Utilizing Data in Recruitment Decisions

HR: Employees are leaving jobs. CFO: Do we have data on why they’re leaving? HR: Yes. 70% of our turnover is tied to unmet needs like growth, recognition, and flexibility. CEO: But how much does it actually cost us when they leave? HR: Each lost employee costs 1.5x their salary to replace, not to mention the productivity gap. CEO: We need to reduce spending. We can't spend on engagement programs. CFO: What’s the impact of these engagement programs on retention? HR: Programs focused on growth and recognition have reduced turnover by 25%, saving us $3M annually. CEO: Are there other benefits to meeting employee needs? HR: Absolutely. Employees who feel valued are 30% more productive and report higher satisfaction. CFO: What about profitability? CHRO: Engaged teams generate 21% higher profitability. It’s not just about keeping them. It’s about keeping them productive and motivated. CEO: So cutting back on programs that meet employee needs could cost us more? CFO: The data shows there’s a significant financial impact. HR: Meeting employee needs isn’t just an expense. It’s an investment in retention, productivity, and profit. The lesson? Employees quit when their needs go unmet, whether it’s for growth, recognition, or flexibility. Invest in your employees.

76.6% open rate. 21% reply rate. 7.3% interest rate. These are the current benchmarks for recruiting outreach emails sent through Gem‎. But here's what's really fascinating: the teams consistently beating these benchmarks aren't using fancy automation or gimmicky subject lines. They're simply speaking to what candidates actually care about. At Gem, we've analyzed millions of recruiting emails, and the pattern is unmistakable. The highest-performing outreach directly addresses the core motivations driving today's job seekers: 1. Career advancement opportunities 2. Meaningful work flexibility 3. Strong, visionary leadership 4. Clear paths for skill development (especially for Gen Z, who prioritize this 36% more than other generations) One customer I was talking to challenged conventional wisdom by A/B testing short vs. detailed messages. The surprising result? While the shorter message got more opens, the longer, more detailed message that explained team impact and challenges generated more interested replies. Why? Because it spoke directly to what high-value candidates actually wanted to know. The market has shifted. By 2030, Gen Z and millennials will represent nearly 60% of the global workforce. These candidates don't just want jobs—they want growth trajectories. They don't just evaluate offers—they evaluate leadership. Here's my challenge to every recruiting team: Review your last 5 outreach templates. Count how many sentences focus on what you need vs. what the candidate gets. If it's weighted toward your requirements, you're leaving responses on the table. The best recruiting teams at companies like Anthropic, Yext, and Doordash are already making this transition, shifting from requirement-focused to candidate-centric messaging. And it's working… "We're not trying to sell anything in our outreach," explains Michael Franco at Yext‎. "We're trying to start a genuine conversation... When we understand their pain points, we know exactly what value prop to use." This isn't just feel-good advice—it's data-backed strategy. In 2025, understanding what candidates truly care about isn't just nice to have. It's the difference between hitting your hiring goals and falling short of them.

The CEO You Need in 2025 Won't Be on Traditional Hiring Playbooks. Leadership has evolved yet companies still rely on outdated executive search methods. 🔹 Static resumes 🔹 Gut-feel hiring 🔹 Narrow industry filters And that’s why they miss out on transformative leaders. I've spent 12+ years connecting FMCG giants with transformative leaders, and one truth stands out: traditional executive search is broken. Let me share what actually works in 2025. The Modern Executive Search Playbook (backed by our 94% retention rate): 1️⃣ Data-Driven DNA Gone are the gut-feel hires. Our AI-powered analytics have revealed fascinating patterns: 73% of successful leaders showed early innovation signals in previous roles Cultural fit predictions are now 89% accurate using our behavioral mapping Leadership trajectory modeling spots high-potential candidates 3 years before competitors 2️⃣ Diversity as a Performance Multiplier Recent McKinsey data shows diverse leadership teams outperform by 36%. Our approach? Assessment protocols that raised diverse placements by 47% YoY AI-driven bias elimination that expanded our qualified candidate pool immensly 3️⃣ Global Talent Arbitrage Reality check: Your next game-changing leader might be in Singapore while you're searching in London. Our cross-border placements increased in 2024 Cultural intelligence mapping shows 92% success rate in international transitions 4️⃣ Future-Proof Leadership Assessment Traditional metrics miss tomorrow's stars. Our predictive models track: Adaptability Quotient (AQ) - now more crucial than IQ Innovation Capacity Score™ - predicting market disruption potential Strategic Agility Index - measuring pivot capabilities in crisis 5️⃣ Continuous Evolution Last year taught us: Remote leadership capabilities are 3x more important than pre-2023 Sustainability expertise has become a top 5 requirement AI literacy is non-negotiable for 89% of C-suite roles 🎯 The truth: The talent industry has shifted more in the last 18 months than in the previous decade. Companies still using 2020 playbooks are missing out on transformative leaders. #ExecutiveSearch #Leadership #Hiring #AI #Recruitment #TalentAcquisition #FMCG

