Let Data Talk: How to build a recruiting business review
- Franziska Klappoth
- Nov 25, 2024
- 5 min read
As Interim Talent Acquisition Lead, I’ve seen the value of creating a structured, data-driven recruiting business review in order to elevate the company-wide hiring. It gives insights into the day-to-day of recruiting, but also helps to educate and to inform your stakeholders about current market trends or challenges. Recruiting business reviews not only provide transparency for recruiting performance but help you and your stakeholders understanding the impact and alignment of talent acquisition strategy to the broader business goals.
Whether you already use OKRs (see OKRs in HR) or prefer KPIs, a regular business review will help you and your stakeholders understand where you stand and track against your key results. It is much more than a quick hiring recap - it is a powerful reflective tool that highlights successes, addresses challenges and identifies where the talent acquisition function can be fine-tuned to increase hiring efficiency, reduce turnover and ultimately support business success. But to do this, you need to have clear processes and data assessment tools (even if it's just Excel) in place to collect real data (see also Why having a TA process matters).
In this way, the business review builds stronger ties between the people team and the business by ensuring alignment. Here’s a guide to building a compelling, data-supported recruiting business review.
5 key benefits of a recruiting business review
Regular recruiting business reviews enable recruitment teams to adjust and stay relevant in a dynamic business environment. These reviews go beyond surface-level updates. Usually, I recommend a recruiting business review once a quarter - and it doesn’t matter on which level: the single talent acquisition specialist can present to their hiring managers and business unit leaders as well as the head of recruitment to the leadership team or board.
The following benefits will apply to all stakeholder groups:
Strengthening stakeholder relationships and transparency
Business reviews provide a structured platform to foster collaboration and transparency between the recruitment team and business leaders. The talent acquisition team has the opportunity to showcase some of their daily work and efforts. Often recruitment work is done behind closed doors, but providing transparent insight into outreach statistics, pipeline funnels or market insights pulls back the curtain. It shows the effort, but also that recruitment is pulling in the same direction as the rest of the business.
However, it is important that both sides understand this format as an opportunity to have deeper conversations than 'filling the pipeline with candidates'. It is also not the place for finger-pointing. Instead, it should be seen as an opportunity to analyse bottlenecks and challenges and find solutions to overcome them, ensuring that recruitment is aligned with the needs of the business.
Tracking and refining your goals: KPIs or OKRs
Are hiring timelines being met? Is the talent pool expanding as anticipated? These checkpoints enable the team to identify gaps and take corrective actions early, preventing small issues from becoming larger challenges. For example, if certain roles are persistently hard to fill, it may signal that requirements are unrealistic or that there is a bottleneck in the process. It may need adaption of the recruitment strategy, e.g. profiles targeted, in order to improve efficiency or sourcing channels need to be broadened.
Evaluating the impact of recruitment on retention and turnover
Business reviews allow leaders and Talent Acquisition Partners to analyse the quality and sustainability of hires, which directly impacts employee turnover and retention. Regular assessment of recruitment metrics—like first-year turnover rates and employee engagement scores—reveals whether the team is successfully hiring for long-term fit or if improvements are needed. By reducing turnover through smarter hiring and alignment with company values, the recruiting function can lower hiring costs and contribute to overall employee satisfaction.
Providing insights into recruiting challenges and opportunities
These reviews offer insight into the daily obstacles recruitment teams face, such as shortages in niche skills or lengthy interview processes. By discussing these challenges openly, recruitment leaders and other stakeholders can brainstorm actionable solutions, like adjusting screening processes or increasing recruitment resources. Reviews also reveal opportunities for growth, such as expanding data-driven hiring strategies that have proven effective or refining the talent acquisition framework to better meet the company’s needs.
Celebrating success
Recognising success is essential to motivate your team and validate the hard work behind successful hires. A business review provides the platform to celebrate these successes with your stakeholders, reinforcing the value of your talent acquisition team and highlighting the impact on business objectives.
In short, a well-conducted recruiting business review goes beyond tracking metrics; it provides a holistic view of the recruitment function's impact on the company and sets the stage for smarter hiring decisions, reduced turnover, and enhanced organisational alignment.
Preparing your review: 4 points to consider
When preparing your business review, remember to focus on the audience. Whether presenting to C-level executives, HR leaders, or hiring managers, tailoring your approach is key to building buy-in and fostering mutual understanding.
Collect your data: Make sure you and your team are maintaining your data collection tools. Either if it’s Excel or if you are using an ATS: It is crucial that there is a shared understanding of what and how to track it. Even more important that everyone is doing it. Here is a starting point on what data to collect and leverage.
Visualise your data and put it into context: Try to avoid presenting raw data. You are an expert and know what it means - your audience does not. Visualise it so that the points you want to make are clear. Also try to put the data into context: either with data from the previous quarter to show trends, or with industry data for benchmarking.
Know your message: Most importantly, think about your message and what you want to say! Do you want to highlight a challenge or a success? If it's a challenge, think about solutions beforehand to get buy-in from your stakeholders.
Speak their language and use storytelling: Different stakeholders value different metrics. For example, executives may prioritise high-level metrics that reflect on hiring costs, time-to-hire, and turnover reduction. Meanwhile, hiring managers might focus more on specific roles they are hiring for, candidate quality and time spent in interviews. Connect with your audience through real stories that highlight the business impact of your recruiting efforts. Show how recruiting challenges have been navigated, and celebrate achievements, painting a clear picture of the recruitment journey and its contributions.
Making the Business Review a Routine
Incorporating regular recruiting business reviews is a best practice for emerging companies and established businesses alike. For smaller companies or startups, these reviews clarify how a talent acquisition team can support growth, while larger firms benefit from targeted employee turnover reduction strategies.
Whether you’re working with a corporate HR team, a startup, or as a freelance recruiter, positioning business reviews as a standard part of your talent acquisition process will strengthen alignment and streamline hiring. This approach not only builds trust with stakeholders but also reinforces a commitment to continuous improvement. By implementing this review as a regular practice, you’ll show that your talent acquisition strategy is adaptable, efficient, and always aligned with the company’s evolving needs.
Free recruiting business review template
Need help optimising your talent acquisition strategy? Reach out to me today for personalised talent acquisition process improvement services tailored to your business needs. Let's build a hiring process that not only works but works for you
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