Today’s recruiting practices are more complex than ever. Successful modern recruiting strategies require talent acquisition professionals to take a metric-driven approach. But with the many stages of the recruiting funnel, identifying which metrics to measure can be challenging.
You are accountable for everything from candidate sourcing and hiring manager satisfaction to offer acceptance rates and quality of hire.
Luckily, we’ve gone ahead and created a complete list of the recruiting metrics you need to track in order to improve your talent acquisition processes, as well as to report on performance to your C-level staff and managers.
The Most Important Recruiting Metrics to Power Your Hiring Strategies
Below, you’ll find a list of the recruiting metrics we recommend using to power your hiring strategies.
1. Time-to-fill
What is time-to-fill? Time-to-fill is the number of days between when a job requisition is approved and when the offer is accepted by the candidate.
Why measure time-to-fill? Time-to-fill measures the efficiency of your recruiting process. If your average time-to-fill is 65 days, then you can benchmark from there and begin improving your acquisition process. Averages vary of course based on industry, location, company size, department you’re hiring for and more. However, by creating your own benchmark, you can then measure the results of any optimizations you put in place.
Time-to-fill is one of the easiest metrics to improve because many recruiting software tools address issues that impact time-to-fill. For example, during the HR screening process, you may find that you spend 6-7 days conducting the reference check process. But using a reference check service like Harver Reference automates this process and reduces days from your time-to-fill metric.
2. Time-to-hire
What is time-to-hire? Time-to-hire is a metric that measures the length of the recruiting cycle from the moment you engage with a candidate to the moment they accept your offer.
Why measure time-to-hire? Time-to-hire is different from time-to-fill because it measures the speed of which a good candidate moves through your recruiting process, as opposed to the entirety of the job requisition from beginning to end. Time-to-hire informs you on how quickly your talent acquisition team is able to identify good candidates and move them through the entire recruiting funnel. It can also serve as one indicator of candidate experience — such as how long a candidate waits to hear back from your team.
3. Source-of-Hire
What is source-of-hire? Source-of-hire measures the various channels where your candidates are coming from.
Why measure source-of-hire? Source-of-hire is important because it shows you which recruiting channels drive the best candidates that are most likely to lead to hires. Knowing this information can help you with recruiting budget planning/allocation, as well as where to focus recruiting efforts. Source-of-hire will allow you to understand the pipelines of past hires, assist you in predicting the patterns of future hires, and act as a scaffold from which you can develop new talent-acquisition strategies.
4. First Year Attrition
What is first year attrition? First year attrition measures how many candidates leave within their first year of work.
Why measure first year attrition? First year attrition is an important metric to measure because it can uncover a number of issues with your recruiting and onboarding process, such as whether new hires match the company culture, the quality of your onboarding and training, and overall fulfillment at work. A high first year attrition rate indicates you need to look further into your hiring processes, sources, set expectations and onboarding for issues that may be causing the turnover. Use your attrition rate as a benchmark, focus on improving hiring processes and measure whether this rate goes down over time.
You can impact first year attrition by uncovering issues early in the new hire’s first year using an automated feedback survey tool. You can decide when and how often to check in on a candidate and find out quickly and easily whether they are unhappy or simply not thriving.
5. Quality-of-hire
What is quality-of-hire? Quality-of-hire measures the overall performance of new hires. A higher quality-of-hire is a key indicator of hiring success.
Why measure quality-of-hire? Quality-of-hire is one of the most important but difficult metrics to measures. Quality-of-hire is a key indicator of whether the recruiting team is delivering high-performing talent. As a recruiter, the efficacy of quality-of-hire is incumbent on your ability to communicate with managers and follow up on the performance of past candidates.
Although 60% of companies identify quality hires as their top challenge this year, only 26% have a framework for measuring it. Learn more about why quality of hire is HR’s most important metric, plus how to improve it.
6. Hiring Manager Satisfaction
What is hiring manager satisfaction? Hiring manager satisfaction measures the overall happiness and approval level that hiring managers express or communicate regarding recent hires.
Why measure hiring manager satisfaction? Positive hiring manager satisfaction is a good indication that your quality of hires and candidate placement metrics are working. While hard to acquire concrete data for this metric, surveys, direct inquiries to managers, and reviewing first-year attrition numbers are all viable ways to track manager satisfaction.
Happy managers leads to happy candidates, which in turn leads to perennial requests and positive brand recognition for your firm or department. Conversely, unhappy hiring managers means a poor fit, whether it be culture or productivity related. Usually a bad fit leads to turnover, which can negatively impact the company’s bottom line.
If you uncover issues, it’s critical to address them quickly. If the role still ends in unwanted attrition, you can use the data to uncover what may have been the root cause, and how to avoid a similar hiring situation in the future.
7. Candidate Job Satisfaction
What is candidate job satisfaction? Candidate job satisfaction is the other side of the coin of hiring manager satisfaction. It measures a newly placed hire’s happiness and fulfillment in their current role during 30, 60, and 90 day periods.
Why measure candidate job satisfaction? High or low scores are indicative of how well a recruiter presented the job opportunity, and if the reality of the job matches the expectations. Candidate job satisfaction is key to acquiring new talent. The more positive experiences you can relay to your candidates, the more likely they’ll recommend your services and build your brand.
Automated solutions make it easy to check in on your new hire and get their feedback as often as you like. Try checking in on Day 1 (really!), and again 30, 60, 90 days and even six months and a year after their start date. Not only can you validate your hiring decision but you can also use that data to measure candidate job satisfaction.