When it comes to tackling employee attrition, the first step is to ground decisions in data. The Work From Anywhere partnership with Mercer breaks this down. In the Global Talent Trends survey, Mercado Libre used AI to analyze their entire benefits stack, pinpointing gaps based on what benefits employees were actually requesting. Mercado Libre: *Identified a benefits gap among software engineers. *Using AI insights, they launched a targeted “work-from-anywhere” program for that specific segment. *Within about a year, voluntary attrition dropped from 14 percent to 4 percent. 74% of those engineers now plan to stay with the company for more than three years. That’s a dramatic shift, but it’s not unique to Mercado Libre. An example is Spotify. After rolling out their own data-driven Work From Anywhere policy, they saw attrition fall by 15 percent in just one year. What these case studies show isn’t just about perks or programs. It’s about using AI to uncover where your people feel underserved, and then designing benefits that directly address those needs. To quote John Lee, CEO of Work From Anywhere, "The biggest saving isn’t just in dollars or time. It’s in retaining the talent you already have." If you’re still designing benefits based on hunches or outdated benchmarks, here are 3 questions John recommends to get you started... 1) How are you currently collecting and analyzing employee feedback on benefits? 2) Have you segmented your data by role, department or tenure to spot hidden gaps? 3) What tools, including AI or people-analytics platforms, could help you forecast the impact of a new program? I’d love to hear: how is your organization using data to reshape benefits and drive retention? Share your experiences below, and add WFA below for a link to the Global Talents Trends Survey. More clips from the latest episode of Progressive HR with guest John Lee coming soon.

The real problem with eliminating DEI programs is the potential return of the mediocre white male. As companies retreat from diversity initiatives amid political pressures, we're not just losing buzzwords and HR programs. We risk reverting to a system where connections trump competence, and mediocrity thrives under the protection of homogeneity. I've spent decades watching organizations struggle with talent acquisition. The data is clear on 2 things: - Teams with a variety of perspectives and backgrounds perform better; - When companies rely solely on traditional networks, they perpetuate existing imbalances and also wind up missing candidates with the most merit. Consider this: While men represent roughly 50% of the population, they occupy 70% of leadership positions. Black Americans comprise 13% of the population but hold just 3% of executive roles. The solution is to elevate standards rather than abandon them by looking for what I call ME&I: Merit, Excellence, and Intelligence across every step of the talent pipeline. There are 3 parts of your pipeline to look at: 1. Start with your search function. Examine where your candidates come from to ensure that you’re sourcing diverse candidates. If you’re only getting white males, you may be missing an excellent candidate. 2. Next, selection. Selection should start with finding the highest quality candidates, but if two candidates perform equally well, there’s value in choosing the minority candidate, especially if your company currently has a discrepancy internally. 3. Finally, integration. True integration means creating environments where all perspectives get heard and valued. Once critical mass is achieved, this becomes self-sustaining - you’ll have more of a built-in support system for employees of different backgrounds. Let's be clear: Ditching DEI programs without addressing underlying process flaws doesn't advance meritocracy, it undermines it. The choice isn't between merit and diversity. The highest-performing organizations know that having a meritocracy means you need to make sure that diverse candidates have the same chance to show their merit as others.

Workforce planning has always been an incredibly complex and difficult task. Despite valiant efforts to improve these models, they have remained relatively static and simplistic, relying predominantly on small teams crunching data or on predictions from the hiring manager community. In an ideal world, we would shift from a static, once-a-year exercise to a dynamic, more proactive model. We would stop reacting to what's happening now and start anticipating what's likely to happen next. Last week, I had the pleasure of spending time with our enterprise data and analytics team, a group that services over 800 customers. The most exciting topic we discussed was three pilots we're running with customers right now that aim to make this a reality: using a digital twin for work planning. It works by connecting vast amounts of external market data with a company's many internal data sources, some they typically wouldn't consider, such as ERP, CRM (sales), LMS, and Time and Attendance systems. This allows us to run scenarios and model future talent needs. Here’s a concrete example: By analyzing Salesforce, HRIS, and ATS data, we can predict that when multiple prospect opportunities reach a specific stage in our customer’s sales cycle, there is a high likelihood of winning at least one of them. We can then analyze the consistent skill sets across all of those prospect opportunities, allowing us to confidently and proactively start a recruitment process for those skills. The goal being that we have candidates at the final stages of the process, before an official requisition has been raised, positively impacting time to hire. We’ve also been able to replicate a similar model based on website sales activity. The question to ask is: what data is generated in what system that allows you to get ahead of the hiring process today. 

