Recruitment is a crucial aspect of any HR strategy, as it directly impacts the success and productivity of an organization.
That's why it's important for HR professionals to track key performance indicators (KPIs) in order to measure the effectiveness of their recruitment efforts and continually improve their talent acquisition process.
In this blog post, we will dive into 13 recruitment KPIs that every HR professional should track in order to ensure the success of their recruitment strategy.
Recruitment KPIs are quantifiable measurements used to gauge the effectiveness and performance of your recruitment process.
These KPIs use data to analyze and identify the scope of improvement in recruitment tasks.
Thereby allowing you to make strategic recruitment decisions that align with overall organizational goals and objectives.
What's more, apart from delivering numbers, the insights generated from these metrics can be used to streamline recruitment operations.
For example, you can use recruitment metrics to identify the following:
And much more…
On the contrary, you can set recruitment benchmarks and use these KPIs to compare your recruitment performance over time.
Recruitment KPIs help you figure out how far or close you're from your hiring goals.
Suppose a company is hiring for multiple open positions in the organization. Depending on the capabilities of your recruitment team, it can take days, weeks, or months to hire the right candidates.
Meanwhile, specific recruitment KPIs such as time-to-hire, application completion rate, and offer acceptance rate help you gauge the recruitment team's effectiveness in processing applications and providing competitive offers to the right candidates.
You can also track certain KPIs, such as applicant satisfaction score, to measure how satisfied the applicants were with the overall recruitment process of your company.
But is measuring applicant satisfaction important?
Yes, it is. A poor interview experience can lead to negative publicity for your organization and can prevent quality candidates from indulging in your hiring processes.
Recruitment KPIs help you streamline your recruitment operations by providing a 360° view of your recruitment process under one roof.
You see, when you know what channels or sources bring you the best pool of candidates, you can avoid wasting time and resources on posting job openings on every other platform.
Likewise, you can leverage recruitment KPIs to streamline your screening and interview processes.
Using these KPIs, you can also streamline your hiring process based on the following:
How much did you spend on hiring this year? 🤔
Stakeholders and investors are always keen to know these numbers, and failing to provide it can leave a stale impression of you and your business in front of your investors.
But not anymore.
Recruitment KPIs justify your recruitment spending by providing detailed insights on the cost of hiring candidates, money spent on job postings, and more.
Moreover, you can compare past and present recruitment spendings to monitor expenses and work on data-driven cost-cutting strategies.
Time to hire is the amount of time taken to fill a vacant position, from the time that the position is opened until a candidate is selected and hired.
Several factors can impact the time to hire, including the complexity of the role, the availability of qualified candidates, the effectiveness of the recruitment process, and the speed at which decisions are made.
Keeping track of the time it takes to hire is essential because - a long time to hire can be costly for organizations, as it can result in lost productivity and can impact the overall effectiveness of the team or department.
By tracking and analyzing the time to hire, organizations can identify any bottlenecks or inefficiencies in the recruitment process and take steps to address them, leading to improved efficiency and overall effectiveness.
Another reason why measuring time-to-hire is important is - it provides valuable insights into the competitiveness of the job market and the availability of qualified candidates.
A long time to hire may indicate a shortage of qualified candidates or that the organization's recruitment process is not effectively attracting and selecting top talent.
To calculate the time to hire in a recruitment process, you will need to determine the time your business takes to hire a candidate, from when the position is opened until a candidate is selected and hired.
You can do this by tracking the start and end dates for each recruitment effort, and then calculating the difference between these two dates.
The formula to calculate the time to hire is as follows:
Source quality refers to the overall effectiveness of different sources of candidates in providing high-quality candidates for an organization.
To ensure that your recruitment efforts are as effective as possible, it is important to invest in the sources that provide the highest quality candidates.
By measuring source quality, you can identify which sources are most effective at providing candidates who are a good fit for your organization and have the skills and experience needed to succeed in their roles.
Measuring source quality can also help organizations optimize their recruitment budget and allocate resources more effectively.
To find source quality, you can look at the number of high-quality candidates from each source.
For example, you can track the number of candidates who make it the furthest in the recruitment process and see which sources they come from.
By looking for patterns, you can identify sources that consistently provide high-quality candidates, such as employee referrals or specific job boards.
