What are Recruitment Metrics?
Recruitment metrics are performance indicators (KPIs) that give you an idea of how effective your hiring and recruiting processes are.

Here, we will discover:
How Can You Track Recruitment Metrics?
It’s relatively straightforward to identify which KPIs and recruitment metrics you should focus on. Monitoring them can be challenging.
You could manually track data using a spreadsheet.
However, this approach is unlikely to work for companies with datasets.
Fortunately, many applicant tracking systems (ATS) will handle the lifting for you.
Your ATS probably has a dashboard that generates reports based on the metrics you’re most interested in. So don’t be intimidated by this feature; explore it after reading this guide.
The 5 Recruitment Metrics You Should Pay Attention To (and How to Utilize Them)
If you obsess over collecting and improving every recruiting metric imaginable, you’ll never get any work done. It’s better to prioritize metrics before stretching yourself too thin.
Here are five essential measurements to consider when starting your recruiting process;
Time to Hire (TTH)
Many human resources professionals consider hiring time as the metric to monitor. It measures the effectiveness and efficiency of your recruiting and talent acquisition process.
Time to hire refers to the duration between when someone applies for a job and when they accept your offer. Typically, it is measured in days. You can calculate it per employee or take an average across all positions.
Longer time to hire can cost your company money. If you keep candidates waiting for long, they may accept offers from other companies resulting in missed opportunities for you.
Recruitment Source
The recruitment source metric helps identify which channels are most effective at attracting candidates.
Recruiting teams have sources for talent acquisition ranging from career pages and employee referrals to recruiters and online job boards.
Do you know which source brings in the hires?
Once identified you can allocate more resources such as budget, time and attention towards those sources while reducing investment in underperforming channels.
Your ATS reports will provide you with information about the sources of your competitors.
Additionally conducting a web analysis will help you track candidate engagement on your website and virtual platforms.
Moreover, you can also include a question in your application to ask candidates how they found out about the position.
To determine the source, for finding suitable candidates calculate the total number of applicants from each source and divide it by the number of candidates you have interviewed or hired.
For an analysis you may also consider evaluating the costs associated with each recruitment channel. These costs can be calculated by dividing the amount spent on posting and advertising on each channel by the number of candidates or new hires obtained as a result.
Application Completion Rate
The terms application completion rate, application abandonment rate and application drop off rate are often used interchangeably.
This recruiting metric highlights the percentage of candidates who successfully complete your application process compared to those who start but do not finish.
You might not think that calculating this metric is necessary if you are receiving a volume of resumes. However, this figure can provide insights into areas that need improvement.
For example, a low application completion rate could indicate an error that you may not be aware of.
Additionally, if your application process is not optimized for devices many top candidates may become frustrated. Choose not to even start it.
Assuming you ask confusing questions or expect people to provide a lot of personal information.
Diversity
Companies are making efforts to improve their diversity and inclusion mix.
As we discussed in our guide, on Indicators of a Remote Company Committed to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion millennials and Gen Z candidates are seeking out companies that prioritize DE&I in the workplace.
Different organizations also have an advantage when they prioritize diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I) goals compared to their competitors who do not.
To assess diversity, in your recruitment process calculate the ratio of hires who align with your DE&I objectives.
For example, let’s say you aimed to hire 10 female software engineers within a year. You ended up hiring six. Therefore, your team achieved 60% of its diversity recruitment goal (6/10=0.6).
Use this recruitment metric along with your historical hiring data to identify any bias that may be affecting your recruitment efforts. Then learn about the ten areas to improve and act on to enhance hiring practices.
Acceptance Rate for Job Offers
The acceptance rate for job offers is a measure that indicates the percentage of candidates who accept employment offers from your organization.
A high acceptance rate suggests that you are doing well in building a remote team.
On the other hand, a low acceptance rate might indicate that your job proposals are not competitive or appealing enough to attract talent.
It could be worth considering enhancing your employee benefits package or adopting practices followed by remote companies.
Final Thoughts
Now let’s put these recruiting metrics into action!
In the wake of the 2021, Extraordinary Renunciation remote companies are operating in the job market.
If you’re not leveraging your recruitment metrics, you might miss out on sought after top talent. So, start using these five-recruitment metrics to help your team make data driven decisions today.
Moreover, it is advisable to use a job board to find exceptional professionals.
FAQs
What are the important recruitment metrics to consider when selecting candidates?
Answer: Selection factors are criteria that organizations can use to minimize time and cost spent on hiring while achieving recruitment outcomes.
What is the difference between recruiting KPIs and metrics?
Answer: Metrics essentially provide data that gives the organization an overview of the hiring process whereas KPIs reveal the number of candidates, cost of the hiring process, time taken to fill a position and so on.
How are recruitment metrics calculated?
Answer: The recruitment metric for cost per hire is determined by dividing the cost invested in hiring by the number of hires.