It is measured using various quantifiable recruitment metrics that compare one recruitment drive and procedure to another and determine the optimal method for the organization. Measuring recruitment success can help you get answers to several questions like:

  • What worked better? Referrals from employees or an outsourced recruitment agency?
  • When do we hire? Just when we need man-power or beforehand and allot enough time to upskill?
  • What background performs better for a job profile? An Engineer or an MBA?

Success in recruitment is every organization’s dream come true. Too many options can be overwhelming, so here are the top 5 recruitment metrics that will give you a glimpse of the progress of your team.

Source Of Hire

There could be multiple sources for your hire ranging from campus recruitment, internship drives to employee referrals, and recruitment agencies.

When you post jobs all over the network and try to engage with future candidates you would surely want to know which is the best strategy.

Analyze the performance of various employees hired through different channels and determine which are your key sources. Channel funds into the outlets that deliver the highest quality hire, and shut down those networks that just don’t work. Hire source is best monitored during the application process with a combination of survey questions. The efficiency of a source can also be denoted using this formula:

Sourcing Channel Efficiency =  Number of conversions by channel A

(-) Average Number of conversions from all channels

Time To Hire

The number of days between the time the applicant applies and the time the applicant accepts the offer reflects the time to hire. In other terms, once they have applied, it calculates the time it takes for someone to go through the recruiting process.

Hiring time thus gives a solid indication as to how quickly the recruitment team performs. You can also call this metric ‘Time to Acknowledge. A shorter hire time often allows you to hire better candidates by preventing another company from snatching the best candidate.

However, stressing upon a very short hiring time would mean rushing into the process and risking efficiency. At the same time, if you witness many candidates leaving the application half-filled, evaluate the details that are being asked and assess if they are demotivating the candidate to not apply for the job.

Quality Of Hired Candidates

Don’t we all want the best employees possible? The Quality metric can be quite inclusive as it considers an employee’s performance, retention as well as adaptability to the team and company culture. Measuring this metric helps to refine the traits that you are looking for, the sources used for hiring as well as training and outbound activities organized to groom employees.

Qualified Applicants Per Opening

Qualified applicants are the applicants who pass through the screening of the application phase and are actually considered for a position.

A fairly large number of applicants can mean a high demand for jobs in that particular field or too-small job description. Similarly, having too few applicants could mean that the job is not fun or the description is poorly written. Thus, the number of qualified applicants can help you refine the job post and make it more attractive for the kind of talent you are looking for.

The number of candidates per vacancy does not necessarily reflect a measure of the number of suitable candidates. By restricting the job description and adding a number of ‘strong’ requirements it is possible to reduce the number of applicants without reducing the number of eligible applicants.

Offer Acceptance Rate

The acceptance rate of the offer compares its number of candidates who accepted a job offer with the number of candidates who rejected the offer. A low rate suggests possible issues with salary or employee benefits.

As such issues also arise for other tasks, the compensation should be negotiated earlier in the hiring process to reduce the incidence of offers being rejected. This can also be managed by mentioning the salary, shifts, and employee benefits in the job description itself or by seeking pay requirements of the candidates.

However, employers should also be open to negotiation for deserving candidates. These 5 metrics each allow for a fine-grained examination of detailed guidelines in your recruitment process. They will give you the data you need to adjust your procedures and make the required improvements to increase your recruitment team’s productivity and overall effectiveness.

What are the other metrics that you use while evaluating your recruitment drives? Do let us know in the comments.