Technology solutions in the world of recruiting are seductive.

But your hopes of efficiently engaging thousands of people through email, social networks, or other online venues are often dashed.

Why? There is a huge chasm between someone seeing your employment brand and proactively contacting your company to talk about becoming an agent.

In one study conducted by a large recruitment vendor (discussed in a webinar, so I don’t have the reference), the typical conversion rates were revealed among the best insurance, services, and transportation companies in the country.

Out of every 1000 impressions, 8-10 prospects visited a career site or a landing page.

Of those who visited a landing page, 0.5 prospects applied (i.e., 1 applied out of 2000 impressions).

These conversion rates did not fluctuate much across companies or industries.

You can move the performance needle a little bit through good content, a compelling offer, and great execution–but not much.

Here are two takeaways from this data:

Financial metrics are important. Boil down every campaign or recruitment marketing initiative to a cost per engaged applicant.

This is the metric that matters. It is also important to track advertising cost per hire.

An engaged applicant is valuable. When someone figuratively raises his/her hand and says, “I want to talk to you about working at your company,” drop what you’re doing, and quickly connect with this individual.

This is where the return is realized.