Why I Start Every RecOps Role by Surveying the Recruiters and Sourcers
In Recruiting Operations, we love our dashboards. We track time-to-fill, pass-through rates, and offer acceptance with intensity. But there’s a massive blind spot in most talent orgs: The Recruiter Experience.
Data tells you what is happening, but it rarely tells you how it feels to do the work. If your process looks efficient on a spreadsheet but your recruiters feel like they’re swimming through an obstacle course, you aren't scaling, you’re accumulating hiring debt.
Whenever I join a new team, I don't start with the metrics. I know we are starting at negative one or I wouldn't be there. I assume there is existing friction I can't see yet. To find it, I use a consistent, quarterly recruiter sentiment survey.
Here is why this is the most important tool in my kit.
The Metric That Actually Matters: Time Allocation
Traditional "satisfaction" surveys are too fluffy. I don’t want to know if my recruiters are "happy"; I want to know if the systems I've built are wasting their time.
I use a simple 1 to 4 scale for every part of our process:
- 1: Spending way too much time here (Friction/Inefficiency).
- 2: Spending too much time.
- 3: Just the right amount of time (The Goal).
- 4: Not spending enough time (Potential under-investment).
By aiming for an aggregate score of 3, we identify exactly where the "hiring debt" lives. If role intake scores a 1.5, I don't need a complex audit to know we need better market research or proactive lead times. The team just told me where the fire is.
Building Trust Through the "Feedback Loop"
The fastest way to kill a team's morale is to ask for their opinion and then do nothing with it. Surveys aren't just for data collection; they are for momentum.
In a previous role, we moved our recruiter NPS from 33 to 82 in nine months. We didn't do that by being geniuses; we did it by being visible.
- The "What We Shipped" Slack: Every time a new survey launches, I lead with a recap of what we fixed based on the last one.
- Tiger Teams: When a score is consistently low, we don't fix it in a vacuum. We pull in the recruiters who gave the feedback to help co-design the solution.
Why You Should Listen to the Full Episode
On the latest episode of Offer Accepted, I sat down with Shannon Ogborn to break down the "how" behind this framework. We get into the weeds on:
- Moving from "anecdotal complaints" to "objective data."
- How to use survey results to justify tool investments to leadership.
- Why qualitative feedback is the best way to surface "quick wins" that metrics miss.
"Recruiting Operations is about building systems that empower people. You can't do that if you don't know where the system is breaking their spirit."
Check out the full conversation here on YouTube: