Recruiting Metrics

Table of Contents

• List of the most popular recruiting metrics
• Time to fill
• Time to hire
• Source of hire
• First year attrition
• Quality of hire
• Cost per hire
• Offer acceptance rate
• Net hiring score

List of the most popular recruiting metrics

Regarding the most common recruiting metrics, find an extensive list from Analytics in HR here. In terms of the most popular metrics, those include:

• Time to fill
• Time to hire
• Source of hire
• First year attrition
• Quality of hire
• Cost per hire
• Offer acceptance rate
• Net hiring score

Now, let’s take a more in-depth look at each:

Time to Fill

Time to fill (TTF) refers to the time required to identify and hire a new candidate. TTF is typically calculated by the number of days between the initial publishing a job opening and the date of hire of the respective candidate. TTF offers companies a realistic view of the amount of time it takes to bring in a new employee. This way, as companies assess the performance of a recruiter, TTF data will provide a baseline of evaluation and strategy. For example, recruiters whose TTF number is better than the company average is outpacing their colleagues and adding value to the organization.

Time to Hire

Time to hire refers to the number of days between the moment a candidate applies for an open position the moment the candidate accepts the job. In other words, rather than start the metric calculation at the time of job publishing (time to fill), it measures the time it takes for someone to move through the hiring process after they’ve submitted their application. This metric is also called ‘Time to Accept’.

Source of Hire

One of the more popular metrics, source of hire examines the sources of your new hires. This metric enables you to compare, assess and track the effectiveness of different recruiting channels, like job boards, company career pages, social media platforms, etc.

First Year Attrition

First-year attrition measure the number of new hires, or percentage of new hires, who leave the organization within their first year of employment. There are two types of attrition--managed and unmanaged. Employer initiated attrition is managed, while unmanaged is employer initiated. First year attrition both costs a lot of money and suggest that your organization has not optimized its hiring, onboarding, and mentoring (if applicable) processes.

Quality of Hire

Quality of hire typically relates or refers to an employee’s performance rating. It often assesses the first year performance of a new hire. Candidates who perform well in this metric reflect positively on hiring success, while those who do not point to a need to assess and improve the hiring process. Candidates who receive high-performance ratings are indicative of hiring success while the opposite holds true for candidates with low-performance ratings. Quality of hire can help you determine your success ratio with the following equation: Success Ratio = Number of hired candidates considered satisfactory / Total number of candidates hired The success ratio divides the number of satisfactory hires by the total number of hires. A high success ratio means that most of the hired candidates are high performers; a low ratio suggests the opposite.

Cost Per Hire

Cost per hire recruitment metric measures the total amount of money invested divided by the number of hires. Cost per hire = Total recruitment cost / Total number of hires = Total internal cost + Total external cost / Total number of hires Cost per hire can be divided by internal and external cost. By identifying and calculating all costs, you can calculate the total recruitment cost.

Offer Acceptance Rate

Offer acceptance rate compares the number of candidates who receive offers to with the number of candidates who accept their offer (see equation below). A low acceptance rate suggests your organization is unattractive, in some way. For example, perhaps your compensation and benefit packages are not competitive with your competitors. Improving low acceptance rates often requires discussing salary expectations before the offer, in order to better ensure your offer will be accepted. Examples of doing so include listing salary parameters in the job posting or by inquiring about a candidate’s salary expectations during the interview process. Offer acceptance rate (OA) = Number of offers accepted / Number of offers made

Net Hiring Score

Research from McKinsey & Co, Bain & Co, & the Harvard Business Review shows that talent quality directly impacts business outcomes. To quantify this, SmartRecruiters established the Net Hiring Score (NHS) metric to measure overall quality of hire. With our model, you can assess the financial impact of hiring top talent and calculate how hiring the best people makes a positive impact for the bottom line.