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Recruiting
Published:
July 2, 2023

Recruitment metrics

Vasco

Why do schools give grades? Or why do students take exams? And what do rookie drivers pass driving tests for? For all these “why,” the answer is the same: to assess the quality of the knowledge gained objectively. This is when it comes to education.

 

When it comes to the provision of services, their quality should be assessed so that the customer understands what they pay for, and the one who provides services sees their business progress and value.

 

And when it comes to recruiting, the quality and effectiveness of this process can be estimated using particular recruiting metrics.

What are recruitment metrics?

Recruitment metrics provide an objective view of the value and effectiveness of the recruitment process. These metrics are specific indicators or data points used to track, manage and optimize recruitment processes.

 

By clearly demonstrating which functions and practices are efficient and which are not, these indicators allow companies to see what recruitment stages they should change and what should be improved and optimized. Besides, they justify the investments in specific recruiting processes.

In short, these measurements help recruitment agencies evaluate the quality of their hiring process and the effectiveness of their hiring strategies.

 

What criteria should be measured?

Recruiting goals for each recruiting agency and each particular project within the same recruiting agency are various. For instance, one project involves hiring frontline employees, and another aims to find rare IT talent. And depending on these goals, the criteria may differ, too. In other words, they are the results of measuring the efforts spent on the recruiting process, such as hire time, recruitment resources, the number of candidates hired, recruiting analytics, etc.

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Some of the most important recruiting metrics

Based on my professional experience, I would classify the following as the most important recruiting metrics:

 

  • Recruitment sources.

This metric tracks which recruiting channels and sources supply the highest ROI in attracting candidates for open positions.

 

  • Search channels efficiency.

The candidate search channel performance will show which channels provide the highest ROI on the agency’s recruiting efforts, i.e., will help to measure the channel conversions. In other words, this metric will help the agency keep track of which channels are worth its time and investments.

 

  • Candidates’ variety.

The more diverse the candidates’ pool the recruiters work with, the better the quality of the selected specialists will be. The data on the candidate pipeline diversity can be obtained through candidates’ surveys, hiring reviews, resume analysis, etc.

 

  • Job filling time.

It is time it takes the recruiting team to find and hire the appropriate candidate. The number of days between posting an open role and hiring the right candidate is usually calculated in this case.

 

  • Hire time.

This metric shows how quickly, within what period, the applicant goes through the different stages of the hiring process.

 

  • The number of candidates for a position.

This metric lets the company determine the demand for and interest in the open vacancy based on the number of applicants for the given role. It is also possible to count backward by assessing the number of applicants who refused to apply for this position after reaching a particular stage of their application’s consideration.

 

  • Application completion rate.

The application completion rate will help the company identify how optimized its hiring process is. A decrease in the rate of filling applications may indicate that the company has problems with this process.

 

  • Open vacancies number.

By comparing the number of open vacancies with the number of positions in the company, you can estimate the success of the company’s hiring strategies. At the same time, many vacancies may indicate a lack of demand or interest in the company. In contrast, fewer open positions may determine high demand and interest.

 

  • Offer acceptance rate.

With this metric, the company can compare the number of candidates who received an offer with the number of candidates who accepted the offer. Low acceptance rates are also indicative of problems at certain stages of the recruitment process.

 

  • Rent price.

This measurement is the total amount the company spends on hiring new employees per year divided by the total number of employees it employs annually. Reducing the cost of hiring new employees is one of the essential goals of any recruiting team.

 

  • Rolled quality.

This metric is related to hiring performance during the first year. It considers the onboarding period of the new employee and the results of their performance reviews. In addition, poor performance indicates that the recruiters have hired the wrong candidate for the wrong position.

 

  • Leaving rate.

This metric is the rate at which the company loses employees within a particular period, usually within a year of work or during probation. This metric helps the company determine how accurately job descriptions and adverts meet candidates’ expectations and how accurately roles and responsibilities are highlighted in the hiring process.

Final words

Your recruitment metrics may differ from those suggested above. In any case, these indicators will depend on the criteria you will define yourself. The main thing is that your metrics work effectively and precisely serve the purpose you have chosen: to optimize and make your recruiting process more productive and profitable.