HR teams are surrounded by dashboards, reports, and data, but not all numbers drive decisions. If you want real influence at the table, you need to track what actually moves the needle. Here are 8 HR metrics worth your attention and how to use them strategically: 1️⃣ Quality of Hire 🔹 What it is: Measures how well new hires perform and stay. 🔹 Why it matters: Bad hires drain time, money, and morale. 🔹 Use it to: Track performance, retention, and manager feedback at 6 and 12 months. 2️⃣ Employee Turnover (Voluntary & Involuntary) 🔹 What it is: The percentage of employees leaving the company. 🔹 Why it matters: High turnover = high hidden costs. 🔹 Use it to: Segment by department, tenure, or manager to identify root causes. 3️⃣ Time to Fill 🔹 What it is: How long it takes to fill an open role. 🔹 Why it matters: Vacant positions disrupt productivity. 🔹 Use it to: Compare against benchmarks and improve internal hiring processes. 4️⃣ Employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS) 🔹 What it is: Measures satisfaction and loyalty. 🔹 Why it matters: Low engagement kills retention and performance. 🔹 Use it to: Run quarterly surveys and act quickly on feedback trends. 5️⃣ First-Year Turnover Rate 🔹 What it is: Percentage of employees who leave within 12 months. 🔹 Why it matters: High rates point to issues in hiring or onboarding. 🔹 Use it to: Spot patterns by recruiter, manager, or role and fix the leaks. 6️⃣ Internal Promotion Rate 🔹 What it is: How often you fill roles with internal talent. 🔹 Why it matters: Low rates = missed growth and retention opportunities. 🔹 Use it to: Identify top performers early and create growth paths. 7️⃣ Pay Equity Ratio 🔹 What it is: Compares compensation across groups. 🔹 Why it matters: Pay gaps impact trust, retention, and risk. 🔹 Use it to: Audit by gender, race, and role to close gaps proactively. 8️⃣ Cost per Hire 🔹 What it is: Total cost to bring someone onboard. 🔹 Why it matters: High cost may reflect inefficiency or poor retention. 🔹 Use it to: Balance hiring quality with smart resource use. ✅ Bottom Line: You don’t need more reports, you need better ones. Track what matters. Use what you track. And lead with data that tells a story. 💬 Which of these metrics do you find most overlooked in your org? 👉 Follow Ricardo Cuellar for more no-fluff HR and workplace strategy tips. 📬 Want more insights like this? Subscribe to my newsletter, link in bio!

The recruitment game has fundamentally changed. 78% of today's candidates research a company's reputation BEFORE applying... ...while organizations with strong employer brands see 50% more qualified applicants. Last week at AI ALPI, we analyzed recruitment marketing performance across 350+ organizations and observed fascinating patterns in both best practices and tooling: → BEST PRACTICE: Companies leveraging employee-generated content see 6x higher engagement than traditional corporate messaging ↳ Top performers use SmartDreamers and Beamery to systematize authentic storytelling → BEST PRACTICE: Multi-channel recruitment strategies outperform single-channel by 3.2x in qualified candidate generation ↳ Symphony Talent's self-optimizing campaigns perform 27% better than manually managed approaches → BEST PRACTICE: AI-powered personalization in recruitment communications shows 41% higher response rates ↳ Avature and Phenom users report 3x faster time-to-hire with their AI-driven engagement tools → BEST PRACTICE: Data-driven employer branding strategies yield 45% higher conversion rates ↳ Companies using TalentLyft's analytics dashboards optimize messaging based on real-time candidate feedback Did you know? The term "recruitment marketing" was first coined in 1998 by HR thought leader Martha Heller, who predicted that "companies will eventually market jobs with the same sophistication they market products." Twenty-five years later, her prediction has become the competitive advantage separating talent magnets from those struggling to hire. The data couldn't be clearer: recruitment marketing isn't just an HR function—it's becoming the primary differentiator in talent acquisition as specialized skills become increasingly scarce. Our analysis identified five recruitment marketing tools outperforming the market in 2025: → SmartDreamers: Excelling for tech, retail, and outsourcing with 38% better candidate quality → TalentLyft: Delivering the highest ROI for mid-market with intuitive career site editors → Symphony Talent: Leading in enterprise with self-optimizing campaigns across channels → Beamery: Dominating in analytics with robust reporting that drives strategic decisions → Avature: Setting the standard for AI-powered recruitment marketing at global scale For HR leaders and HRTech founders, this represents both challenge and opportunity. Those who transform recruitment from a transaction to a relationship-driven experience through these best practices and tools are seeing dramatic improvements in time-to-hire, quality-of-hire, and retention metrics. 🔥 Want more breakdowns like this? Follow along for insights on: → Getting started with AI in HR teams → Scaling AI adoption across HR functions → Building AI competency in HR departments → Taking HR AI platforms to enterprise market → Developing HR AI products that solve real problems

