Talent Acquisition Metrics That Matter in 2025: Insights with Tony Panaiia

Ready to boost your recruitment strategy? Join us for the latest episode of Advancing Talent Acquisition, where we dive deep into the evolving world of talent metrics with expert insights on how data-driven decisions are reshaping hiring practices. Learn how embracing data and analytics can enhance your team’s ability to find and engage top talent in today’s market.

Summary

In this episode of Advancing Talent Acquisition, Tony Panaiia, Director of Recruitment at a regional hospitality group, shares his insights on talent acquisition metrics that matter in 2025. He discusses key metrics like days to fill, candidate flow, conversion rates, and the importance of understanding turnover. Tony emphasizes the importance of not solely relying on one metric, highlighting the need to use a combination of data points to uncover root causes in the hiring process. Tony also touches on the impact of TA metrics on candidate experience and the role of marketing in shaping talent brand.

Episode 4

Jenna Hinrichsen 
Welcome to the Advanced RPO Podcast, Advancing Talent Acquisition. Our guest today is Tony Panaiia. Welcome, Tony. Will you tell us a little bit about your background? 

Anthony Panaiia  
Sure. Thanks for having me here today. It’s exciting to be on the podcast. Again, my name is Tony Panaiia. I’m the Director of Recruitment for a large hospitality, regional hospitality company based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, servicing the East Coast and across 14 states. I’ve been here for 19 years, all in talent acquisition, starting to support one of our restaurant brands and then moving over in subsequent years to manage not only our restaurant brands, but also our contract dining brand, which does contract dining services for higher education and corporate facilities. And now managing all TA for the organization. I also do a little bit more corporate office recruitment as well as executive recruitment. And again, excited to be here. 

Jenna Hinrichsen  
Nice. Thank you. Well, I’m excited to talk through our topic today. Our topic today is talent acquisition metrics that matter in 2025. This is an interesting one because I think as technology continues to evolve, metrics evolve as well. And I think people have and companies have different opinions on what metrics really matter when it comes to recruiting. So, the first question I just wanted to ask you is what do you think are the most common TA metrics that leaders use today? Just kind of a baseline of the basics. 

Anthony Panaiia  
Sure, there are so many. And I love that you said there’s, you know, different ways to look at it, because a lot of people use what’s in their ATS as kind of their base metrics. And while we’ve taken that approach, there’s a lot of other things that we look at outside of our ATS. But the real basic ones that come to mind, probably for anyone in recruiting is days to fill, right? And how you define days to how you define that for your recruiter, how you define that for your hiring manager. You know, is that open role to butt-in-seat or, you know, is that open to acceptance? If that person doesn’t start, do you restart? Days to Fill for us is important. Probably secondly is candidate flow. We really look at candidate flow from a lot of different perspectives, not just the amount, but also where we’re getting it from. 
Why are we releasing the amount that we’re releasing? Why are we hiring the folks that we’re hiring? So, candidate flow through our ATS and the different statuses in our ATS are very important. When we talk about kind of working with third parties, we look at a lot of the cost of candidate clicks and the overall cost of bringing someone on board, whether that be hourly or salary. We look at the conversion rates from applied to hired, which is really important to us. It helps us understand if we’re attracting the right target fishing when the fish are biting, which we like to say. Days and onboarding is really important for us too. Not so much a TA metric. Kind of we hand that over to the HR department or we hand that over to the hiring manager. We want to know how long they’re in onboarding and typically that’s either offered a start or if you have an onboarding trigger onboarding to start date. Time to view is important for us when we look TA members or recruiters.  
Time to view that candidate, how quickly they’re being viewed, if they’re being wasted. And then a little bit further down the line, we do use a lot of turnover numbers in our industry, specifically being in hospitality. So probably not a direct TA metric, but definitely one that we partner with our HRBPs on. I think that if you have a real crystal ball into turnover, you’re probably looking at 90 day turnover, maybe 30 day turnover, how quick they’re turning over. 
Is that a TA issue if it’s a quick turnover? Are they turning over 120 days, know, six months, whatever it may be. Is that then a hiring manager or site issue? So, we do use a lot of turnovers. 

