Are You Working the Right Job Orders?

volume of job orders

A few weeks ago, we shared some initial findings from Bullhorn’s 2016 Staffing and Recruiting Trends Survey. Overall, the news is good: revenue is up, and 80 percent of respondents have met or exceeded their targets. But the most interesting findings from our study are not about results, they’re about process.

For example, when respondents were asked to rank the most important revenue-driving metric, only 11% picked “total number of job orders” as the most important. We agree. The volume of job orders your team works is less important than the quality of those job orders.

It sounds simple, but according to InsightSquared, a Bullhorn Marketplace Partner, a large pipeline can actually harm recruiting performance if it’s filled with job orders that have low fill probability. This is especially true for firms using a VMS or MSP. These firms’ pipelines tend to get front-loaded with low-value or unfillable job orders, and as a result, their recruiters risk sinking their time into job orders that they’ll never fill.

On the flip side, a small pipeline isn’t a bad thing so long as it’s full of high-value job orders and easily replenished.

What does this mean for staffing and recruiting firms trying to outperform their competitors? You need to really dig into your job order pipeline so that you can help your recruiters find the right job orders to work. Unless your recruiters are unusually diligent and self-aware, they are unlikely to close out the majority of job orders in your firm’s pipeline.

There’s not much value in knowing the size of your pipeline unless you can assess its quality as well. To get any meaningful information from your job order pipeline, you have to consider all the other variables that dictate how much of it is actually going to convert to revenue and how much should be scrapped.

In this new guide, InsightSquared takes a hard look at job orders and outlines three ways to slice your pipeline to help figure out which job orders are worth your time. Plus, these solutions are backed up with findings from the Bullhorn 2016 Trends Survey.

How does your firm stack up? What changes are affecting your business in 2016? What staffing solutions can help improve business in 2016? Stay tuned for more on Bullhorn’s 2016 Trends Survey results, or contact us to learn more.

Subscribe to the Staffing Blog

Subscribe for trends, tips, and insights delivered straight to your inbox.