I spent 4 years evaluating PM candidates at Google. Here are the 9 Top Candidate Signals recruiters and hiring managers look out for (save this): 𝟭/ 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗜𝗻𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗻𝘁 𝗜𝗺𝗽𝗮𝗰𝘁 𝗧𝗲𝘀𝘁 The first 10 seconds matter most. We scan for measurable influence. Here's the structure we look for: • Revenue driven ($X) • Users impacted (Y million) • Efficiency gained (Z%) 𝟮/ 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗖𝗿𝗲𝗱𝗶𝗯𝗶𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗦𝗰𝗮𝗻 Most candidates list responsibilities. Top candidates show ownership levels. We look for: Line 1: Scale of impact + recognized brands Line 2: Scope of ownership 𝟯/ 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝟱𝟬-𝟯𝟬-𝟮𝟬 𝗘𝘃𝗮𝗹𝘂𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 Here's what we actually assess: • 50% strategic thinking • 30% measurable results • 20% situation complexity This is why some "less experienced" PMs get L6/L7 offers. 4/ The Translation Matrix We don't just get PMs from "traditional" tech backgrounds. We like hiring founders and folks with entrepreneurial experience. But this means hiring managers need to read between the lines of their experience. When reviewing founders & consultants: • Products → Business outcomes • Team leadership → Revenue influence • Technical depth → User impact As a PM on the other side of the hiring table, make sure you translate your business experience to PM terms. 𝟱/ 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗩𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗳𝗶𝗰𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗙𝗿𝗮𝗺𝗲𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸 We look for metrics in layers: • Top: Company-wide impact • Middle: Team outcomes • Bottom: Individual contribution This shows us the true scope of an individual's impact. 𝟲/ 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗗𝗲𝗰𝗶𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗟𝗲𝗻𝘀 We don't just read what happened. We look for why you made each choice. In my experience, this is what separates L5s from L6s in my experience. 𝟳/ 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝟯-𝗦𝗰𝗮𝗻 𝗖𝗵𝗲𝗰𝗸 Once a resume lands on my desk, here's how I scan it: • First scan: Bold numbers only • Second scan: Context • Third scan: Everything else This is why formatting matters. 𝟴/ 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗥𝗲𝗰𝗲𝗻𝗰𝘆 𝗥𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼 Here's how hiring managers actually review experience: • 80% weight on last 2 years • 15% on year 3 • 5% on everything prior The conclusion: Put most recent experiences with your best impact metrics up top. 𝟵/ 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝗸𝗲𝗵𝗼𝗹𝗱𝗲𝗿 𝗜𝗺𝗽𝗮𝗰𝘁 𝗠𝗮𝗽 We look for: • Problem scale • Initiative ownership • Cross-functional leadership • Business transformation    But if you had to force me to pick the most underrated signal? Focus on 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝟱𝟬-𝟯𝟬-𝟮𝟬 𝗘𝘃𝗮𝗹𝘂𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻. This is because most candidates focus 80% on results. But at senior levels, we hire for thinking patterns. --- Want to make sure you're exhibiting these top performer signals in your application and interviews? Apply to the Product Career Accelerator (spots limited) – link in comments.

The most common phrase I hear in university recruiting meetings? "But we've always recruited from these schools." This mentality costs companies millions. Here's why: · Markets evolve. Your talent sources should too. · They are not using internal and external data insights to inform their strategy. · Top candidates aren't where they were 5 years ago. They're exploring new programs, new majors, new paths. · Traditional target schools are oversaturated with recruiters. You're fighting the same battle as everyone else. · Emerging programs at lesser-known schools often produce hungry, high-performing talent. Our solution? Build an analysis tool that combines internal and external data to pinpoint the best campus sources. Track: - Historical offer acceptances - Intern-to-full-time conversions - Employee engagement levels - Promotion rates - Demographic and diversity metrics The tool transforms your strategy. Recruiters input the business forecasts for hiring needs: - Projected hiring numbers - Target locations - Role types The system generates a targeted list of campuses, backed by real data. The results: • Increase in diversity hiring • Jump in offer acceptances • Higher intern-to-full-time conversion rates The reality is simple: Yesterday's recruiting playbook won't win tomorrow's talent. We need to question our assumptions. Challenge our "tried and true" methods. Look where others aren't looking. Ask yourself: When was the last time you revisited your data and sourcing strategy?