Jenna Hinrichsen 
Right, and it gets tricky. It gets tricky there. 
Is it where does it sit once the person’s already been hired? I think it’s also interesting when you are looking at the initial metrics, the time to fill. You said kind of where you start, where’s that starting point? Because every organization has a different starting point. So you can’t really compare it apples to apples. I think also the hiring managers schedule a lot of times it’s going to be different within an organization when you’re working with different hiring managers, their availability, how quickly they move candidates through the process is going to have an overall impact on you and your team’s ability to fill the job. How do you guys factor that? 

Anthony Panaiia 
Yeah, those are all great points because you’re right, depending on even the level of the role. You know, if you’re looking at a professional job at our corporate office, those folks typically have to interview either over a lunch period if they’re currently employed or after they’re working. So there’s a lot of bits and pieces that go into days to fill. Even on the front end, when a hiring manager starts to think about a job, does that days to fill start when the previous person terminates or the job is approved? If it’s an ad to staff or does it start when it’s posted? For us, we do a very clean intake call with the hiring managers and we start it on the day that it’s posted. If it’s a new job that’s not in our ATS and it needs to be built, we understand that that takes 24 hours with our vendor. So, we’ll start that at posting. We can really date stamp the posting date. And then we roll two, really two metrics. We roll two acceptance day, which is the work of one of our TA recruiters. And then we also roll an additional one that goes to the butt in the seat when they start and then we keep those two separate percentages to see if we’re losing anybody in the two weeks that it takes to start or three weeks in between exactly. 

Jenna Hinrichsen  
Yeah, that’s really smart. What do you think are some of the downsides of relying on metrics, solely looking at metrics to determine a recruiter’s success? Obviously, there are things that we have to look at to see if someone’s doing their jobs within their external factors, if you will. So, what are some of the downsides? 

Anthony Panaiia  
I really like thinking about how to use data more and more every day. One of the huge downsides to this data is looking at a singular data point. If you pull out one data point and you say, my gosh, this TA recruiter is taking four days to look at a candidate and their dates to fill are at 70 and we want it to be at 40. Okay, well, one, are you defining days to fill correctly for that recruiter? Two, as you kind of mentioned, is the hiring manager dragging feet? Is there something in the process that’s slowing it down? You could be blaming this all on the recruiter, and it really could be a function of the entire process. I think there’s a lot of bits and pieces that go into, you know, even the candidate flow numbers. are we looking at the right talent profile for the role? we’re attracting the wrong people, are we wasting the recruiter’s time?  
Did in the intake call, which I really firmly believe is so important in the intake calls, the hiring manager authentic, or did they say like, Hey, this is what we want in front of my HR partners. But then as they start to get candidates, say, this is, this is actually what it is. And this is really what I want. So do you need time to realign and really get to, to what that talent profile is? and then I think when, when companies just say there’s a hard data is 60 days to fill a job, every job will be filled in 60 days or we’ll have to get re-approved. 
I’ve worked in organizations before where they say, know, if it goes 90 days, you don’t need that job. It needs to get re-approved. That’s so dangerous because when you get close to that, that metric of 65, 70, 75 days, you potentially could have a recruiter or hiring manager just throwing wet noodles at a wall to see what’ll stick. And then if you’re not looking at that turnover as the secondary data point down the road, you’re probably just blowing through candidates every five or six months. So I think a real downside is just really taking one data point and looking at it. And that could be from a TA perspective at a hiring manager as well. If I look at one site who’s having trouble staffing, I’m not going to pull out one data point and say, well, you’re wasting all of your candidates because I can hear them coming back to me to say, the candidates are applying to a job I already have filled and it’s just a frequently available and I can’t use them or they can’t work the schedules that I need. we’re really, really big into kind of supportively using as many data points as possible to get to quite frankly, the root cause. 

Jenna Hinrichsen  
The timeframe too of the data that you’re talking about, because a lot of times hiring managers of recruiting talent will look at what are recruiters doing on a weekly basis. And I don’t think that’s a fair amount of time to give a recruiter to really show trends. Recruiting is cyclical. And so they could have a number of requisitions that they’ve got candidates in final stages and they close up some offers. And then the next couple of weeks is sort of their rebuilding phase. And so when I hear hiring managers or companies say they’re looking at, you know, recruiter’s activity on a weekly basis. I cringe sometimes because I think, I mean, minimum month, like look at a month worth of data, but I think really a quarter gives you a good picture of sort of what’s happening. And so yeah, I think that makes a big difference in how you’re looking at the data too. 

