A Guide Mastering Recruiter Workload Management Tools
Table of Contents
Workload Balancing Tools Improve Productivity and Forecast Precision
When two recruiters each work 10 jobs each, they are (more likely than not) have wildly different work to do — despite hiring the same volume. Without a universally accepted measure & balance of workload, TA leaders are leaving a LOT on the table.
Defining Workload Management
Workload can mean a lot of things — especially when talking about a recruiter’s total contribution to the business (See: Recruiting Capacity like a Pro).
What is Workload Management?
Workload management is the distribution of tasks based on data that quantifies the effort required to produce an output, with the goal of achieving a predictable production volume across.
What is Recruiter Workload Management?
Recruiter workload management applies this discipline when assigning requisitions to recruiters, utilizing data points across five series of data. Total recruiting demand/capacity, individual recruiter workload, external job data, variance data, and requisition data.
Problems with Spreadsheet-Based Workload Management
I’ve built many-o-spreadsheet versions of workload balancing tools in spreadsheets from my time at Uber/Bird and in VC. Yes, they get the job done in the moment, but they don’t solve the real pain. Here’s what I mean.
No context or easy access to activity inputs. Each requisition’s changes lack a story or an audit trail. Making a workload decision without having a record of difficult hiring managers, noisy funnels, or process pauses is painful.
Historic tracking is absent. My “algorithms” (aka spreadsheet formulas) were only validated once a quarter — if that. Forecasting future workload based on past balancing decisions is impossible.
No integration of non-requisition data. Funnel metrics cannot be aggregated cleanly in spreadsheets. The scarcity of candidates and hiring manager behaviors are all subjective inputs that occur after the fact.
Spreadsheets cannot execute balancing algorithms. Equal weighting across requisitions requires models beyond manual formulas.
What Happens When Workload Management Works
Recruiting metrics improve. Time to hire decreases, requisitions are filled on schedule, and overall recruiting capacity expands.
Recruiter's NPS improves. When recruiters understand how workload impacts performance reviews, individual development, promotion decisions & recognition, they have clearer goals to achieve their desired outcome, with more precise feedback about how to achieve it.
Candidate & hiring manager experience improves. Balanced workloads mean each recruiter has the time needed to action their candidates. Hiring managers have more predictable outcomes and work with less friction as a result of delivery quality improvements.
Hiring outcomes are predictive. Recruiting outputs can be accurately forecasted.
Process flaws surface earlier. Predictable outcomes generate warning signals when breakdowns appear.
Financial performance stabilizes. Headcount is delivered on time and within budget, creating predictable cost patterns and enabling discretionary spending in other areas of the business.
5 Core Data Series Behind Our Intelligent Workload Management Tool
Recruiting managers should not be engineering algorithms on spreadsheets. That’s our job. Recruiting Leaders should apply this data to create a predictable hiring service that FP&A & Executives can count on to meet their targets.
Total Recruiting Demand vs Capacity
The “Macro” of what is being asked of the recruiting team sets the context for what you can ask of individual recruiters. How many “high priorities” are there? (Hint: If every job is high priority, none of them are.) Is the recruiting team staffed? How many unplanned roles are there? Is the plan front-loaded?
Individual Recruiter Workload
The “Micro” of what is being asked of each recruiter impacts their ability to take on additional workload. Where are roles in their lifecycle? What are the close rates? How diverse is the individual recruiter’s workload? How many managers are they serving, and what are their requirements?
External Jobs Data
Finding Unicorns is hard. How many candidates exist for the role that’s been searched for? How mature is the market? How many times have you tried to hire for this role before? What’s your compensation market position?
Changes & Variance Data
Changes to workload are as crucial as the work itself. Changing the goalposts can mean restarting the process from scratch. The source, timing, and priority of changes are the “noise” that impacts the “signal”.
Requisition Data
Has the job ever been hired before, or will it need calibration? What’s the average level of each role? What’s the priority? All jobs are not created equal.
Headcount365’s algorithm learns from your business, ingesting data points from all stakeholders and systems to constantly improve the workload scoring of each individual recruiter. This is one of many tools included in our recruiting toolkit.