Now that we’ve defined the four stages of the talent cycle as Intake, Development, Delivery, and Transition, it’s time to define the key metrics that will help you manage the first phase. Without getting lost in the philosophical nuances between Drucker’s Management by Objectives and Deming’s systems view, let me try to instill some passion for metrics that spark change with two fortune cookie management quotes:

• “Every system is perfectly designed to get the results it gets” – Dr. Paul Batalden
• “You get what you tolerate” – Henry Cloud

So what are the outcomes you are trying to achieve from the Intake phase of the talent cycle? Anomalies in these metrics will point you to the parts of the system that must change in order to achieve different results.

• Time to fill open requisition
• Percent vacancies (open positions divided by total positions)
• Activity rate and yield for each step in the funnel (see diagram)
• Yield by channel (i.e., sourcing, agency, referral, inbound application), job function, hiring manager
• Percent of early exits (involuntary and voluntary terminations before 90 days of employment)
• Satisfaction: hiring manager, candidate, new hire, recruiter
• Percent of opt outs (i.e., number of candidates who withdraw at each step in the funnel divided by number of candidates who started that step)
• Average candidate quality (based on assessments by hiring managers based on required qualifications for each role)

if your applicant tracking system doesn’t generate a dashboard of metrics similar to these, you may have to build your own. Start with a white board and upgrade to Excel or an easily configured database (like Quickbase) once you know what you want to measure, when, and how.

Next up: key metrics for the Development phase of the talent cycle.