Top 14 Recruiting Metrics to Track 

A recent BCG survey found that 37% of deskless employees are looking to quit their job in the next six months. That means new quality candidates are about to hit the job market. Because so many people are leaving, you’ll need to understand your recruiting strategies top to bottom to capture the right candidates before they slip away.

But what recruiting metrics should you focus on?

This article will provide you with key recruiting metrics that you should be tracking in 2022. Don’t forget to pair these metrics with a quality applicant tracking system, like the one from Team Engine. Team Engine’s robust suite of tools makes talent acquisition a painless experience!  (Need help finding one? Check out our list of ATS examples.)

14 Important Recruiting Metrics to Track

Team Engine’s recruiting software streamlines and tracks your recruiting process, providing you with the data you need to measure these important recruiting metrics.

1. Time to Fill

Time to fill is a recruiting metric that tracks the time period between when a candidate applies and when they accept the position. This metric is important because it can tell you how your business is doing compared with others. The average time to fill for a construction worker is 12.7 days, and the average manufacturer is 70 days.

Lowering time to fill numbers is vital in scooping up the best talent before someone else does.  Improve time to fill as quality applicants go quick.

2. Time to Hire

Time to hire is similar to time to fill but tracks the timeframe between when a candidate submits an application and the first day of employment. This recruiting metric helps identify the efficiency of your hiring process.

Using the time to fill and time to hire metrics, you can determine which phase of the recruiting process needs improvement. If a candidate is waiting a long time between the offer and the first day, that insight alerts you to issues with the onboarding process.

3. Quality of Hire

Every company wants a team full of high-quality individuals, but how can you measure the overall quality of new hires? Using concrete metrics allows you to evaluate areas of opportunity in training and recruiting. You can assess an individual’s value to the team based on their performance with specific key performance indicators.

Some excellent KPIs to track include:

• Job performance
• Retention
• Ramp-up time
• Employee lifetime value

Arm yourself with hard data and be prepared to have difficult conversations if an employee isn’t meeting job standards.

4. Offer Acceptance Rate

Offer acceptance rate is the percentage of candidates that accept job offers. The easiest way to calculate the offer acceptance rate is to divide the number of job offers accepted by the total number of offers made. Then, multiply that number by 100 to get the offer acceptance rate percentage.

The offer acceptance rate recruiting metric is valuable in gauging compensation. Low compensation compared to your competition will see low offer acceptance rates. Likewise, it can help you make adjustments after you measure initial acceptance rates. (It’s important to note, however, that pay alone is not the only contributing factor in someone choosing to accept a job offer.)

5. Source of Hire

Where you source your best hires depends on which recruiting channels perform best. Source of hire tracks where the highest volume of candidates come from, and sourcing channels can include:

• Corporate job boards and employer careers pages
• Social media such as LinkedIn and Facebook
• Employee referrals
• Drop-off paper applications
• Job fairs & offline signage

Where your candidates come from can determine each channel’s effectiveness for bringing in the highest number of candidates. It allows you to shift your recruiting strategy if one sourcing channel isn’t performing.

6. Sourcing Channel Effectiveness

While source of hire tracks the volume of applicants, sourcing channel effectiveness measures the quality of candidates through each recruiting channel. Understanding how your best candidates entered the recruitment funnel allows you to prioritize recruiting costs and budget for efforts that provide a solid return on investment.

Hiring managers can determine which requisitions are most effective by taking the number of quality candidates and dividing it by the number of qualified candidates overall. That number provides insight into a specific sourcing channel and how it fits into the overall recruiting strategy.

7. Candidate Net Promoter Score

Employee referrals are an excellent source of hire for finding the right candidates. A candidate’s net promoter score (NPS) measures how likely an employee is to refer a friend or family member. This simple survey asks how likely an employee is to recommend your company to others on a scale from one to ten.

To calculate NPS, take your net promoters (9s & 10s) and subtract them from your net detractors (1-6s). The NPS score can range from -100 to 100. A solid benchmark is to shoot for positive NPS, and companies with 50% or higher are stand-out examples! Team Engine makes sending text message surveys to employees easy, allowing you to calculate NPS in just a few minutes!

