Many nonprofits overlook a critical missing item during these pivotal growth stages—employee recruitment. However, some new nonprofits may not have adequate resources for dedicated recruitment efforts. So, the most sustainable, efficient way to launch your recruitment efforts is by drawing insights from your recruitment data. In this guide, we’ll explore how to level up your recruitment efforts with effective data-driven insights.
1. Identify key recruitment metrics
As with launching any nonprofit initiative, you should establish success benchmarks at the beginning of the process. Start small as you build your data collection habits and techniques. Lever’s guide to talent acquisition metrics encourages new nonprofits to analyze the following data points:
- Cost per hire, which is the total amount you spend on hiring divided by the total hires you’ve made. This metric reveals how financially efficient your nonprofit’s recruitment efforts are.
- Applicants per role, which is how many applicants apply for each open position. This metric can show how visible or appealing your hiring materials are.
- Time to fill, which is the time it takes from opening a job to a candidate accepting an offer. This metric helps recruiters and hiring managers understand how long it takes them to fill open positions so they can strategically plan.
As your hiring efforts pick up steam, you can start tracking additional data, such as sourcing channel effectiveness, which measures how many applicants came from certain hiring channels. This metric shows which channels yield the most applicants, helping you allocate resources efficiently.
2. Build a candidate persona
Stepping into your candidates’ shoes is essential for crafting hiring materials that resonate with them. Once you collect enough data, you can create recruitment outreach strategies based on shared characteristics.
Create different hypothetical audience members with personas, which, as Fifty & Fifty explains, should feature the following characteristics:
- Demographic information (name, location, age)
- Occupation and income
- Family members
- Interests and motivations
- Challenges related to charitable giving
To build the foundation for effective personas, interview current employees and use them as a model. After all, they went through your hiring process successfully and can provide you with a candidate’s perspective. Just ensure you’re upfront with them about how this data will be used, and don’t share it without their permission.
3. Leverage technology for data collection and analysis
As you create your nonprofit's initial budget, you’ll likely start immediately planning what type of software will make up your tech stack. Using the best hiring tech is essential for steady growth, so you might initially look for donor databases and payment management platforms.
Investing wisely in nonprofit software can be daunting for newer nonprofits, so you might constrain yourself to only the basic solutions. However, you can streamline many more aspects of nonprofit management—including recruitment—with software built for small businesses and nonprofits. Look for software that:
- Automates routine hiring tasks, such as sending out interview reminders.
- Supports collaborative workflows with multiple “seats” per license and a tagging interface.
- Continuously engages candidates with automated communications and follow-ups.
- Complies with nonprofit data sharing laws to preserve candidate privacy and trust.
- Has features to create talent pools, such as customizable labels.
- Proactively prevents data syncing and reporting errors by standardizing formatting.
However, you might not need a point solution dedicated to hiring, especially if you’re just getting started or don’t have extensive recruitment needs. If you aren’t ready for a larger commitment, you could start with a spreadsheet or a generalized database that works for recruitment.
4. Optimize job descriptions using data
Making a great first impression is essential for converting casual job post surfers into candidates, and that first impression will likely be made via a job board. Your team needs to cater to what motivates candidates to invest the time and energy into applying for jobs, and data can point you in the right direction.
Start by analyzing which job posts have garnered the most traction and draw any insights as to why. For instance, you might find that a younger audience prefers job descriptions that are less formal and include welcoming language.
Then, use this data to optimize your job descriptions. Use A/B testing by creating two versions of a job description to see which captures more attention.
5. Refine recruitment marketing with data insights
You can only appeal to qualified candidates if they can easily find and learn about your nonprofit. That’s where dedicated recruitment marketing efforts come in handy.
Like your general marketing campaigns, you should continuously evaluate performance data and adjust your recruitment marketing campaigns. Here are some helpful tips to get started:
- Optimize your employer branding. This is your identity as an employer and the backbone of your hiring outreach. Align visual aspects, such as your logo, with messaging across your hiring materials to cultivate a consistent experience.
- Track source of hire. Choosing the correct channels for your marketing materials can make or break your campaigns. Ask standout candidates how they heard about the job during the interview process.
- Collect quantitative and qualitative data. Cut-and-dry data doesn’t tell the whole story! Along with candidate conversion rates, ask candidates how they perceive your employer brand—you’ll get nuanced answers that numbers don’t convey.
As you create and expand your marketing strategies, keep and update a running marketing guide. This resource helps you put forth an established front, no matter what channel you’re using.
While it’s daunting to add another activity to your already busy schedule, investing in recruitment can pay off if done correctly. Data-driven insights can get you to that point, empowering you to hone your strategies based on what works for your unique audience.