Data Driven Recruiting

Data Driven
Recruiting
Find quality hires faster
with talent pool analytics

2Data Driven Recruiting
In the age of social recruiting, there are massive amounts of data and
candidate profiles to wade through. Finding “the one” for your role
can feel like searching for a purple squirrel.
Instead of being overwhelmed by data, organizations can turn it into
a competitive advantage.
If the mention of data and analytics gives you hives, don’t
worry - we’re here to help! In this e-book we’ll guide you step-by-step
through how to find the best person for the job faster, using talent
pool insights that will make your hiring manager smile.
Table of contents
What’s the big deal with data driven recruiting
Three steps to being a strategic talent advisor
How to reasearch and refine your talent pool
Execute your sourcing plan
You can’t manage what you can’t measure
Four stories about data driven recruiting
Welcome to the world of data driven recruiting
Introduction
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Conclusion
Why read this e-book
Problem:
Opportunity:
Never fear, we’re here for you!

It’s the analysis and interpretation of talent pool data to find the best
people for your organization faster. In this e-book, we’ll arm you with
the analytical chops you need to:
• Ask the right questions about the roles you’re recruiting for;
• Look for talent pool data to answer those questions; and
• Interpret that data to provide actionable recommendations to
hiring managers.
recruiters don’t have the tools necessary to understand
the market and talent pool they are recruiting from1
What’s data driven
recruiting, anyway?
1
LinkedIn Talent Solutions Survey, (Dec 2014).
2 out of 3

The best developer at Apple is over 9X more productive than
the average software engineer at other technology companies.
The best sales associate at Nordstrom brings in over 8X more
revenue than the average sales associate at other department stores.
The best blackjack dealer at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas plays
his table over 5X longer than the average dealer on the Strip.
The best transplant surgeon at a top medical clinic has a success
rate over 6X better than the average transplant surgeon.
The bottom-line impact
of top talent is real.
Boolean Black Belt
Big Data, Data Science, and Moneyball Recruiting, (Sept 2011)
LinkedIn Talent Connect interview, (Oct 2014).
Bain and Harvard Business Review
Making Star Teams Out of Star Players by Michael Mankins, (Jan 2013).
“Human capital data can be leveraged to identify and hire
more great people more quickly... but the vast majority of
companies have yet to fully embrace data as a strategic asset
in talent acquisition.”
9X
8X
5X
6X
Glen Cathey
SVP, Talent Strategy and Innovation
Kforce

Data matters for finding
talent faster & more efficiently
Talent acquisition teams with mature analytics are:
2
Forbes, The Geeks Have Arrived in HR: People Analytics Is Here,
(Feb 2015).
more likely to improve their recruiting efforts; and
more likely to realize cost reductions and efficiency gains
2X
3X
“The old fashioned fuddy-duddy HR department is changing.
The Geeks have arrived. Today, for the first time in the fifteen
years I’ve been an analyst, human resources departments are
getting serious about analytics. And I mean serious.” 2
Josh Bersin
Principal and Founder
Bersin by Deloitte
1
Bersin by Deloitte, WhatWorks Brief: High-Impact Talent
Analytics - Building a World-Class HR Measurement and Analytics
Function, (Oct 2013).

What’s the
big deal with
data driven
recruiting
Three steps
to being
a strategic
talent advisor

Hiring manager and recruiter
relationships can be a problem
56%
61%
80%
82%
Over half of TA organizations that are reactive and tactical.
Recruiters in these organizations act as order takers for hiring
managers instead of consultative partners.1
However, most hiring managers say recruiters have a low to
moderate understanding of the jobs they’re recruiting for.2
Most recruiters think they have a high to very high
understanding of the jobs they’re recruiting for.2
of recruiters have recently dealt with a hiring manager
with unrealistic expectations.3
1
Bersin by Deloitte, WhatWorks Brief: High-Impact Talent
Analytics - Building a World-Class HR Measurement and Analytics Function,
(Oct 2013).
2
iCIMS and hire expectations institute, Strategies to Improve the
Recruiter and Hiring Manager Relationship, (Oct 2014).
3
“The recruiting organization that figures out how to extract
the value of data will define the future of talent acquisition.”
Brendan Browne
Senior Director of Global Talent Acquisition
LinkedIn

When hiring manager and
recruiter relationships are
working, the results are great
Bersin by Deloitte, WhatWorks Brief: High Impact Talent Acquisition:
Key Findings and Maturity Model, (Sept 2014).
Developing relationships with hiring managers is the #1 driver of
talent acquisition performance — 4X more influential than any other.
of companies have a mature talent acquisition organization,
in which recruiters:
1. Act as true consultants to hiring managers
2. Understand trends in the labor market
3. Hold kick-off meetings and establish service-level agreements
with hiring managers
4. Use various sourcing tools to build talent pools and pipelines
5. Proactively pursue, engage, and convert qualified candidates
4X 13%

