3 Tips for achieving personalized and data-driven recruiting from Under Armour

4 mins, 49 secs read time

Casey Marshall is Partner Marketing Specialist at Greenhouse. She teams up with Greenhouse partners and customers to tell a story and share insights into ways companies can improve their recruiting practices. She loves that this job allows her to build relationships with thought leaders and showcase how innovative companies are changing their recruiting approach. Connect with Casey on Twitter and LinkedIn.

It’s always a victory when someone who has gone through the recruiting process finally makes the transition into becoming an employee. Ask any fellow recruiter just how much work went into making that strong hire. The answer usually is, a lot.

But, what if that answer changed? What if instead of “a lot” the response to that question was an actual number? Good news—it is possible to measure this type of work. Just ask Leslie Dutton, Senior Manager, Talent Acquisition at MyFitnessPal (now owned by Under Armour).

In our latest Hiring Hacks webinar, Leslie dives into the ins & outs of the data-centric recruiting approach employed by her team. In the end, they found that internally it takes 200 outbound emails to make a single engineering hire. Knowing this type of information has benefited Leslie and has ultimately changed her recruiting approach. When a req is open, Leslie can understand based on past reports how long it will take to fill this role and the amount of work that’s expected of her and her team.

But it’s not just about the data. Leslie has also found that personalization goes a long way in driving a successful recruiting campaign.

Combining efforts surrounding data and personalization enabled Leslie and her team to triple the size of MyFitnessPal in under two years, helping lead to the acquisition by Under Armour.

Leslie and her team achieved greatness, and so can you. So, what do you need to do to change your recruiting approach and achieve the results you’re looking for? Leslie shares 3 strategic tips to help guide you in this process:

Tip #1: Hire against the product roadmap

It’s essential to understand what your company’s goals are and what plans the organization has for the future and, as a recruiter, it’s part of your job to identify where the talent gaps lie within the company. To make your hiring impactful, you must work with leadership to really grasp what the top priorities are. Leslie says that if your company, for instance, has plans for a product launch in September, perhaps you should hire your back-end engineers in July. Recognizing company goals and plans for the future will help with headcount plans and allow you to prioritize reqs. Once you understand where the priorities lie within the company and the individual departments, which you can determine by talking to hiring managers on a weekly basis and attending their team meetings, you can then identify what it will take to fill those roles.

Tip #2: Personalize your messages

The life of a recruiter requires a lot of outreach which can lead you to automating your emails in order to save time and effort. Being repetitive and just going through the motions to try and reach as many prospects as possible, though, isn't the right approach, as prospects will sense the lack of personalization, which will lead to a lowered response rate. Clearly, you need to take a step back and really think about the fact that these are individuals with unique needs and motivators. It's therefore in your best interest to take the time to dig a bit deeper and figure out how you can make the message worth a prospect's time.

It’s understandable then that Leslie encourages all recruiters to personalize email messages. No exception.

So when reaching out to a prospect who has piqued your interest, try to sell them the best way you can early on in the process. In short, impress them! Leslie says that you’re representing your organization and your name is tied to these emails. No recruiter wants to dismiss their credibility, so make sure you’re researching facts about the prospect and explaining why this job opportunity makes sense for them in particular.

Tip #3: Create a data-centric recruiting approach

This is where the fun comes in: building out reports. It’s time to see how much work it takes to make those hires!

So to become that data-centric recruiter you strive to be, track the following points when building out your reports:

• Launch date
• Acceptance date
• Hire date
• Source

And if you really want to get into tracking, then:

• Make a list of all the candidates you reached out to
• Monitor which subject line was used
• Note which email was used
• Keep track of the response rate

Leslie puts all of this information directly into a spreadsheet, enters a formula, and then does a breakdown into inbound, outbound, and referrals. By tracking this information, you can directly correlate which resources are best to make those quality hires and also the expected time frame it will take. Tracking this information will leave you better prepared, so when you have another req open for the same role, you can set expectations ahead of time based on facts and not just on gut feel.

Want to learn more about recruiting metrics and personalization? Click the button below to listen to the full webinar plus an insightful Q&A from your fellow peers in the recruiting industry.