Staffing firms are sales organizations, so the use of advanced metrics to measure productivity in a staffing firm is a management requirement that is helpful in finding out areas where managers can point to increase activity. Unfortunately it is not always useful in actually driving anything but activity.
When I first started recruiting in 1999, I was working for a Teksystems clone in Los Angeles. Wet Behind the Ears college graduates were hired, put in suits, and set down at desks to call on IT folks from our cutting edge Database and the Monsterboard. (On slow days and when the internet connection was down, we went to the filing cabinet and filled the database with paper resumes).
Good Recruiters were rewarded in a few months with a promotion to Account Managers, and your best Account Managers were rewarded as Branch Managers. "Good" was defined by two things; Placements made and activity based on a points system.
At this point, many of the ears of managers should be perking up and former TPR employees should be nodding their heads.
Points were important, because in the absence of placements, they told us where we could improve. The metrics system also tended to support the standard TPR new business development theory
The Third Party Vendor Theory.
First Step: Take Managers to Lunch
Third Step: Profit!
Yes - this particular system was first popularized by the South Park Underpant Gnomes, but it's widely regarded as true because, well, it often works. Sitting down in front of a manager magically creates new job requirements. I'm not sure how, but in my years selling, people who agreed to meet with me, if they didn't have a job ready, did within a week. So to take advantage of this, TPR set up metrics systems.
This was mine.
Account Manager Metrics
# of Outbound Calls
# of Contacts
# of Handwritten letters
#of Meetings
# of Requisitions
# of Submittals
# of Interviews
#of Starts
Recruiter Metrics
# of Outbound Calls:
# of Contacts
# of candidates interviewed in person
# of Submittals
# of Interviews
# of Sales leads from References
# of Starts
Now don't get me wrong. These numbers absolutely work - for most people. Anyone not hitting their numbers was guaranteed to be lacking in their Start numbers in short order. Hitting your numbers was not a guarantee of success, but not hitting the was a sure sign you couldn't hack it.
In later jobs, managers would often tell me that "activity breeds activity." They didn't care as much what we were doing - as long as we were doing it (the later companies were larger, corporate firms that hired experienced people and largely expected you to manage yourself).What is astounding to me is the number of hiring managers who didn't know what the metrics were for staffing firms. It would seem that if you were choosing a vendor to help you find the best people, you should want to know enough about how they do business to determine if they know what they are talking about.
Do you remember that one staffing guy that called your number 15 times when you were on vacation and it showed on your caller ID? That was 15 outbound calls for him. Did you ever why AM's would take you to lunch when you didn't have the authority to hire? Or that recruiter who asked if they could submit you to that job that you had no prayer of winning? Or the company that had three recruiters that asked you to come in and meet them, even though you met the person sitting in the next cubicle the week before?
Those were Metrics Monster pursuing the Underpants Gnome Theory of New Business Development. And the best part of this theory? It still works.
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