8 recruitment Metrics

Source of hire

To understand the returns out of the investments being made by the organization on various
recruitment channels, it is important to trace back the source of successful hires. A few examples
could be the company’s hiring page, social media, different job listing portals, consulting
agencies, etc.

Applicants per position

The number of applicants per position helps us understand whether the job posting is visible
enough to the right audience. It helps gauge the job description’s relevance and popularity. At
the same time helps us understand if the job description is too broad, which is also indicated by
an extremely high number of applications.

Time to fill

The time between raising a job requisition to finding and hiring a new candidate is the time to fill
or TTF. It’s a very effective indicator of the implications of unplanned exits, as well as helps in
estimating the optimum time in hiring. Additionally, a shorter time to fill a position is expected to
have a positive effect on the rest of the team as well, because it means less overtime and
instability for the team as a whole.

Time to hire

Number of days between approaching a candidate and getting them to accept the job at your
organization is essentially the time to hire. Broadly, it is a subset of the time to fill. Often known
as the ‘time to accept’, it is a metric to understand the efficiency of the hiring team.

Cost per hire

This one means exactly what it says on the tin. It is the total internal and external costs of hiring
divided by the total number of people hired successfully. Some external costs can be the cost of
advertising, agency fees, candidate expenses like travel and accommodation. On the other hand,
the biggest internal cost that organizations have to bear is the loss of efficiency, along with
others like time spent in onboarding and training of the new employee by existing employees
etc.

Offer acceptance rate

Making an offer to the selected candidate is definitely not the end of the road of your successful
recruitment journey. There is a strong probability of drop-offs even after issuing the offer letter!
A low acceptance rate can stem from multiple issues like mismatch in compensation expectation
or disengagement or even a delay in issue of the offer letter itself.

First-year attrition

Once the new employee is onboard, their productivity follows a graph of increase with time. It
takes some time for them to reach their maximum potential. Therefore, the first-year attrition is a
key recruiting metric to analyze hiring success. Candidates who leave within the first year of work
are ones that fail to become fully productive and usually cost a lot of money and effort to the
organization.

Recruitment funnel effectiveness

Beginning at sourcing and ending at signing off employment contract, the recruitment funnel
essentially sums up most of the recruitment process in a nutshell. An important metric to
understand the effectiveness of the recruitment funnel is the yield ratio per step. This is one of
the most precise methods of measuring the ROI of the recruitment process. Yield ratio is the ratio
of candidates who move to the next stage of hiring from the previous one.