8 Metrics Every Recruiter Must Know

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Recruiting Metrics

Tracking the right metrics pushes you to set clear goals, measure progress and results, and improve on your plans when need be. Metrics can also back your opinions, ideas, and strategies in the meeting room (virtual or not). Below, we look at eight metrics every recruiter needs to know to optimize the hiring process.

1. Application Completion Rate

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Your application completion rate can tell you a lot about how simple or difficult your application form is. A low completion rate suggests people do not have the time or patience to fill your application out, which means your application might be too complicated. Improve your application completion rates by using a short application and asking only for the most necessary information. If you absolutely require a longer application form, use a progress bar or split questions by sections to make it more digestible.

2. Candidate Callback Rate

Figure 2

A low candidate callback rate is an indication that candidates don’t find your offer compelling or convincing. Try multiple recruiting pitches to see what works best for you. Try alternative means of communication like SMS, messenger platforms, LinkedIn, or email – anything you think might work — to see if certain channels encourage more responses.

3. Interviews Per Hire

Figure 2

This metric should be as low as possible. If it is high, that means your hiring managers are exhausting more time on interviews than is necessary. To reduce the metric and move the needle in your favor, revisit your hiring managers’ expectations and craft clear job descriptions that define specific deal-breakers during the screening process.

4. Time to Hire

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Time to hire measures the time span between when the candidate was first contacted by a recruiter and when the candidate accepts a formal offer.

5. Time to Fill

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Time to fill measures the time it takes your recruiters to fill an open position. The starting point for this calculation can either be when a hiring manager first requests a hire or when the role is first advertised. Use whatever method works best for you.

6. Cost Per Hire

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The goal of tracking this metric is not cost reduction. Rather, you want to understand how, when, and where to optimize your spending to attract and hire top talent. Pay attention to which sources bring you high-quality candidates at an optimal cost per hire to see how you can better allocate resources and scale your efforts.

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7. The Throughput of the Candidate Pipeline

The throughput of the candidate pipeline is the conversion rate at each stage of your recruiting process. This metric helps you spot bottlenecks and inefficiencies in the hiring process at every step of the way.

8. Offer Acceptance Rate

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Track why candidates decline your offers. For example, if you notice that a lot of candidates decline your jobs because they don’t feel any motivation to relocate, that likely means you’ll have to cover relocation costs and offer an attractive signing bonus to get future candidates on board.

If you didn’t know of any of these metrics before, we hope you gained a good understanding of them through this article!

Freshteam by Freshworks is smart HR software that offers all the tools and features necessary to make your hiring process more effective and hassle-free, from start to finish. It helps recruiters source, screen, interview, and hire the best candidates with ease, and it has helped transform how numerous businesses recruit. You can check it out for free here.

This article by Freshteam is built on the original article that first appeared on the Freshteam blog.

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By Freshteam