I think I’m doing this all wrong!
This week in the Holistic Recruiter Club #031
Thanks to you, we’re racing to 200 subscribers, getting hundreds of reads a week… but almost NO ONE engages!
So I want to test something. A simple challenge.
Drop a 🧐 in the comments if you read this far.
That’s it. No fancy answer needed. Just a 🧐.
But… if you want to go one step further:
What’s one hiring metric that looks great at first glance… but actually led you in the wrong direction?
I’ll break down the best ones next week.
Let’s see who’s actually paying attention. ;)
Anyway back to this week…
French is bloody hard.
This weekend I have French homework to do, how old am I again? haha
Also, in the garden, I’ve been using ChatGPT to help me identify trees, how to help the sick ones and also how to build my fence!… and luckily Georgie (my dog) hasn’t dug them up yet. 🚀 Any of you that know me and specifically Georgie will know how much I love him but as a working cocker spaniel he is needy and bloody annoying at times haha.
But the real highlight of the week….
Team Franglais came 3rd out of 22 teams in an endurance karting race this weekend. 🏎️🏆 Wooohooo. And yes there is a link to recruitment metrics here,
Sue me 😂
We weren’t the fastest, in fact, we had the 10th fastest time in qualifying. We weren’t the most experienced there were a lot of racing teams. But we had our strategy.
We focused on consistency, efficiency, and adaptability, not just top speed.
Because in TA, we obsess over “fastest lap” metrics, time to hire, cost per hire, when what wins is long-term impact, retention, and business alignment.
And then it hit me…
Maybe we’ve been selling hiring data the wrong way.
Most execs teams won’t buy into recruitment metrics unless they tie directly to business performance and right now the way it’s been going is: -
“Hey look at us we are delivering value in our roles!”
Which helps us roll straight into our Series on Storytelling…
Part 2 - The Art of Storytelling In Recruitment
The Hidden Truth Behind “Good” Hiring Metrics
Have you ever reported a hiring metric, only to realise later it was not actually helping as you thought it would?
We reduced Time to Hire by 33%! Wooohooo
But… did we actually make things better?
Or did we just make bad hiring decisions faster?
Let me show you an example of when data isn’t telling the full story.
Imagine you’re running Talent Acquisition at Hogwarts School of Wizardry.
Youre taking a look back over the first six months of 2024, and you were tracking Time to Hire religiously.
Let’s see how this story goes.
Look at this improvement!
We’ve smashed the “Time to Hire” from 45 days to 30 days.
That’s a 33% improvement in just six months!
Surely, this means we’re doing an amazing job, right? Right? 👀
Keep scroling to see the hidden truth
Here’s what no one is talking about…
As we sped up hiring, our first-year retention fell of a cliff.
We were hiring faster, but retaining fewer people from those hires.
We weren’t fixing hiring, we were just creating more turnover
See how this impacts the business
If retention had stayed at 80%, we’d keep 40 hires from those 6 months.
But since it dropped to 68%, we now only retain ~29 hires during this time period.
That’s ~11 extra hires lost annually due to declining retention.
More hiring. More costs. More turnover.
Fast hiring doesn’t mean smart hiring
This is why storytelling with data matters alot.
A single number never tells the full truth.
If your “Time to Hire” drops, but retention collapses
Is that really a success?
FYI Here is the The Psychology Behind Bad Hiring Metrics
We’re wired to trust fast results.
Faster hiring = better hiring, right?
Wrong.
Our brains love quick wins it’s called “present bias”.
We overvalue immediate win (faster hiring in this instance) and ignore the long term consequences (higher turnover).
And it gets worse.
Execs suffer from “loss aversion” basically they panic when they see Time to Hire going up, but don’t notice the hidden cost of bad retention.
Cutting Time to Hire from 45 days to 30 days looks amazing, and will probably help you get your quarterly bonus, BUT its only good until you realise retention dropped and you’re just rehiring for the same roles six months later. Which adds extra pressure!
“Progress without strategy is just movement”
The Lesson from this is
Most TA teams report numbers, not narratives.
A single metric like Time to Hire, looks great until you see what it’s really costing you.
The best hiring teams tell data stories, not just share stats.
Next time you look at a hiring metric, ask yourself:
What’s one hiring metric you’ve reported on, only to realise later it was misleading?
Drop it in the comments - I’ll break down the best ones next week.
Recruitment Campaigns You May Not Have Seen Before
The British Army’s Fortnite recruitment campaign was a £100k flop, but but but I love that they tried.
In 2023, they partnered with influencers and launched an in game activation, hoping to attract Gen Z recruits through one of the world’s most popular games. The planned to meet young players where they already are and spark interest in military careers.
But it backfired, like spectacularly.
Gammers complained of
• The messaging feeling forced, the said recruiting for real life war isn’t the same as playing a battle royale.
• Gamers mocked the campaign, calling it “cringe” and out of touch.
• The execution lacked authenticity, it felt like a gimmick rather than a genuine engagement strategy.
💸 £100k down the drain? Well I say it was a 100k experiment and they will learn and go again. I respect that they tried.
They took a risk, experimented with a new medium, and challenged the usual recruitment playbook. More hiring teams should be testing bold, creative strategies even if some fail.
You can watch below and let me know what do you think?
🧐