In the talent acquisition market, it's all about knowing the right contacts. But more importantly, it's about knowing who else knows those same contacts. There is inherent value in owning your talent acquisition data and candidate information; this is one of the main reasons staffing and recruiting agencies prefer retainers, placement fees, or non-compete agreements before revealing their best candidate information to their clients. It's also why you should consider tools that can capture and create value from your data when asking yourself what recruiting software tools you should invest in.

A candidate's information is the most critical data in recruiting and talent acquisition. Still, sourcing, owning, and controlling your data has less-obvious benefits. Furthermore, the costs to acquire that data are not so obvious—and understanding that is fundamentally important to your overall recruiting strategy, or it can result in unnecessarily high costs.

Our goal is to discuss these two critical topics:

• The intangible value of candidate data
• The impact and tangible costs of acquiring candidate data

The Intangible Value of Candidate Data

Name, phone number, email address, and resume are the standard candidate data employers, and recruiters collect to begin the hiring process. But have you thought about where that data is coming from? How long do you have access to that data? Who else has this data? It is imperative that you know the answers to those questions and are aware of where your data is coming from, and here's why:

Quality data has a good shelf-life

'Ten candidates' is still' ten candidates' even if only one of those candidates becomes a hire for that urgent role. Those other nine candidates have value. They might even be next in line if that new hire doesn't work out, a similar position becomes available, or another individual no longer works for your company. Engaging your candidates with frequent and personalized communication and keeping them in the loop is vital to extending the shelf life of that data.

You can make decisions on your time and your terms

While we fully believe in quick and immediate responses to applicants to provide a great candidate experience, it's also understandable that sometimes you can't decide on a candidate amongst additional applicants within a 72-hour window. When the job boards are the gatekeepers to the candidate data you want access to, they set the terms. When you own your data, you can do things in your timeframe.

You can collect the data you need to make the right decisions

Historically the standard practice for screening individuals is to ask for a resume and then have a human (or computer) extract the information they are looking for to make a decision. More often than not, the information you're looking for is not apparent on that applicant's resume. For example, is the person willing to travel for a sales-focused position? or what is their availability? When you control the candidate experience, you control the data you are sourcing, which removes the added cost and effort required by a recruiter to scan resumes and allows you to respond to candidates faster. That's a win-win.

You can control who has visibility to it

Others want what you have—that's how job boards make money. When you are in control, you can now decide who gets access to what data is within your control. Whether it's internal visibility for a hiring manager or maybe select access for clients or 3^rd parties—you get to set the terms and prices for quality talent.

The Impact and Tangible Costs of Acquiring Candidate Data

Now let's talk about the cost of acquiring that data because it might affect your margins (or your client's prices).

There are currently a few models:

Cost-per-Click (CPC)

As the name suggests, you pay a minimal amount to get a click on your job posting, often resulting in many clicks until you reach your posting budget. The issue with this model is that your job postings are displayed to many potential unqualified candidates, which means you will likely end up with a high volume of applications. You will have to screen through plenty of 'bunk' resumes. If you have a critical time constraint on hiring for this position and need tools to qualify high-volume applicants quickly, there are better options than the cost-per-click model.

Cost-per-Applicant (CPA)

You guessed it! With cost-per-applicant, you pay a certain amount for receiving an application. This is typically more than the cost of a click because the applicant is "qualified." However, the word "qualified" here is very subjective because you will still have to determine whether the applicant is indeed qualified. Not to mention, for some, you only have 72 standard hours to make that determination.

The cost factors are crucial to understanding that the job board sets the cost per applicant. If you depend on consistent volume or a pipeline of candidates to fill positions consistently, you are at the whim and beholden to the price per applicant. A cost-per-click that might have been $2 to $5 is now $20 to $50 per applicant, and you either get a 10x bill or only 1 out of 10 candidates.

Pay per Placement

Sometimes referred to as pay-per-advertisement or sponsored placement, this is a flat fee to have your job inserted in premium positioning relative to other jobs that do not pay for the sponsored placement. While this might be more effective in getting better exposure, it might be short-lived due to the labor demand and others placing orders for sponsored jobs as well which will push your job postings lower into the feed (below the newer ones); sort of like those local flyer boards in town that are constantly getting covered-over in new posters.

How does Leadline help solve for this?

At Leadline, we believe in empowering our customers to own their candidate data. We have built our product to make it easy for you to organically create a relevant database of information to make your talent acquisition efforts successful.

Leadline is a candidate lead generation tool—you source the exact data you want, the way you want it. And while you're sourcing data, you're providing your candidates with a next-level candidate experience that makes you stand out from your competition. You can immediately act on that data using programmatic workflows and integrated email and text messaging to keep your candidates engaged and informed. You can also collaborate with your hiring managers and clients by getting them Leadline user accounts and setting up visibility and permission settings.

With Leadline, all candidate data is yours, not the job boards. If you're interested in learning more about how to start taking control of your data, schedule a demo with a member of our sales team. We got you!