How to become a strategic
advisor to the hiring manager
Here’s the process we
recommend:
Advice on being a strategic
talent advisor from your
fellow recruiters
Anne-Marie Ryan
Senior Recruiter
LinkedIn
Have an informational
intake meeting with your
hiring manager
1
Step
Research and refine your
target talent pool with data
2
Have a follow-up
strategy meeting with
your hiring manager
3
Sample discussions to have during your hiring manager
strategy meeting:
• This is what the talent market looks like for the role
[Present your research and Total Addressable Market based
on the basic qualifications]. Does this look right? What can
we tweak or deprioritize to get a larger pool of candidates?
• Based on the background of your current team, are you
trying to fill gaps or go after people with similar
backgrounds?
• Set expectations on timelines for finding passive candidates.
It’s typically a longer process than they might expect.
• Tell them how often you will communicate progress.
• Get a commitment from the hiring manager that this is a
priority for them, and who on their team will be active
participants in the interview process, providing an excellent
candidate experience.

Why:
To clearly define the role you are recruiting for.
The initial intake meeting is critical to get right
because the latter stages involve spending a lot
of time researching candidates and nurturing
prospects in the talent pool you defined.
Next step:
Set up a follow-up meeting to discuss your talent
pool findings, tweak your sourcing strategy, and
agree on the execution plan.
How:
During the meeting, ask questions so you fully
understand the role. Get examples of high
performers in these roles now, that your hiring
manager would want to clone.
Have an informational intake
meeting with the hiring manager
Step 1
hiring manager
1
Step
2
Have a follow-up
your hiring manager
3

Sample hiring manager
intake form
Job Function
Job Titles (Max of 20)
Job Function
Accounting
Senior Level Owner
Seniority Level Years of experience
New College Grad 1-3 years
Creative
Location
Geography (Global, Multiple)
Industry
Current or past company - Including specific companies may limit use of additional filters
Include (Min 5, Max 20) Exclude (Min 5, Max 20)
Skills Degrees LinkedIn Groups
Skills (Max 10) Degrees Groups

Why:
• To provide your hiring manager with macro-
level insights on the talent supply using data.
• To set hiring manager expectations if their role
requirements are too strict.
How:
• Identify the high performing individuals at your
organization the hiring manager would want to
clone.
• Create a search that includes them in the results
to understand the ideal skills, experiences, and
education you should look for.
• Refine this search with the criteria you defined
with your hiring manager.
• Using an intake form as your guide, create an
overview of your target talent pool that you can
share with your hiring manager in your next
consultation.
• Gather data on the broader talent market
using organization-based and exclusive Boolean
search strategies. We’ll dive deeper into how to
do this in the next chapter.
Next step:
Decide what you’ll communicate to your hiring
manager in terms of timelines, your sourcing
and recruiting plan, how you’d like the hiring
manager to help, and next steps.
Research and refine the target
talent pool with data
Step 2
hiring manager
1
Step
2
Have a follow-up
your hiring manager
3

Why:
• Get sign-off on the plan before you execute it
• Educate, tweak role requirements, and agree
on next steps.
How:
• Share the quantified total addressable market,
and other views of your target talent pool you
researched.
• Ask your hiring manager if the results show the
best people in the world for the role you’re
trying to fill.
• If the original request results in a tiny talent pool
of people, it’s probably not a realistic request.
• Educate your hiring manager on your market
research, then work together to refine and
remove criteria that aren’t priorities and can
expand your target talent pool.
• Repeat the saved search, discuss, and refine
again as needed.
• Set expectations! Remember that you are
entering into an agreement with your hiring
manager.
Have a follow-up strategy
meeting with the hiring manager
Step 3
hiring manager
1
Step
2
Have a follow-up
your hiring manager
3
Next step:
Once you agree on the new job description
and sourcing strategy, you can begin to prioritize
candidates in your talent pool, research, and
reach out.

Agree on the target talent
pool after removing or altering
job criteria
Once you do this with your hiring manager, you will have a realistic talent pool of prospects to go after.
Remove or
alter a fourth:
126
Remove or
alter a third:
Remove or
alter a third:
8271
Remove or
alter one:
Every
“requirement”:
193

“The hiring manager was frustrated because he felt it was
an easy role to place. I felt that it was a difficult role that
would take some time. Finally we sat next to each other to
look at LinkedIn Recruiter’s search insights. The hiring
manager said “Wow, your job is really hard. I have no idea
how you do this.” Originally he wanted to fill the role in a
month. Now he agrees that the position will take up to 6
months to fill. He also adjusted the criteria from 1 year of
experience to include those with 3-5 years of experience to
expand the talent pool. When the hiring manager empathized
with how hard our job is, I got excited. Hiring managers don’t
usually understand how in-demand and small a talent pool is,
especially with quality talent.”
“The purpose of the refine meeting is to go back and get
buy in from the client that you are supporting to make sure
that you are aligned on the talent that’s represented in your
talent pool.”
Brigitte Kearney
Staffing specialist
Qualcomm
Matt Tague
Talent Market Strategist - Lead Recruiter
LinkedIn

How to research
and refine your
talent pool

Why build talent pools
using data
of recruiters say they are
more efficient in their recruiting
efforts when they have a solid
understanding of the market
and talent pool they’re
recruiting from.
of recruiters don’t use
talent pool insights during
intake or kickoff meetings with
hiring managers.
Yet 71% say they would if they
were easily available, sharable,
and understandable.
77% 75% 71%

Benefits of sharing talent pool
insights with hiring managers
Before:
• Little to no understanding
of internal talent pools
• Searching reactively
• Constantly repeating
keyword searches
• Hunch-based talent
conversations with hiring
managers
After:
• Deep internal understanding
of internal and external talent
pools
• Understand the total
addressable talent market.