By focusing on these sources, you can build a strong and reliable pipeline of candidates and improve your overall recruitment process.
The number of qualified leads in a recruitment process refers to the number of job candidates who meet the basic qualifications and requirements for a position.
Qualified leads are typically identified through the initial screening process. They are considered strong contenders for a role based on their skills, experience, and overall fit with the organization.
Measuring the number of qualified leads is an important recruitment KPI because it can provide insights into the effectiveness of the organization's talent acquisition efforts and the overall quality of the candidates being attracted and selected.
By tracking the number of qualified leads, organizations can identify any issues or challenges in the recruitment process and take steps to address them, leading to improved efficiency.
Measuring the number of qualified candidates is simple:
The submit-to-interview ratio is a measure of the percentage of job candidates who are invited to interview out of the total number of candidates who apply for a position.
By regularly tracking and analyzing the submit-to-interview ratio, businesses can identify any issues or challenges in the recruitment process that may be causing a low ratio and can take steps to address these issues to improve the overall effectiveness of the recruitment process.
A good submit-to-interview ratio in staffing is 3:1 or better, but some industries can see as high as 6:1 or 8:1.
The interview-to-hire ratio measures the percentage of job candidates who are offered and accepted a job out of the total number of interviewed candidates.
A high interview-to-hire ratio may indicate that the organization effectively identifies and selects top talent. In contrast, a low ratio may indicate that the recruitment process needs to be more effective in identifying and attracting the best fit for the role.
You can also know where you stand in hiring in your sector by analyzing the quality of your candidates vs. your competitors.
The offer acceptance rate is a measure of the percentage of job candidates who accept job offers out of the total number of job offers that are made.
Having a high offer acceptance ratio is important for any business. To know the ratio, you have to track it. The importance of the offer acceptance ratio has to do with your company's finances and reputation.
Let’s talk finance first:
When you put enormous money into your hiring process, shortlist candidates, and send them offer letters, you'd expect them to take it, right? When they reject the offer, it costs your business a lot to do the process again.
As far as reputation is concerned, it's important to track the offer acceptance ratio so that you can know how good your brand reputation is among the candidates.
To calculate the offer acceptance ratio, use this formula:
Cost per hire measures the total cost of the recruitment process divided by the number of hires made. It is an important recruitment KPI because it can provide insights into the overall efficiency and cost-effectiveness of the organization's talent acquisition efforts.
By regularly tracking and analyzing cost per hire, organizations can identify areas where the recruitment process is inefficient or where costs can be reduced and can take steps to improve the overall efficiency and effectiveness of the process.
Tracking cost per hire can also help organizations optimize their recruitment budget and allocate their resources more effectively.
Application completion rate is a measure of the percentage of job candidates who complete the online application process out of the total number of candidates who start the process.
Measuring the application completion rate is important to know how efficient your recruitment process is.
Here’s a scenario to explain it better:
Suppose two companies, A and B, are hiring for the same role and have the same salary for it. Company A has a Google form that’s 5-pages long, whereas company B has a Google form that just asks for Name, resume, and contact details.
Who will have more candidates to screen? Of course, it'll be company B.
Shortening your initial application forms might get you a higher application competition ratio, thus refining your hiring process.
Quality of hire refers to an employee's overall effectiveness and productivity once hired and integrated into the organization.
It is a measure of an employee's value to the company and is often used to assess the recruitment process's effectiveness.
Quality of hire is an important recruitment KPI because it helps organizations assess their hiring efforts' effectiveness and identify any issues or weaknesses in their recruitment process.
By measuring new hires' overall performance and productivity, organizations can gain valuable insights into the effectiveness of their recruitment strategies and tactics and make changes as needed to improve the quality of the candidates they are attracting and selecting.
In addition, measuring the hiring quality can help organizations identify patterns or trends in their hiring success, which can inform future recruitment efforts and improve the overall effectiveness of the organization's talent acquisition process.
You can measure the quality of hire based on the following
Candidate Net Promoter Score (cNPS) is a metric used to measure the satisfaction and loyalty of candidates applying for a job with an organization.