8. Applicants per job opening
What is applicants per job opening? Applicants per job opening measures the popularity of your open role.
Why measure applicants per job opening? A low volume of applicants per job opening can be indicative of poor job description writing and marketing. There are some key questions you need to be asking if you’re repeatedly receiving lower applicants per opening. Do the qualification requirements match the skills and experience of most candidates in that field? Is the job offer not attractive enough relative to other offers of the same position? Understanding the source of the deficiency will allow you to create a strategy on how to increase your volume of applicants.
9. Selection ratio
What is selection ratio? Selection ratio measures the number of hired candidates vs total candidates.
Why measure selection ratio? Selection ratio showcases how competitive your open jobs are, and if you consistently have a higher volume of applicants to hires, then you may want to experiment with automation technology such as candidate assessment tools to better manage the volume of applicants.
10. Cost-per-hire
What is cost-per-hire? Cost-per-hire is one of the most common recruiting metrics and measures the total cost invested in recruiting divided by the total number of hires.
Why measure cost-per-hire? Cost-per-hire is important because it shows you how much you spend on single hires, multiple hires, and your total and average costs for all hires. Delineating efficient hiring patterns vs costly ones will help you realistically build future budgets and set cost-effective strategies.
11. Candidate experience
What is candidate experience? Candidate experience or candidate NPS (net promoter score) is important in measuring the overall recruiting experience from the candidate’s perspective.
Why measure candidate experience? Candidate experience is an important metric because it speaks to the overall job seeker experience. A low score means your recruiting team may have a number of areas to work on, including communication, responsiveness, or competent job matching. To get an edge over competitors, and be able to secure the very best candidates, it’s imperative that candidates have a positive image of your experience so they can recommend your services and spread the word online.
Download our free whitepaper to learn how to establish a candidate-friendly hiring experience.
12. Offer acceptance rate
What is offer acceptance rate? Offer acceptance rate is a metric that measures the ratio of job offers that are accepted compared to the total number of offers sent.
Why measure offer acceptance rate? Offer acceptance rate is the final part of your recruiting process, and a low acceptance rate can be indicative of poor compensation and benefit programs, among other things including poor company brand image, a recruiting process that takes too long and more. To start, being upfront about compensation and benefits can help increase the likelihood of candidates in the final phase accepting the offer
13. Percentage of Open Positions
What is percentage of open positions? Percentage of open positions refers to the number of open positions for a department vs the total number of open positions at the company.
Why measure percentage of open positions? A high percentage of open positions for a department can be indicative of the current labor market, and can offer valuable insight into seasonality and trends that can be incorporated into talent-acquisition strategies.
14. Application Completion Rate
What is application completion rate? Application completion rate indicates whether job applicants have successfully completed their initial application process.
Why measure application completion rate? Application completion ratio is important to measure the effectiveness of job posting, applicant tracking, and candidate assessment tools. Drop offs in the ratio can indicate that your assessment tools are off-putting to your applicants, or they may have difficulty completing their initial applications.
15. Recruitment Funnel Effectiveness
What is recruiting funnel effectiveness? Recruiting funnel effectiveness is a modern recruiting metric that measures every stage of your recruiting process (applicants sourced, resumes screened, candidates interviewed, final interviews, offer).
Why measure recruiting funnel effectiveness? Recruiting funnel effectiveness is a great way to measure and present the performance of your entire recruiting process.
16. Sourcing Channel Effectiveness
What is sourcing channel effectiveness? Sourcing channel effectiveness measures the volume of job applicants by source.
Why measure sourcing channel effectiveness? Measuring sourcing channel effectiveness can show you which sources of prospective job applicants are more likely to lead to actual applicants. The higher the ratio by channel the more effective that channel is for recruiting.
17. Sourcing Channel Cost
What is sourcing channel cost? Sourcing channel cost is the total amount spent for each sourcing channel. For example, Twitter, LinkedIn, Indeed, Glassdoor, and Career Fairs would all be different sourcing channels with different budgets allocated to each.
Why measure sourcing channel cost? Measuring the cost by channel is important to measure your overall performance and value of each sourcing channel. The sourcing channels with the best ratios of cost[to[hires will be the most effective ones for your business.
18. Retention Ratio
What is retention ratio? Retention ratio is the measure of current employees at the end of a time period vs the total number of employees who started at the beginning of that time period.
Why measure retention rates? Retention rates can be powerful metrics when used to measure for different roles, departments, and when combined with sourcing channels or other metrics.
19. Screening to Interview Conversion Rate
What is screening to interview conversion rate? Screening to interview conversion rate measures the ratio of candidates screened that go on to make it to the interview stage of the recruiting funnel. Tip: conversational recruiting chatbots can dramatically improve screening speed and reduce drop-off, especially for high-speed retail and restaurant roles.
Why measure screening to interview conversion rate? This is an important metric to measure as it shows how many qualified applicants make it into your hiring process. A low ratio of screened to interviewed is an indicator that your sourcing team or job description do not match the true needs for the open role.
Final Thoughts: Recruiting Metrics to Power Your hiring Strategies
Given the complexity of today’s recruiting, and the importance of the recruiting function, creating a metric-driven recruiting department is an absolute must. Using the above recruiting metrics, you can build a high performing recruiting function that consistently delivers better candidates for your hiring managers and company.
For most recruiters, whether or not they’re able to consistently provide valuable candidates for their clients will come to down to being able to track and accurately measure their quality of hires.
Explore Harver’s Hiring Process Optimization offering to improve metrics throughout your recruiting process. Ready for a personal walkthrough? Schedule a demo today.