• Search once, prioritize,
then refine
• Data-driven talent
conversations with hiring
managers
2nd
Candidate talent pool development is the 2nd most influential
driver of talent acquisition performance, after hiring manager
relationships.1

Learn how to use talent pool
insights for recruiting in 3 steps
Dion Love
Narrative Strategist,
CEB (Corporate
Executive Board)
Search once
and save
1
Step
Interpret
the data
2
Save your searches
and pipeline
3
“Data isn’t new. Getting insight from it also isn’t new. But the
amount of data we have access to now, combined with the
speed it comes at us means that the smartest recruiting
organizations are finding new ways to gather and analyze
data at speeds previously unthinkable. And they’re using that
data not only to make smarter recruiting decisions but to
influence broader business strategy that determines talent
needs in the first place.”

Why:
• Similar to a market sizing exercise to
understand an overall revenue opportunity,
you want your hiring manager to understand
the total addressable market of talent you are
going after.
• If the total addressable market is too large or
small, you can refine the job criteria so you have
a reasonably-sized talent pool to pursue.
How:
• Use your hiring manager’s job criteria to create
a Boolean search string that captures all the
ideal qualifications of the role you’re recruiting
for.
• Alternatively, create a search that will result in
the top talent at your organization that you want
to clone. Then use exclusive search tactics to
find similar talent outside your organization and
exclude the types of people you DON’T want
from your results.
• Quantify your total addressable market by
recording the total number of professionals that
fit all of your ideal criteria.
• Save your search results.
• Remove criteria that you think could be
de-prioritized to see how your total
addressable market expands.
• Create a slide that helps your hiring manager
visualize and quantify the total addressable
market for your ideal candidate vs candidates
with low-priority qualifications removed.
Recruit faster - Search
once then save your search
Step 1
Search once
and save
1
Step
Interpret
the data
2
Save your searches
and pipeline
3

Quantify the total addressable
market for your hiring manager
Total Addressable Market
Individual possess
the minimum requirements
Software Engineer
Software Engineer +
Java AND C++
+ Bay Area
+ Medical Industry
+ ERP Technology
+ a few desired job requirements Java AND C++
+ Bay Area
Ideal candidates
“When I was sitting with
the hiring manager and
looking at LinkedIn
Recruiter’s search
insights, we immediately
knew if we were casting
too tight of a net and how
we needed to adjust the
criteria. It allowed me
to talk about how big the
market is, and whether
the hiring manager
needed to adjust his
strategy. We also
discovered companies we
weren’t looking at before,
that had people with the
background we wganted.”
Brigitte Kearney
Staffing specialist
Qualcomm

Use search insights in
LinkedIn Recruiter
In LinkedIn Recruiter, do a search then click on the search insights tool in the upper right hand corner.

Get an overview of your
talent pool
Understand different aspects of your target talent pool - where they’ve worked before, where they currently work, a breakdown in years
of experience, a breakdown of years in their current experience, which schools they attended, what they studied, and where they live.

Why:
Get different views of your talent pool to
understand where the largest pockets of
candidates lie.
How:
Dig into these suggested views of your talent pool.
Play around with the tool to see more interesting
cuts of the data.
Interpret the talent pool data
Step 2
Search once
and save
1
Step
Interpret
the data
2
Save your searches
and pipeline
3

Prioritize companies with
the largest target talent pools
Why:
• Get competitive intelligence on which companies have the largest
talent pools of people you’re interested in and prioritize recruiting
from those companies.
• By focusing on one organization at a time, you can understand
that organization’s language for jobs and save yourself time.
• Move from:
How:
• Save time by searching once, then refining the same search string
and saving each subsequent search in LinkedIn Recruiter.
• Find companies with the largest target talent pools.
• Filters: Select your ideal qualifications (i.e. skills, years of
experience, etc.)
• Search Results:
• Identify terms that are not a fit and start removing
these people.
• These become the NOT keywords for your search
query (i.e. NOT intern, NOT CEO, etc).
• Check if the list of results / people looks right.
• Once the results look right, save your search and sign
up to get alerts.
• Alerts tell you when an organize has promoted
someone, or when someone has left the organization
so you can keep tabs on your top talent.
• Go to search insights and click on companies to see
which companies (both current and past) have the largest
talent pools.
• Understand where you’ve previously recruited talent from.
• Select your organization under Current company.
• Look at the past companies section of search insights to
understand where you’ve recruited from in the past.
Before:
Filter focused
Inclusive searches (creating
a Boolean string)
After:
Company focused
Exclusive searches (subtracting
criteria you don’t want, like title
= intern)