Anthony Panaiia  
Sure and even recruiter effectiveness across how many open positions they may have. If it’s a busy season and you know they’ve got 30, 40 open jobs, depending on industry they could be totally swamped. So I agree. 

Jenna Hinrichsen  
Yeah, exactly.
What would you say is the most underutilized metric in TA today? 

Anthony Panaiia  
I think one of the data points that has really popped up for us is, and I’ve mentioned it’s candidate conversion rate. For us, we were very focused on my time in the hospitality industry, candidate flow, candidate flow, candidate flow. Just send me more candidates, send me more candidates. And I think we get caught into that because our roles are, they’re very defined, they’re very easy. The public understands what a restaurant does. So instead of us looking at exactly why we are or are not converting candidates, we’re just looking at more flow. So I think a really underutilized metric is for TA professionals is to look at what that conversion rate is. If you’re hiring professionals, you’re hiring an accountant, a finance person, even an HR person, that’s going to be relatively easy to do. Those folks are going to be easily screened out, easily a good fit. But if you’re looking for a more retail position, hospitality position, call center position, you’re going to get candidates that are probably a little out of your talent profile that are probably still qualified for the role. So we’ll spend a lot of time with our hiring manager saying, what is the specific reason that you’re releasing X percent of your candidates at your site? Is it that we’ve got jobs posted that you don’t need? is it the time of year? Is it March and all of your people are kids coming out of school applying for summer jobs? Or is it fall when you’re not seeing any of those kids applying, so all going back to school? So we really like to kind of dig in and look at conversion rates, so much so that we put out a scorecard monthly for our operators that include conversion rate for their location. a careful scorecard that isn’t weighted monetarily, but it is a key metric that they look at, because we wouldn’t want to manipulate that right as a GM of a location I could just hire a bunch of people and make my conversion rate perfect But we do want them to take a look at it see what it’s all about 

Jenna Hinrichsen  
I think it is a really, really good one to call out because I think a lot of times when you’re looking at different candidate pools and different positions, there’s candidates that are going to be more active versus more passive. And so, if you if your team isn’t moving candidates through the talent pool or through the process at the right pace for that particular job or that opening, you’re going to lose candidates. Right. and you most companies are paying. You’re not getting these candidates for free. So it’s like to your point earlier is is the funnel full? Just keep filling the funnel. Just keep adding more. We’ve paid and worked to get this number of candidates into the pipeline now, what are we doing to optimize that talent pool that we’ve built? So I really like that one. That’s something that we focus on too. And I agree 100%. It’s something that a lot of companies overlook today. 

Anthony Panaiia  
Absolutely. I love your comment there of optimizing that process because as a TA professional, when my hiring manager says, I don’t need those candidates right now. I don’t need them. And then in three weeks, they say, boy, I really wish I had those candidates from three weeks ago. 

Jenna Hinrichsen  
Yeah, like you can just pull them out of a closet and be like, here you go, 

Anthony Panaiia  
They’re working for a competitor now, but thanks. 

Jenna Hinrichsen  
Yeah, exactly. We missed our window of opportunity there.  
How would you say TA metrics impact candidate experience or what TA metrics do you think impact candidate experience? 

Anthony Panaiia  
Yeah, so that’s a great question. Candidate experience, I think, is super important across your brand, especially if you have a strong regional brand like we do. People typically visit our locations and have a vibe of what it would be like to work at our location. So when we look at the type of metrics that would affect that candidate experience, we look at turnover and lengths of turnover time. 
What is our talent brand actually articulating out to the market? Is it in line with our sales brand? Does it need to be different than our sales brand? And when you really start to drill down and you look at the TA team, how many screens is a recruiter doing to get a hire or even what we look at, how many screens are we doing to get a hiring manager interview? Was that hiring manager accepting of that candidate? Yes or no, because they could say, no, I don’t want to interview this candidate. They’re not the right fit. 
Then if they did interview them, did they offer, yes or no? And then if they didn’t, why? If they did, that’s great. Did they accept the offer? So a lot of bits and pieces around the candidate experience specific to TA, around the amount of people that you’re screening, the amount of people that are getting through the process. Not so much with regards to speed for the process for us, but just the candidates that are getting through. Because if your hiring manager isn’t getting the candidates that they want to interview, their feedback and their perspective is going to be, I don’t have any interviews, the TA is not doing anything for me. So making sure that our screens are tight, that our guidance is tight around selection. I think all of those are important around candidate experience. 

