverse, qualified pool using up-to-date sourcing channels where your target candidates congregate (i.e., many tech workers use Dice and Ladders as well as LinkedIn)
• Evaluating consistency in your screening criteria, including metrics of skills, competency, demographics, and cultural fit
• Creating a holistic approach to ensure you are fairly and comprehensively assessing each candidate and including hard and soft skills
• Collecting feedback from candidates to measure their opinions on how they feel supported and informed throughout the recruitment process

These areas can be subjective or objective. As subjective analyses, it’s easy to let bias obstruct your growth. Data metrics can move subjective into objective and identify opportunities for improved job performance.

3. Streamline Your Processes

You’ve evaluated your performance and thoroughly screened your hiring process for inefficiencies. You’ve used metrics to remove potential bias and identify areas for improvement. The final step is to streamline your processes using the information you’ve gleaned from your reflections.

The steps to streamlining will depend on your Aha! moments uncovered through your review. At this stage, you might decide that your recruiting methods could benefit through:

• A boost in technology, such as incorporating chatbots as a screening method for candidates and an easy way to answer FAQs without using your time,
• Adjusting your interview questions to make them more comprehensive and remove unconscious bias,
• Enhancing your hiring decisions to reflect company values and current culture better,
• Obtaining education to learn more about where and how to reach your target audience more effectively

Remember, you don’t have to change everything at once. Small, consistent steps toward one or more improvement goals will increase your job performance. 

Conclusion

One of the best ways we can get better at any aspect of our lives is to admit that we need to improve. Without this step, which you’ve already taken by reading this blog, we bury our heads in the sand and continue doing what we’ve always done. You are now on the path to better job performance, and if you follow these three suggestions, you’ll boost your metrics — and your reputation — quickly!