Talent acquisition leaders are experts at moving fast when business demands speed. Still, slower times offer a moment for improvement if recruiters know where to look and what to measure, says Shannon Pritchett of HireEZ.

Measurement is the key to improving hiring quality when business is good; talent acquisition practices are often played fast and loose. Hiring speed becomes everything, usually at the cost of hiring quality or efficiency. But when things cool off (as they always do), the ability to move fast isn’t up to recruiters and hiring teams; it’s up to the market. Suddenly, what companies thought was working to draw in talent before isn’t holding up. And a lack of understanding as to what was truly moving the needle is holding employers back.

In other words, when business is slow, suddenly, every move matters, and hiring teams can’t afford to be unsure about which aspects of their recruitment strategy are helping or hurting. This is where proper measurement separates the winners from the losers. The challenge for recruiters? To get comfortable with looking at data.

Measurement Is Everything

It sounds simple, but I see too many hiring teams shrug off measurement activities because it can seem like a lot of work. In truth, doing the work upfront liberates recruiters from the grind and all of the bad habits and bad candidate experiences the grind mindset enables.

Marketing teams know how critical measurement is to creating efficiencies and driving better experiences for prospects and customers. There’s an entire industry underpinned by marketing measurement to generate great customers better; it works the same for recruiting to generate great talent.

Fortunately, unlike the norm in marketing, recruiters don’t need layers of technology to capture valuable insights from data. There is plenty of data at their fingertips. And when it comes to figuring out which data points to look at? The good news is that every data source can be a viable source of valuable insight and immediately affect success.

Once you start measuring, you’ll understand more clearly who your target should be and how to appeal to them. All you have to do is start. Because many recruiters don’t know where to begin, I wanted to share a few examples.

See More: Measuring Performance Using a Native CRM Tool

Increase Outreach Engagement

Surprisingly, many recruiters fail to optimize their outreach based on performance metrics. If there’s only one thing you measure, the quality of your candidate outreach should be it. If you don’t know how, here are some do’s and don’ts:

• Test outreach with A/B versions: Testing the success of recruiting messages is critical. You should test everything: Email or SMS cadences, copy, call-to-actions, subject lines, formats, images, etc. To set up tests, think like a marketer would. Try asking, “What happens if I use short subject lines instead of longer?” or, “Would I get more engagement if I offered to share more details on a job role instead of asking for a call to talk about it, or vice versa?”
• Don’t test everything simultaneously: Only test one thing at a time so you know which changes are truly making an impact. For example, you may want to measure how candidates from a single group (such as applicants for one specific role) engage differently when they are sent the same message but with altered subject lines. Then, with a new group, try testing different CTA’s. Afterward, get creative with message length or images. Track response rates or engagement for each and see what trends have surfaced and how you can update your approach for better engagement.
• Don’t forget about the end goal: Just because you’ve tuned your outreach to get better engagement doesn’t necessarily mean it’s helping you achieve your hiring strategy. Be sure to validate changes in your approach based on the impact downstream. Are you getting the desired results when it comes to conversion rate? Is the retention rate for new hires improving? Maybe it’s time to use measurement to identify blind spots in the candidate’s journey or qualifications.

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