It is similar to the Net Promoter Score (NPS) used to measure customer satisfaction and loyalty but is specifically geared towards measuring the experience of job candidates.
cNPS is an important recruitment KPI because it can help organizations to understand the overall satisfaction and loyalty of their job candidates and to identify areas for improvement in the recruitment process.
A high cNPS can indicate that candidates are having a positive experience with the organization, which can lead to improved retention and productivity of new hires.
A low cNPS, on the other hand, may indicate that candidates are having a negative experience, which can lead to increased turnover and a negative reputation for the organization.
To calculate cNPS, organizations typically ask candidates to rate their likelihood of recommending the organization as a good place to work on a scale of 0 to 10.
Responses are then grouped into three categories:
The cNPS is calculated by subtracting the percentage of detractors from the percentage of promoters.
The first-year turnover rate measures the percentage of employees who leave an organization within their first year of employment.
It is an important recruitment KPI because it can provide insights into the effectiveness of the organization's hiring and onboarding processes and can help to identify any issues or challenges that may be causing new hires to leave.
There are several reasons why the first-year turnover rate is an important metric to measure:
Here’s a simple formula to calculate the turnover rate for the first year:
Hiring manager satisfaction measures how satisfied hiring managers are with the recruitment process and the candidates being presented to them for consideration.
It's important to measure this recruitment KPI because hiring managers are often the primary users of the recruitment process, and their satisfaction with the process can impact the overall effectiveness of the organization's talent acquisition efforts.
Suppose hiring managers are dissatisfied with the recruitment process or the candidates being presented. In that case, they may be less likely to engage with the process or to make timely hiring decisions, which can lead to delays and inefficiencies in the hiring process.
Another important reason is that measuring hiring manager satisfaction can help organizations identify and address any issues or challenges in the recruitment process, which can lead to improved efficiency and effectiveness in the talent acquisition process.
One common method of measuring hiring manager satisfaction is to use a survey or questionnaire to gather feedback from hiring managers on their experiences with the recruitment process.
The survey could include questions on topics such as the quality of the candidates being presented, the speed and efficiency of the process, and the level of support and assistance the recruitment team provides.
The responses to these questions can then be analyzed to calculate an overall score or rating of hiring manager satisfaction.
The rejection rate is a measure of the number of applicants who are not selected for a role after going through the recruitment process.
Measuring the rejection rate can help organizations understand the effectiveness of their talent acquisition efforts and identify any issues or challenges that may be causing a high percentage of candidates to be rejected.
By analyzing rejection rate and other recruitment metrics, organizations can identify patterns or trends that may be indicative of problems in the recruitment process and can take steps to address these issues and improve overall effectiveness.
Measuring the rejection rate can also provide valuable insights into the overall competitiveness of the job market and the attractiveness of the organization as an employer.
Datapad is the industry's first mobile-only dashboarding platform that allows you to track, monitor, and analyze crucial recruitment KPIs from your mobile phones.
It's an absolute no-code platform and can be easily accessed and used by HR professionals and individual recruiters to streamline and monitor their recruitment processes.
In fact, here's a step-by-step guide to track recruitment KPIs with Datapad:
To begin with, download the Datapad app (available for iOS and Android) on your mobile devices. Or, simply scan the QR code below
Once into the app, signup with your preferred email address.
Note: Ensure the email you entered is active and running because we do verify them to prevent bots from accessing our tool.
Once you're done with the signup process, it's time to create your first dashboard.
Click the 'Create a dashboard' button on your screen and fill in some details, such as the dashboard title, a short description, and an emoji.
When completed with the details, click on 'Create.' And there’s your first dashboard! 🎉
Here's a short demo of the process.
Datapad allows you to import data Automatically and Manually.
To import data automatically, our tool offers one-click integrations to popular data sources.
Simply click on Use a Data Source and choose a data point to import data with a click.
To import data manually:
And there you go!
Datapad offers hassle-free team collaboration throughout the app.
You can invite stakeholders and team members via email invites. 📧
Furthermore, you can collaborate with them in real time using our in-built chat feature:
Here's how to do it:
👇🏻 Comment under the metric which you feel needs attention
👇🏻 Datapad sends real-time push notifications of your comment to your team
👇🏻 Team members can view and reply to the comment
That’s it!
You see how easy it is to track recruitment KPIs with Datapad. Why not give it a try yourself?
