One of the many important functions of business in society is driving positive change and innovation. Many famous brands have started with ideas on how to improve some aspect of life. Thus, change and adaptation are an integral part of the way business is done. And as things constantly evolve and develop, business has to strife to be in front of these developments, always improving its procedures. One such relatively recent improvement of business procedures is data-driven recruiting. Let us look at what it is and what additional value it brings to modern business.
The ways to hire
There are many different types of businesses and their procedures might vary greatly. However, one thing that most businesses have in common is that as they are growing, they need to hire more people. After all, people working for a company is one of the main measurements of its size.
Thus, recruitment is one of the main pillars of establishing businesses. It is also one of the oldest procedures in the history of modern business. Naturally, throughout the years, many different ways and methods of hiring have been used, tried, discarded, and then tried again.
One hiring method we are well acquainted with is sorting through CVs to pick candidates to be invited for a series of interviews. These would then help to eliminate prospects until hires are determined and open positions filled. Sometimes trial assignments are given to the prospects to check their fittingness for the job. Also, when someone with very special expertise, having a recruiter certification and experience is needed, for example, to fill a senior position in management, we have such methods as headhunting.
Of course, in different fields and companies, varying and even unique methods of hiring might be exercised. But let us now look at how data-driven recruitment figures into it.
As with many other long-standing procedures, data-driven hiring comes in as an AI and technology-based solution to assist us. Various tools are used to collect as much relevant data on applicants or prospects as possible. This data is then analyzed with the help of previously existing or specially built software tools to enhance the hiring decisions.
Thus, a data-driven way helps to go through more potential recruits and selects those that are recognized as best fits for further human consideration. It comes as a great addition to hiring, taking over research tasks from people, and increasing both efficiency and likelihood of beneficial recruitment decisions.
The additional value of data-driven recruitment
New is not necessarily better than old. Every innovation sticks only if it brings something valuable to the table and improves something in the field it aims to change. So, what is the additional value of data-driven recruitment as compared to the hiring methods we are more familiar with?
Firstly, it brings new possibilities to overcome previous limitations. There are only so many candidates and so much information about them you can check manually. But for computer programs, the number of prospects that can be checked is only truly limited by the actual number of people available for the job. Well-built software tools are able to take into account every piece of information about every available candidate that is available on databases or online. Nature, this leads to better-informed hiring decisions.
Additionally, data-driven recruitment takes human decisions to the next level. Sorting through hundreds or even thousands of CVs may often become a very tedious job. Choosing candidates by small differences or looking for someone that truly stands out takes a long time and has little assurance of success. Data analysis tools can find statistically relevant differences much faster and provide summaries of informative insights for the people to consider. This leaves human agents time and gives means for a more interesting experience of getting to know the very top applicants better.
One more thing enabled by data tools that stands out is models to forecast future hiring and applying tendencies. Recruitment which is not strongly based on data is mostly about the currently open positions and attempts to fill them. Data analysis allows to look into the future and prepare hiring strategies that will ensure that all the hiring needs are met in due time.
Hiring as a science
As we can see from the above, data analysis does clearly improve on many aspects of traditional hiring procedures. Generally speaking, what it does is bring recruitment closer to being a science.
Hiring data analysis allows you to notice what is weak or inefficient in your hiring methods and make the necessary adjustments. This constant updating through trial and consideration of solid facts is the scientific feature that data-driven recruitment has, and the old methods lack.
And science, as we have known for a long time now, is power. Thus, embracing big data is the only way to harness the full power of high-quality recruitment strategies.
