This week in the Holistic Recruiter Club #011
Our first official event & Forget about Quality of Hire, Switch from Speed to impact with Time to productivity
Before I get started welcome to the new subscribers! And thank those of you who are reading consistently now, it’s great and makes me more determined to keep posting :) And if you enjoy reading, please like, share and/or get in touch !
What a week! So I went to my first in-person event fully in French for about 8 months at HRonMars in Paris where there were many talks about AI in HR which gave some very interesting insights.
And then we were on to the very first in-person event organised by no other than,
Sponsored by Team Tailor and BackMarket we had a fantastic evening and soon I will be able to share our official photos and video from the night but until then here are a few!
We discussed many things but the main topic was data inside Talent Acquision Teams.
Next week the Two Tired Dads Talk Talent and Tech are back with our first-ever guest! We will be speaking to Noémie Sichel-Dulong who is the Global Talent Acquisition Senior Director of 70 people at Doctolib. All about how to make tough choices!
Sign up for free here!!
Forget about Quality of Hire, Switch from Speed to impact with Time to productivity
As you may know, I’m no fan of “Quality of hire” and “Time to Hire”, when measured without context. You can watch a whole show about this topic here:
Let’s start with "Quality of Hire shall we! Sure, it sounds great on paper, but what does it really mean? Most companies measure this through poor tracking of limited KPIs like retention rates or hiring manager satisfaction. But these don’t reflect the actual impact a new hire makes. We’ve all seen situations where someone looks great on paper and in the first few weeks, but six months down the line, you realise they weren’t the right fit - but what is the cause, environment, onboarding, lack of direction, the interview process, the individual themself the hiring managers behaviour?
Without understanding the long-term impact of a hire, this metric becomes a vanity number, nice to have but not truly helpful. Instead, we need to shift the focus.
The same goes for "Time to Hire." It’s often used as a gauge for efficiency, but hiring quickly doesn’t mean hiring well. Yes, speed matters, no one wants an empty seat for too long, but hiring in a rush can backfire. If the new hire struggles to perform, you end up right back where you started, but with added costs with culture, financial cost, team morale and missed opportunities. Again for low-level roles speed may be the answer but for business-critical roles, I’d argue the role takes as long to fill as it needs.
So what should we measure instead?
Introducing "Time to Productivity"
Now look I am not the inventor of this metric at all, but it is one I love. It’s one that makes much more sense. “Time to Productivity” This is all about measuring how long it takes for a new hire to become effective in their role. This metric aligns hiring with impact. It’s not about filling a role quickly, it’s about making sure the new employee can actually contribute to the business as fast as possible without sacrificing quality.
By focusing on this, we can shift our mindset from just filling roles to ensuring that the people you bring in can deliver value efficiently. It’s about impact, not speed.
But how do we shift this mindset I hear you ask? I mean it’s not easy but try this. First we need to start asking better questions:
How quickly can this person get up to speed?
What kind of support do they need to hit the ground running?
Are we providing the tools and environment that allow them to thrive?
What feedback loops do we have in place?
Basically, how do we set each individual up for success?
So I repeat try and switch from Speed to Impact!
What do you think?
Tools and Productivity
My favourite tool of the week is Slido so Im not getting paid to promote this but it’s such a good tool, we used it during our event this week and it kept everyone engaged, i mean it had nearly 100% participation and really kept people involved in the presentation. We also managed to make it fun as who ever got the most answers right in the shortest time won a prize. It allows us to get feedback on the event and even ask people if they want to talk with us in the future.
If you have a meeting or event coming up soon give it a go!
That’s me for this week a slightly condensed newsletter as that last week was crazy! I can’t wait to update you about Presage next week so stay posted!
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