Prioritize companies
with largest talent pools

Prioritize schools with the largest
student and alumni talent pools
Why:
• Speed up your sourcing by prioritizing schools with the largest
talent pools of students and alumni that meet your criteria.
How:
• Find schools with recent grads in your target talent pool.
• Re-run your saved Boolean search query with target criteria.
• Select <1 year or 1-2 years of experience.
• In the search insights section, click the “Education” tab.
• This is the recent graduates talent pool with your desired
skills and experiences.
• Understand which schools have alumni in your target talent pool
• Repeat the above but under Years of Experience check the
options you’d like to target.
• Understand where your organization’s current employees
graduated from
• Repeat the above but under Company, enter your
organization.

Sample search insights to
prioritize largest student and
alumni talent pools

Uncover hidden
internal talent pools
Why:
If you work for a medium to large sized organization, there may be
internal talent that fits your qualifications and aren’t already working
in the group you’re recruiting for. They may be slightly junior or the
same level as the role you’re trying to fill, and open to a promotion or
lateral move.
How:
• Using company filters, select both current and past company as
your own.
• Select ideal # years of experience you’re targeting.
• To find those who could be promoted, enter keywords of roles
that are immediately junior to the one you are sourcing for.
• Identify potential lateral transfers by excluding people in the
junior role.

Search for referral talent
in your hiring manager’s
network
Why:
Chances are, your hiring manager will know qualified people
because of network effects. As the theory goes, birds of a feather
flock together.
How:
• Communicate with your hiring manager that you will use LinkedIn
Recruiter to target talent in his or her network.
• Connect with your hiring manager so you can see his/her
connections on LinkedIn.
• Navigate to your Hiring Manager’s profile in LinkedIn Recruiter.
• Click on connections.
• Source your hiring manager’s connections using the search string
you created.
• To visually summarize the talent pool that is in his/her network,
in search insights click on the Compare All tab.
• Recommend a messaging strategy for referral candidate outreach.
Craft a message for the hiring manager to use to reach out
directly to candidates.

Why:
1. This will save you a tremendous amount of time
and work in the long run. You’ll no longer need
to re-enter search criteria and filters each time
you look for candidates.
2. Help your teammates and manager track your
progress and help you as needed.
How:
1. As you identify different talent pools, save your
search query, save your filter sets as custom
filters, and save leads to your project / pipeline.
2. Add a note to leads referencing the name of
the talent pool you’re sourcing for.
3. Use notes to indicate which individuals you’ve
begun sourcing and outreach with.
Save your searches
and pipeline
Step 3
Search once
and save
1
Step
Interpret
the data
2
Save your searches
and pipeline
3
Pro tip: Use the update feature
in LinkedIn Recruiter to get alerts on when
someone in your target talent pool has been
promoted or has left the organization.

Resources to get started with
using talent pool insights:
1. Free LinkedIn talent pool reports on SlideShare:
lnkd.in/plan
2. Search Visualization tool in LinkedIn Recruiter.
Contact us to learn more.

Try exclusive search tactics
yourself in 15 minutes!
1. Create an organization-based search for your target talent pool
a. Enter keywords for your role.
b. Under Current company, enter your target organization.
c. Filters: Select fixed requirements (i.e. Years of experience,
Location, etc.).
2. Refine your search
a. Identify terms that are not a fit and begin removing
these terms.
b. These terms become the NOT keywords for your
search query.
c. Save search and Get alerts. Alerts will tell you when someone
is promoted or leaving.
What LinkedIn’s free talent
pool reports will tell you:
1. Which cities to target by understanding macro talent supply
AND demand data.
2. Which LinkedIn groups to target by seeing which groups are
most popular.
3. How to craft your InMail messages by understanding what your
target talent pool values in a job.

What’s the
big deal with
data driven
recruiting
Execute
your sourcing
plan

Put your sourcing and
recruiting plan into action:
1. Prioritize candidates that are most likely to respond and are the
best match for your organization.
2. Research and referral check high potential candidates by
interviewing connected employees.
3. Contact candidates by reaching out through mutual 2nd or 3rd
degree connections. This is proven to be more effective than cold
contacting.
4. Pipeline proactively to track your nurture process and
collaborate with your team. Proactively nurture relationships
with top candidates, even if they aren’t looking to switch at that
moment. Help them become aware of your organization, want to
work there, and eventually convert into candidates. Tag them in
your system as high potential candidates you may want to go
back to.
Prioritize
1
Step
Research and
referral check
2
Contact through
mutual connections
3
Pipeline
proactively
4

Target different talent pool
segments with different types
of outreach.
Customer
Acquisition Funnel
1:Many
1:1
Sales
Marketing
Talent
Brand
Sourcing
Recruiting
Candidate
Acquisition Funnel
Outreach
Approach

