Whether a more seasoned recruiting firm or one just beginning, reports are often a key indicator of reviewing where your business is now and setting goals and expectations for the future.

But why do I need to report? That's something I typically do at the 11th hour only because I have to, right? We've all been there. Reporting is often a time consuming and grueling part of your Friday or Monday morning stop-light meetings. With so much to report on across your internal team, a variety of KPI's, pipeline efficiency and your clients - how can you effectively yet efficiently manage all that data. Ultimately, the goal of reporting within Crelate is to bundle that in one place to give you that time you may have previously spent running reports back to allow you to do what you do best: run your business.

We have seen many types of firms across a variety of industries and firm types come through our doors. While some nuances are unique to your individual business, there are certainly several stand out reports we believe are paramount to a recruiting firm's daily operation. Because if you can't measure your data, how can you grow?

KPI's can certainly cover a broad spectrum dependent on your goals and needs. We'll often see our customers look to track key metrics and ratios such as Submittals, Interviews, and Placements. This often relays back to my employees as well so that I may stay on top of my team regarding these KPI's. Reporting on this type of data will allow you to track daily/weekly/monthly efficiency across your team. The value here, is that I can further narrow the scope of my search to see week over week, who are my top performers and who still needs a boost.

While this data is very insightful for the overall picture, it may be missing any efficiency indicators. For instance, what if my senior recruiter, Suzy sends out 5 offers in a month but my junior recruiter Bob sends out 15, is Bob inherently the harder worker here? Not necessarily, as you may be asking, well of those offers, what was the conversion rate to placements? Perhaps for every 5 offers, 4 are placed for Suzy while for Bob, despite his 15 offers, only 2 candidates actually signed on. This is where ratio reports will really come into play to drive home the process of what is and is not working. This allows allows me to know on an aggregate, let's say it takes 50 candidates, 25 phone screens, 10 interviews and 3 offers to make a placement. I'll know know right away when investigating a position, if we're short on these numbers, we're likely going to need to bolster our pipeline in order to fill this requisition on time.

Without pipeline reports, you're essentially a chicken with your head cut off. With different recruiters, job types and reqs all open at the same time, how can I effectively manage that at once? How can I know what our pipeline looks like to find the backlogs and gaps in our process?

Crelate will give you the opportunity to track your recruiter's pipeline's on a very granular level. However, taking a step back can also be helpful to see the big picture. In the example below, this may represent a semi-successful funnel. We have a high majority of candidates that we still need to review but from there, they seem to progress through our process as it advances. Perhaps this tells me in this example that my pipeline looks good and as a result, I better focus today on pounding the phone and email to all those new candidates to progress them through the funnel. That's the ideal scenario here is that both Admins and non-admins can quickly overview the pipeline and take immediate action as a result.

I can also narrow scope by client, job type, source, etc. For instance, maybe on my Temp positions, the majority of applicants get stuck in the offer stage and do not reach back out but in Perm the hold up is on the transition from Submitting to a Client Interview. Or, which sources are bringing the best applicants? Are those from Source X being placed while those from Source Y are consistently vetted out?

In a related report and within my workflow, I'll likely want to know how long applicants may remain in my funnel. How long and I taking to close jobs? How long does it take me to move applicants through my funnel? All of these are of course very important to point out inefficiencies in your process and where procedural delays may occur.

Your placement reports are likely a culmination of the above. You've hit your efficiency goals, quickly moved candidates through the pipeline, accumulated all your submittals, interviews and offers and are rewarded with a placement! Managing client relations and expectations all while keeping candidates adequately informed throughout the process is enough to drive you crazy, so why not track the fruits of your labor! Placement reports are often imperative to see if your time spent is (quite literally) paying off.

Reviewing overall placements is certainly helpful but you'll also want to dive a bit deeper with value per placement and client, the trajectory of placements and revenue over time, and time to close these deals. All of this data will again allow you to more effectively grow and scale. If your firm is at a point where pipelines are bloated yet value of placements continues to increase, perhaps it's time to scale your team? Knowing when to scale can ultimately change the trajectory of your business. Doing so at the right time continues growth while not relying on data can increase expenses without the necessary workload for your new employee.

Looking for a full reporting guide? Check out our overview below as well as some more specific advanced reports!