Talent Acquisition Guide on Reporting to Business Leaders

This week we’re joined again by Eric Guidice, former recruiting leader at Uber & Bird (before founding Headcount365). He has written the below guide with weekly executive meetings in mind, whilst this is most applicable for recruiting leaders, I think there are loads of actions and metrics individual recruiters can start using.

1. Put Out the Immediate Fire

What Executives care about: Executives want their problems solved. Consistently solving problems in a public setting, or being able to make a plan for resolution builds credibility.

What a Recruiting Leader should do: Keep a log of all ad hoc problems brought up in the executive setting and track them in a public forum. Immediate solutions should be celebrated in the exec meeting while ongoing problems should have a plan for resolution.

2. How is the Service of Recruiting Performing?

What Executives are really thinking: Executives are wondering if recruiting is going to block them from achieving their own KPIS for the Quarter/Half/year. They also want to help unblock you by managing their team in a way you can not as an indirect service provider to their org.

Key Metric: Recruiting Production vs Demand: Is recruiting producing the hires the business needs on time?

What a Recruiting Leader should do: Articulate the service of recruiting from an outsiders perspective to analyse its strengths and weaknesses. Use the metrics detailed in the below sections to articulate the performance of the recruiting service and highlight where you can take action to make improvements.

Your job is to give them the information they need to explain the outcome, and the solution to remedy it for their boss. This means talking “Macro-Recruiter-nomics”

Better said, this is the difference between weather and climate.

3. What is the Financial Impact of Hiring to Date?

What Finance wants to know: Is the cost of the recruiting service above or below the budget we forecasted? (including agency spend) AND are the salaries we are paying the newly hired employees above or below budget?

Key Metric # 1: Agency Spend to Goal: Recruiting team & software costs are relatively fixed throughout the year, but agency spend can quickly create variance in the cost of the recruiting service.

Key Metric #2: Annualised Spend Actuals vs Goal: Salary changes and an explanation as to why will help executives understand compensation and the overall headcount plan.

Key Metric #3: In-Year Spend Actuals vs Goal: Start dates can have a significant impact on spend for this plan year, even if salaries are on budget. Missed start dates may unlock agency spend where early starts might create budget issues for finance.

Approach: Present a financial overview of recruiting activities. Detail the cost per hire and how the total recruitment expenses compare to the allocated budget. Discuss the financial impact of the offers made and accepted, and whether these align with the financial plans.

4. Is Performance of the Recruiting Service Due to Funnel Health, Recruiter Performance, Hiring Manager Contribution or Business Planning?

What Executives are thinking: How can I use my influence to improve the service of recruiting so I can hit my own goals? Where can I unblock hiring production so that hiring does not restrict my ability to run a business.

Metrics to Consider:

• Funnel Health: Funnel volume and throughput are key indicators as to whether or not you have the volume needed to hit hiring goals. Identifying funnel issues can unlock funds for sourcing, branding or agencies, while process inefficiencies can be improved with training.

• Hiring Manager Efficiency: Hiring managers can block recruiting productivity by not filling out scorecards, rescheduling interviews or making changes. Using data to prove which manager needs improvement will help executives unblock hiring by solving for these behaviours.

• Business Planning: Changes to the headcount plan may impact the recruiting teams ability to hit goals.

• Planning Accuracy: Variance between planned and actual recruitment timelines. Is the business realistic about hiring production? Is production being front loaded to the beginning of the fiscal year causing delays?

Approach: Break down recruitment performance to its core components: funnel health, recruiter efficiency, hiring manager contributions, and business planning accuracy. Use data to pinpoint where issues arise and propose actionable steps for executives to assist in unblocking these areas.

5. Progress on Unblocking the Issues Identified in Previous Meetings

What Executives care about: Executives want their problems solved. If you don’t close out the previous issues, it will be difficult to build trust in your ability to solve future ones. Hearing their feedback and closing it out in successive meetings is a clear way to win credibility as a problem solver in talent.

What a Recruiting Leader Should Do: Review the status of action items from previous meetings. Highlight what has been resolved and how, providing specific metrics and feedback to demonstrate progress. Post mortem where necessary.

6. Forecasted Issues and Proactive Solutions

Objective: Identify potential future problems and outline strategies to mitigate them.

Metrics to Consider:

• Demand Exceeds Capacity: Use a live capacity/demand forecast to predict where the recruiting team may be over burdened.

• Seasonal Variance: Leverage data from previous plan years to estimate funnel volume, hiring manager interview capacity, and time metrics to ensure predictable on time.

Approach: Discuss potential challenges that may impact future recruitment efforts. Use historical data and trends to predict upcoming issues and propose proactive solutions. This might include scaling up recruiting capacity, improving candidate engagement strategies, or adjusting recruitment plans based on anticipated business changes.

Conclusion

By focusing on these six areas, recruiting leaders can ensure that their executive meetings are informative, action-oriented, and aligned with the broader goals of the organisation. Leveraging the right metrics not only provides transparency but also empowers executives to support recruitment strategies effectively.

Interested in learning more?

✅ Read some more actionable content for recruiting leaders written by Eric here.

💜 If you’d like to watch this full training session or continue learning from other TA leaders, check out PURPL.

💬 If you’re a TA leader who would like to contribute or learn about Purpl for your team, book in a call with me here.