Why:
You’ll end up with hundreds and sometimes
even thousands of target candidates in your
talent pool. It’s important to prioritize your
time with this list wisely.
How:
• Once you’ve agreed on the overall talent pool
with your hiring manager, we recommend
prioritizing the prospects with the highest
match and some affinity toward the
organization to maximize the likelihood
of getting a response.
• Prioritize prospects who are the best match,
from the top half of your LinkedIn search
results. All of your search results meet your
search requirements, but you can now take
advantage of LinkedIn’s new search relevancy
enhancements that better prioritize those
results by taking into account signals of
interest and fit.
• Prioritize prospects with some affinity toward
your organization by looking at the prospects
who are most connected to your employees,
are following your organization, have opted
into your talent community, etc.
• Top priority talent should receive 1:1 InMail
and referral attention.
• Second priority talent requires a 1:Many
strategy. Use LinkedIn’s Work With Us ads, an
email or InMail nurture campaign, etc. to reach
these segments.
Prioritize prospects in your
agreed-upon talent pool
Step 1
Prioritize
1
Step
Research and
referral check
2
Contact through
mutual connections
3
Pipeline
proactively
4

How to prioritize prospects
in your talent pool
Match
Affinity High
High
Low
Prioritize
Here!

Why:
• Get a fair view of high potential candidates
before reaching out, and save yourself time and
headache later.
• Take advantage of your colleagues’ knowledge
in two key areas:
• What it takes to be successful at your
organization.
• Their deeper understanding of the pros
pects’ skills and aspirations.
How:
• Reach out to employees connected to each
prospect. Keep your questions open so
employees
share their thoughts freely. Ask open ended
questions such as:
• What are your thoughts on this person?
• How do you see this person fitting in at our
organization?
• What did they do when you worked
together?
• Record their feedback and decide whether you
should go after that prospect.
Research and referral check
high potential candidates before
reaching out
Step 2
Prioritize
1
Step
Research and
referral check
2
Contact through
mutual connections
3
Pipeline
proactively
4

Once you’ve advised the hiring manager and set expectations using
talent pool data, it’s time to prioritize, research, and reach out!
Instead of cold calling, try reaching out to your prospects through a
second degree connection like an employee. Why? The results speak
for themselves.
Results of using the warm outreach method at LinkedIn:
85%
28%
Average InMail response rates
when 1st degree employees reached out
Average InMail response rates
when recruiters reached out
Why warm outreach works
Bob Spoer
Former Talent Market Strategist -
Engineering, LinkedIn.
Currently Chief Entrepreneur for People/
Search/Partnerships, Ashoka.
“The referral insight gathering process is really where the
rubber meets the road. It’s where we actually get to validate
this great data that we’ve been using.”

Why:
• There’s no reason to reach out cold in a
connected world where you have LinkedIn!
• By reaching out to passive candidates
through a warm contact or after sharing a
warm contact’s recommendations with passive
candidates in an InMail, you can make the
most of the trusted relationship between
the prospect and the mutual connection.
• Your goal with passive candidate sourcing
should be for the person to have a career
conversation with the hiring manager,
even if the candidate isn’t 100% sure
he/she is interested.
How:
• After making sure you have the right people
in the talent pool by validating with your hiring
manager and gathering additional referral data
from employees, it’s time to start reaching out.
• Build a relationship with the prospect and use
the data gathered in the research phase to
figure out the best way to approach the
individual. The recruiter is responsible for
developing the outreach strategy and
facilitating the process. Ideally, the outreach
will be done by the employee or mutual
connection that has the deepest connection
to the individual to increase the chances of a
response.
• The recruiter should figure out the best way to
contact the prospect
• First choice – Most connected employee
• 2nd choice – Hiring Manager
• 3rd choice – Recruiter
• If the prospect isn’t responsive:
• Understand whether the outreach was
specific enough.
• Maybe they aren’t interested in having a
career discussion.
Contact candidates through
mutual connections
Step 3
Prioritize
1
Step
Research and
referral check
2
Contact through
mutual connections
3
Pipeline
proactively
4

Why:
• By proactively pipelining for high priority roles
instead of reacting to every new job posting,
organizations can monitor and increase the
speed and effectiveness of their recruiting
teams.
• By transitioning from reactive recruiting to
• proactive pipelining, recruiters can free up their
time for strategic conversations with hiring
managers about the desired future skills
make-up of their teams.
How:
• Proactive pipelining comes down to the
processes and tracking of individual recruiters.
• Once these statuses are added, recruiters and
recruiting leaders can then see where in the
funnel their prospects fall and track speed
and progress.
Pipeline candidates
proactively
Step 4
Prioritize
1
Step
Research and
referral check
2
Contact through
mutual connections
3
Pipeline
proactively
4

To pipeline, use these
sample tags and statuses
New Prospect:
This prospect has just been added to the talent pool and hasn’t
moved through the process.
Reference Check Pending:
A Reference Check has been requested, however we still need to
gather two or more pieces of positive feedback on the prospect
before moving forward.
Outreach TA:
Somebody on the talent acquisition team has made an outreach to
the prospect.
Outreach EE:
An employee has reached out to the prospect to engage them.
Outreach Manager:
The prospective manager has reached out to the prospect to engage
them on behalf of the organization.
No Response:
The prospect has not responded to the outreach made.
Not Interested:
The prospect has responded to our outreach but has indicated that
they are not interested in engaging.
Not a fit for this role:
We determined that this prospect is not someone we want to engage
with right now based on their skills.
Nurture:
The prospect is in the Nurture phase and is receiving regular “Nur-
ture” activities from the right person.
Moved to ATS:
This prospect has decided to apply for a role at your organization
and enter the recruiting process via the applicant tracking system.
Not Qualified:
Prospect is not a fit for the talent pool based on skills and feedback
provided from reference check process.
Do Not Contact:
Prospect has indicated that they do not want to be contacted by your
company.

What’s the
big deal with
data driven
recruiting
You can’t
manage what
you can’t
measure

Set your recruiting goals
It’s imperative to define the following in order
to measure and reach success:
1
Flickr Creative Commons Isaac Mao
Peter Drucker
Management consultant,
educator, and author.
“What gets measured gets done.”
Your business’ key objective
The success metrics you’ll monitor to reach that goal
Your recruiting goal as it relates to that objective
The targets you want to hit to reach success
1
3
2
4

Example of adjusting your
success metrics to match
business needs
LinkedIn Talent Connect SF, Recruiting Metrics That Really Work For You,
(Oct 2014).
Jennifer Hill
Lead Recruiter
Main Street Hub
Business Goal Recruiting success metrics
Entry into new location, product, or service
Hiring slowdown, merger or acquisition
Business or talent competition, diversity
Executive hires, succession planning
# hires, time to accept, brand awareness & engagement
Retention, new hire performance rankings
# hires, time to accept, brand awareness & engagement
Retention, new hire performance rankings

Sample recruiting success
metrics to monitor
Sourcing
• Increase your InMail response rates
from X% to Y%
• ROI: Increase applicants per source
by X%
• ROI: Increase interviewees per source
by X%
• ROI: Increase offers per source by X%
• ROI: Increase hires per source by X%
• ROI: Decrease cost (per applicant, hire)
per source by X%
Talent Brand
• ROI: Increase career site visits by X%
month over month.
• Increase # of company followers by X%
month over month
• Increase % recruiters with an optimized
social presence
• Increase your LinkedIn Talent Brand Index
by X% relative to key talent competitors
for high priority functions / regions
• Increase candidate experience scores (i.e.
NPS, CSAT, etc.) by X%
• Increase candidate offer acceptance rates
by X%
Recruiting overall
• Decrease time to fill by X%
(by department, recruiter, job type, etc.)
• Decrease cost per hire by X%
• Improve hiring manager satisfaction
ratings for new hires (i.e. NPS,
CSAT, etc.) by X% as a proxy for
increasing quality of hire

Lou Adler’s 6 recruiting
metrics that matter
Lou Adler, LinkedIn Talent Blog, The 6 Recruiting Metrics That Really
Matter, (Feb 2015).
Lou Adler
CEO
The Adler Group
Candidates
per hire
Email
conversion rate
Passive candidate
conversion rate
Passive candidate
call back rate
Referrals
per call
Job posting
effectiveness
1
4
2
5
3
6

Tools to help you track
recruiting performance
1. Tie metrics back to your recruiting goals and business objectives.
2. After identifying your metrics, set SMART targets that are specific,
measurable, assignable, realistic, and time-bound.
3. Create an executive dashboard that allows you to monitor and
adjust, focus more time on recruiting, and less time on reporting.
Always
remember to:
Bersin by Deloitte, WhatWorks Brief: High-Impact Talent Analytics -
Building a World-Class HR Measurement and Analytics Function,
(Oct 2013).
“Don’t wait for
industry standards to
come to market. While
some standards are
underway, world-class
companies build their
own systems and use
vendor tools to start.
There are no “complete”
sets of metrics for any
particular company.” 1
ATS reports:
Hires, time,
offer acceptance rate
Finance:
Spend and cost data
Social Media:
InMail response rates,
company followers, Talent
Brand Index
Survey tools:
Hiring manager satisfaction,
candidate satisfaction
Google Analytics
Career site traffic

What’s the
big deal with
data driven
recruiting
Four stories
about data
driven recruit-
ing

About Red Hat:
Red Hat is a leader in open source information technology and the
birthplace of an open source platform known as Linux.
Business Problem:
It operates in the competitive and fast-moving software technology
industry, where competition for engineering talent is hot.
Recruiting Problem:
In 2013, Red Hat anticipated 17% revenue growth, resulting in the
need to hire 1,100 global engineers quickly.
Red Hat finds engineers
by combining data from
multiple sources
Story 1