Jenna Hinrichsen  
Yeah, I like that. think a lot of times too, companies have started to invest more in candidate experience. But I don’t think from my perspective, companies have been great about showing that to the market, showing that to talent pools and to candidates. Because I think the perception from candidates a lot of times is that if you don’t hear back, you aren’t qualified, they’re just wasting your time. Thanks for ghosting me or whatever it may be. But I think companies are starting to and investing more into that experience and hopefully we’ll start to articulate that to the market so that candidates know, hey, this is an important piece of the process. Of course, you can’t touch every single candidate with every piece of information that they want to see, but I also think the perception that nothing is being done with candidates that are not a fit isn’t necessarily the case. So hopefully over time, that will be more visible to job seekers in the market. 

Anthony Panaiia 
I would agree and I think it’s really important as a TA professional here at a hospitality company, get your marketing team involved. that talent brand is the amount of data that the marketing team has from our Salesforce data. You know, if you look at who’s eating in a restaurant, are those typically the people that want to work here? And if they are, what’s the cyclical nature of who wants to work at a restaurant, right?  It is the teens in the summer. is college kids in the fall and making sure that you’re marketing to those groups through a talent brand that makes sense. Nobody wants to see an ad in the summer that isn’t focused around a fun time or the bright menu items in the summer. to advertise stew in June. We probably have beat it to death when we say fish when the fish are biting, but it just makes sense in so many situations. We use it a lot. 

Jenna Hinrichsen  
Yep, it really does.
All right. One last question for you. I like to end every podcast with this question just to be able to share career our audience. What is your top career tip? This doesn’t have to be related to this podcast, but if we could give one piece of advice to people, what would it be in your career? What’s something that’s been very valuable to you? 

Anthony Panaiia  
I would say the most valuable tip that I got from the first VP I ever worked for, jeez, back in the late 90s when social media wasn’t a thing. He asked me in my first week, how are you maintaining your network? And I thought, wow, that’s really interesting. What What you talking about? And as I grew older, I realized in this career and in any career, if you are not maintaining your network via multiple channels on LinkedIn, in social media, then you are missing out on enormous opportunities. I can give you a thousand different experiences I’ve had at this organization where we’ve hired people that I’ve had in my five degrees of network, either someone I knew directly or someone knows someone directly. And I’m not saying it’s a hospitality or any industry is a situation where you’ve got to know somebody to get the job. But boy, if you know a bunch of people in a network, that’s really going to help. Because someone’s going to say, hey, Tony’s looking for a new job. Or hey, Tony has a question about a specific technology. Or hey, this is what this company is doing. Are you guys seeing that too? And it’s so helpful to have a network for peer-to-peer questioning, peer answers about references around technology. And then if you find yourself in an unfortunate situation where you’re not working anymore, the network is fantastic to lean back on to say, hey, I’m looking for another opportunity. What do you know that’s out there? Or even advertising opportunities that we have here at our organization. I use my network for that as well. I would say if it’s one thing that everyone should start doing today, just build your network. Build it. 

Jenna Hinrichsen  
I love that, and that’s not something I’ve heard from a lot of people. think if you’re not taking advantage of that and maintaining that, and then just relying on it when you need something, your network obviously is not going to be as strong as you need it to be. looking at it from the perspective of what you’re saying, you’re going to get out of it what you put into it. So if you want that to be valuable in multiple capacities, you’ve really got to invest in that to keep that going. So I love that. Thank you for sharing that tip. 
Well, this was great. I appreciate this. This was a great topic. And so thank you for joining us today, Tony. And then for our audience, if you would subscribe to this podcast and then if there’s a topic that we have not covered that you’re interested in hearing about, please mention it in the comments and we’ll do a session on that. And that wraps us up for today. So thank you again and we’ll see you next time. Bye. 

Anthony Panaiia  
Thanks for having me. 

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