The ultimate guide to hiring dashboards: the executive dashboard

Talking through the recruiting function with executives can be tricky—very few understand the complexity, variables, and challenges involved in trying to make accurate predictions about unpredictable things (or, in this case, people). We can’t control the decisions and actions our candidates take. However, we can control our data—how we gather it, present it, use it to drive better decisions and more accurate forecasts, and improve our hiring processes. 

Creating a dedicated executive hiring dashboard will allow you to share key metrics that will strengthen the partnership between talent acquisition and organizational leadership and will provide a source of truth for making better hiring decisions together. In this second installment of our Ultimate Dashboard series, we’ll walk you through how to tailor your dashboard to capture the attention of your executive leadership, why each metric matters, and how to present your recruiting data in an effective way.  

If you’d like to read the other articles in our Ultimate Guide to Hiring Dashboards series check out the links below:

• The Essential Dashboard

• The Recruiting Health Dashboard

• The Pipeline Composition Dashboard

• The Recruiting Team Productivity Dashboard

The executive hiring dashboard

While the specific metrics you include may vary depending on your organization, at its core, an executive hiring dashboard is a high-level overview of the current state of recruiting and progress towards organizational growth goals. This dashboard will be different from the action-oriented dashboard of a sourcer or recruiter. Think of this as a birds-eye view of the recruiting landscape at your organization—how well your talent acquisition process is working, whether or not you’re on track to meet your hiring goals, what parts of the process are running smoothly, and what parts may need some help. 

Pro tip: Executive dashboards in general,  are broad overviews, but many of the metrics listed below are better served when they are tailored for a specific role or department. Consider customizing your dashboard to make your metrics more impactful.

Key metrics to include in your executive hiring dashboard: 

• All metrics in the essential hiring dashboard 

• Hires by month

• Job openings by department

• Offer acceptance rate by month

• Offer accepts rate by source

• Offer accepts by department

• Hires by demographic

Disclaimer: The metrics and dashboards shown below are all based on Gem’s platform. If you’re not a Gem user (yet!), we still recommend you take a look at these metrics and track them as best you can. 

Here’s what your executive hiring dashboard might look like in Gem: 

Hires by month

Looking at your hires by month allows you to see how hiring is trending at your organization and show how your company is growing over time. This metric is also incredibly valuable for showing leadership how the efforts of your TA team are paying off.

Job openings by department

Breaking down job openings by department enables you to narrow the focus of your dashboard when presenting to different departments. It also allows you to have more open discussions with leadership about whether or not certain teams will have the headcount to meet their strategic goals for the year or where your TA team should be shifting their focus to best support the overall company vision.  

Offer acceptance rate over time

Adding the total number of hires is a great start in creating your perfect executive hiring dashboard, but looking beyond the total number will give you greater insights and allow you to plan for the more nuanced aspects of the final stage of the process that may impact your ability to hit your hiring goals. 

Including offer acceptance rate (OAR) over time in your executive hiring dashboard will give you insight into how competitive your offers are now compared to last quarter, last year, etc. Increases in OAR are a great way to show how the effectiveness of your TA team is improving over time, while declines in OAR may indicate the need to reevaluate your offers to make them more competitive with the current job market or to be more clear about things like compensation packages earlier in the interview process.  

Offer acceptance rate by source 

Just like in sales, it pays to know which channels are most fruitful in bringing in the biggest/best deals. Tracking how many hires are coming from each source (job boards, referrals, inbound applications, sourcing, etc.) will allow you to see which channels are most effective in bringing in talent and where you should shift resources to hit your targets.  

Offer acceptance rate by department

When looking at offer acceptance rates, it’s important to keep in mind that different industries, role types, and even company sizes may have vastly different rates, which is why benchmarking is so important. Within Gem, you can set up benchmarks to measure how your offer-accept rates for specific departments compare to the OARs of companies of similar size or to companies in your geo. You can also benchmark by other data points, such as gender and race/ethnicity. 

In addition, tracking offer acceptance rates for different departments over time will allow you to see changes in the market and labor force that could indicate the need for changes in your hiring process. 

For example, suppose you’ve seen a steady decline in offer acceptance rates over the past two months for Human Resources (HR) roles. This may signal increased demand for HR professionals and could mean you need to make changes to your compensation packages to secure top talent. 

Hires by demographic 

DEI goals most likely already are (or should be) built into your overall talent acquisition strategy from day one. But how can you tell whether your efforts are paying off? Looking at offer acceptance rate by demographics (race, gender, etc.) will give you a good indication of how well your TA org is trending towards your DEI goals or where you may need to improve.  

As a RecOps professional, you know the value of good data—it informs nearly every facet of your job and empowers you to make better decisions for your TA team. Creating easy-to-read hiring dashboards is the key to better understanding your recruiting data and getting buy-in from key stakeholders that are critical to your role. An executive hiring dashboard is the first step in strengthening your partnership with organizational leaders and is the source of truth for implementing positive changes throughout your recruiting org. 

If you’d like to learn more about how to build your own hiring dashboard, get in touch with us today!