Bersin by Deloitte, WhatWorks Brief: High Impact Talent Acquisition:
Key Findings and Maturity Model, (Sept 2014).
Strategy:
Outbound social sourcing:
Red Hat was an early adopter of LinkedIn Recruiter, which
allowed them to identify engineering talent pools, InMail leads,
and proactively pipeline them. Red Hat also created an employer
brand group that proactively posts updates about the organization
to Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and other social networks.
Inbound social sourcing:
Red Hat created a dedicated team to monitor technical online
communities and search for qualified candidates among those
who posted answers. Red Hat sometimes posts its own tricky
problems on online forums and goes after prospects who come
up with creative solutions.
Referrals:
Red Hat encouraged referrals from employees who were naturally
active in online communities of open source programmers who
actively discussed industry issues with external prospects.
They amplified their referral incentive and recognition program,
looking to their 5,900 employees as recruiters.
Innovative tools:
Red Hat wanted to hire engineers with experience in open source
software so they strategically targeted candidates that posted open
source code publicly available online. Red Hat piloted “Gild,” a tool
that identifies engineering candidates difficult to find through social
sourcing alone. Gild scores and ranks a prospect’s publicly available
code found on over 60 niche sites globally such as Google Code,
Github, Bitbucket, and Stack Overflow, as well as blog posts and
personal websites. Combining this tool with LinkedIn, Red Hat
helped recruiters make contact with prospects by reaching out
through shared connections.
Referrals:
Pilot with
a small team first
Source socially
Use multiple sources
of data
Results and lessons learned:
Referrals now account for 50% of Red Hat’s new hires.
It helped Red Hat to supplement social sourcing tools
with Gild’s scoring feature. Instead of reaching out to 50
candidates, for example, a recruiter could quickly focus on
the 5 or 6 top leads by aggregating multiple streams of data.
Being engaged in online engineering communities through
employees and recruiters was critical to their success.
then roll out changes with the help of the vendor.
This decreases pilot costs and establishes results before
expanding and scaling a new tool.

Business Objective:
LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional network. It’s a social
media and technology company that requires top notch engineers
to build nimble and innovative products. To stay competitive, it also
needs top B2B salespeople and sales leaders to sell its SaaS
solutions to marketing, human resources, and sales functions.
Recruiting Objective:
LinkedIn needed to recruit high priority roles like engineers and
sales leadership. In Silicon Valley, the competition for engineers
and
software sales people is fierce.
Solution:
We created a new Talent Market Strategist position whose primary
job was to proactively nurture and pipeline top candidates into
critical positions.
LinkedIn creates new
“Talent Market Strategist”
role to source proactively
Story 2
Goal:
We wanted to move from:
Traditional Recruiting
Reactive to the business
Keyword search jockey
Prioritize top
of the search list
Cold candidate outreach
Talent market intelligence
dispersed
Talent Market Strategist
strategically and proactively
pipelining for key roles
Proactive approach that partners
with the business before needs
are specifically identified
Search once, refine,
and manage
Prioritize high fit and likelihood
of joining LinkedIn
Warm and tailored outreach
through employees
Talent market intelligence
quantified

Strategy:
• Identify and increase engagement in critical talent pools
• Engage critical talent pools as ongoing “talent communities”
• Convert critical talent pools to hires
• Step up conversations with hiring managers and the business
• What the Talent Market Strategist does
• Creates a proactive “Total Addressable Market” strategy that
prioritizes top candidates based on quality and likelihood of
joining LinkedIn
• Researches highest priority candidates by talking to
employees connected to them
• Uses this research to craft a tailored 1:1 outreach approach
• Nurtures prospects from awareness to interest to becoming
an employee
• The timeline and process: This approach to sourcing was born
in September 2013 and launched in Q4 2014. We piloted the
approach in both Sales and Engineering in Q1 and Q2 of 2014.
Over the past year we have experimented and figured out what
works really well and what can be improved upon. This trial has
provided us with lots of data on how we can and should nurture
pools of talent moving forward.
Results:
hires made
in Engineering
After 1 year:
InMail response rates
to warm introductions
sources of employee
reference checks
gathered
hire made
in Sales, with
prospects now
at the interview
stage
18+
1 55
500+
85%

About:
B/E Aerospace is a world leader in interior cabin products, fastener
distribution, and logistical services for commercial, business and
military jets.
Problem:
B/E Aerospace’s HR team needed to identify talent in the ultra-
competitive aerospace engineering labor market with not only
next-generation strategic and innovation skills but also a willingness
to relocate to Seattle.
Strategy:
The company, with the support of CEB Talent Neuron (CEB’s
talent analytics division), applied research from big data sources
to objectively compare various cities based on the availability
and migratory patterns of the talent pool. CEB Talent Neuron
also monitored competitor information to evaluate market
competitiveness and provided relocation ‘talking points’ unique
to the selected cities.
B/E Aerospace uses talent pool
locations and migration research
to recruit for niche skills
Story 3
Result:
The total analysis helped
B/E Aerospace target
and prioritize its
recruiting investments
and avoid wasting
advertising dollars
in the wrong markets.

