Data for Recruitment II: A Guide to Identifying Ideal Markets for Recruitment

What makes a market ideal for recruitment? 

 

Whether or not a market is a good fit for finding talent can be determined by many different factors: 

• Availability (supply) of talent
• Cost of talent
• Competitiveness of the market
• Cost of living
• Diversity of talent
• Resident workers

Emsi Burning Glass data covers all of these different factors (and many more). But which data points are a priority will ultimately be different for every company and every role. 

Although each of these metrics provides powerful insights on its own, it’s often a combination of these data points that will help you identify the best markets for recruitment. 

 

How to find this ideal market? 

 

There are two reports that you can use to identify an ideal market for recruitment: 

1. Geography Explorer

Best for…

1. 1. A big picture view of top markets. This report shows you the top 50 MSAs for your search and includes data on the supply of talent, demand for talent, and cost of talent.
   2. Finding a market for a skilled/niche role. This report allows you to use skills and keywords to generate relevant profile data along with the government supply counts.
2. Map Occupations**

Best for…

1. 1. An extremely customized view of top markets. This report has many different occupation-focused data points that you can use to find the optimal market based on your specific criteria and priorities.
   2. Detailed analysis of a region. This report is based solely on government data (requires a SOC code) so it can go down to Zip Code level detail.
   3. Finding top markets for diverse candidates.

**Exclusive to the Talent Analyst/Staffing products 

 

Crafting your search: 

 

When building out a search, it’s common to factor in supply data (the availability of talent), compensation data (the cost of talent), demand data, and any other helpful market details that can affect recruitment (like demographics or cost of living). However, it’s important to establish what will be important to your hiring manager/employer and prioritize this in your search. 

Once you’ve identified top markets based on your priorities, you can layer this against the other data points that contribute to recruitment. This information will help you present a more accurate and holistic picture of optimal markets to your hiring manager, readjust or optimize as necessary, and enter those markets set up for success.

A few examples of different employer priorities: 

1. 1. If you are looking to find talent within a certain salary budget, you would prioritize compensation data to find markets that have affordable talent.
      • By comparing compensation data with supply data, you may find that you need to adjust your role requirements or widen your search to include other related roles in order to find enough candidates in that wage range.
   2. If you are trying to fill a very niche role, you would prioritize supply data to find markets that have the specific candidates you’re looking for.
      • By comparing supply data with compensation data, you may discover that you need to pay a higher wage in order to attract this specific talent.
   3. If you are looking for diverse talent, you would prioritize demographics data to identify a market with a high concentration of diverse talent. 
      • Comparing demographics data with demand data, you may discover that demand is high and you’ll be competing against other top employers for this same talent.

Download the PDF version of this training: Data for Recruitment II