About:
Intermountain Healthcare is a fully integrated healthcare system
in the U.S. servicing Utah and southern Idaho. With 22 hospitals,
155 clinics, and 34,000 employees, it is the largest private
employer in Utah.
Problem:
Pro Re Nata (PRN) employees had a high turnover rate of 41 percent
within their first year of working. A PRN employee has no scheduled
hours, working shifts as needed. Managers were increasingly hiring
more PRN employees such that PRN employees grew to make up
over 34 percent of new hires. PRN turnover was projected to cost the
organization $18 million over 10 years.
Intermountain Health
Care increases retention by
improving new hire screening
Story 4

Strategy:
• Intermountain’s HR analytics team formed a cross-disciplinary
team with members from the organizational effectiveness,
recruiting, and finance teams. They resolved to decrease first-year
turnover among PRN new hires by 12 percent.
• To improve the recruiting process, the team selected and
analyzed four metrics: 1) pre-screening scores for candidates sent
to hiring managers for review; 2) the percent of those candidates
actually interviewed; 3) the percent of interviewed candidates
who become five-star quality hires; and 4) the 90-day retention
rate for these candidates. They monitored these on a dashboard.
• After analyzing, the team decided to refine the screening
questions to more accurately represent the role of a PRN at
Intermountain and to filter out less-qualified candidates.
• Most importantly, the team created new tools for managers and
employees to manage their schedules via mobile devices since
employee feedback revealed that scheduling challenges were the
number one cause of turnover.
Results:
In year one,
Intermountain Healthcare
was able to shrink first-year
PRN turnover
from 41% to just 14%.
At the start of year two,
the group’s attrition
continued to improve,
dropping to 5%.
Bersin by Deloitte, WhatWorks Brief: High-Impact Talent Analytics—
Building a World-Class HR Measurement and Analytics Function,
(April 2014).
41%
14%

Welcome to
the world of
data driven
recruiting

Here’s a quick recap of all you’ve learned.
May our data be with you as you recruit!
Let your data driven recruiting
adventures begin
Be a strategic advisor
to hiring managers using data
Research and refine
your target talent pool using data
Turbocharge your team’s recruiting performance
with metrics and targets
Prioritize, Research,
then reach out
Have an initial intake meeting with your hiring manager Prioritize candidates that are most likely to respond
Search once then save your target talent pool in
Define your business objectives, recruiting goals,
Research and refine your target talent pool with data and are the best match for your company
LinkedIn Recruiter
and related success metrics
Have a follow-up strategy meeting with your hiring
manager
Research high potential candidates through referrals
Interpret the data through new lenses
Set SMART targets for your metrics
Refine your talent pool with your hiring manager
Monitor regularly and adjust
Warm contact candidates by reaching out through
2nd or 3rd degree connections2nd or 3rd degree connections
Pipeline proactively to track your nurture process and
collaborate with your team

Learn more about
our search insights tool
A 7 Step Plan for Measuring
and Improving Quality of Hire
in the LinkedIn Talent
Solutions Learning Center
by Lou Adler
by Brendan Browne
by Bradley Lawrence
on SlideShare
by Jenny Jedeikin
by Lou Adler
Free LinkedIn talent
pool reports
5 Ways You Can Use Data
to Recruit More Efficiently
3 Principles for
Data Driven Recruiting
Do Your Metrics
Even Matter?
The 6 Recruiting Metrics
That Really Matter
More helpful resources
about data driven recruiting

Recruit quality talent – passive and active, external and internal – on
the world’s largest professional network. Find the right person for
the job faster with LinkedIn’s social recruiting solutions.
Unlock full access to 347 M+ professionals
Attract, find, and hire talent while you sleep using our powerful
sourcing, pipelining, jobs, and talent brand tools.
About LinkedIn Talent Solutions Subscribe to our Blog:
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Anne-Marie Ryan
Matt Tague
Peter Rigano
Josh Bersin
Brendan Browne
Nick Wiik
Glen Cathey
Robin Erickson
Esther Lee Cruz Bob Spoer
Mia Peterson
Dion Love
Lou Adler
Senior Recruiter
LinkedIn
Talent Market
Strategist - Lead
Recruiter
LinkedIn
Talent Analytics
Associate
LinkedIn
Principal and Founder
Bersin by Deloitte
Senior Director of
Global Talent
Acquisition
LinkedIn
Associate Product
Marketing Manager
LinkedIn
SVP, Talent Strategy
and Innovation
Kforce
Vice President, Talent
Acquisition Research
Bersin by Deloitte
Insights & Content
Marketing Manager
LinkedIn
Talent Market
Strategist -
Engineering
LinkedIn
Associate Project
Manager,
Talent Acquisition,
LinkedIn
Narrative Strategist,
CEB (Corporate
Executive Board)
CEO
The Adler Group
Esther is passionate about
connecting people and
opportunities.
She enjoys creating content and
disruptive thought leadership
for the talent industry.
Contributors & InfluencersAuthor

Data Driven Recruiting

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