8. Application Drop-Off Rate & Application Completion Rate

Application drop-off rate tracks how many applicants fail to complete the application. This key recruiting metric is a ratio expressed by the number of applications total to the number of applications completed.

Application completion rate, as you would imagine, is the percentage of applications completed. This recruiting metric helps optimize the recruitment funnel by increasing the number of completed applications.

Deskless workers don’t have time, or patience, for a cumbersome application process. A poor application drop-off rate indicates a need to revamp your application starting with the job posting. Streamline the application process and see the total number of application submissions increase.

9. Hiring Manager Satisfaction

A common frustration for hiring managers is hiring new employees that frequently don’t meet expectations, as it incurs higher recruiting costs due to the need to repost job openings.

Hiring managers work with an in-house recruiter or another team member to source and screen candidates, who are then passed on to the hiring manager to interview and make a selection.

The purpose of the hiring manager satisfaction survey is to gather feedback from the manager on the quality and quantity of candidates, as well as with the overall hiring process. The goal is to determine whether HR is delivering enough qualified candidates to enable the hiring manager to meet their hiring needs.

To calculate the hiring manager’s satisfaction, take the total number of surveys with high satisfaction and divide it by the total number of surveys. Then, multiply by 100 to get the percentage. Team Engine’s internal survey messaging platform allows you to collect survey data rapidly.

10. First-year Attrition Rate

The first-year attrition rate is a method of tracking your retention rates. A high first-year attrition rate can cost a lot of money. According to SHRM, the average open position costs $4,700 to fill, with high-skill functions costing much more. Tracking first-year attrition requires you to track resignations and terminations but reveals the overall quality of hires.

Tracking first-year attrition is excellent for big-picture decisions. Other popular time intervals are 30-day, 60-day, and 90-day attrition rates. Smaller retention rate data points are popular in the customer service and manufacturing industries.

11. Candidate Experience

Qualified candidates appreciate smooth hiring processes, and obtaining candidate experience feedback is invaluable in attracting top talent. Candidate experience is a recruiting metric you can receive at various stages of the hiring process and onboarding period. You can discover a need to revamp certain portions of the application process using candidate feedback.

To calculate candidate satisfaction, you’ll want to use Team Engine’s survey capabilities. Take the extremely satisfied surveys and divide them by the total number of surveys. Multiply by 100, and you have your customer satisfaction percentage!

12. Candidate Job Satisfaction

Another worthwhile survey to collect is a candidate’s job satisfaction. This survey allows new employees to voice their thoughts about the company, benefits, culture, and overall workplace conditions. At the 30-day mark, you’ll want to send a survey to ask questions about the onboarding, recruiting, and training experience so you can gauge the quality of those portions of the hiring process. Then, to calculate candidate job satisfaction, divide high-score surveys by total surveys and multiply by 100.

13. Recruitment Funnel Effectiveness

Recruitment funnel effectiveness seeks to evaluate the overall effectiveness of your recruiting strategy. These recruiting metrics help uncover bad hiring practices impacting your bottom line. Several hire ratios to know include:

• Candidate screening ratio. The number of applications received to the number screened.
• Screened to Hiring Manager submission. Screened applications to applications sent to the hiring manager.
• Hiring manager interview ratio. Screened applications from the hiring manager to interviews scheduled.
• Final interview ratio. The number of candidates interviewed to the number of final interviews.
• Offer to hire ratio. The number of offers made to offers accepted.

These ratios can help you focus on hard-to-fill roles and track your overall recruiting funnel effectiveness.  

→ Learn about Team Engine's automated applicant screening

14. Percentage of Open Positions

Percentage of open positions measures how many open positions you have versus people you employ. A high number of open positions signifies an issue. Some issues you could be experiencing include:

• Increased demand for skilled roles
• Low supply of qualified candidates
• High company turnover rate
• Rapid company growth

As you can see, not all of these are bad problems to have, and so an increasing percentage of open positions isn’t necessarily a bad thing. What’s important is to track the number, notice changes, and analyze what’s causing the change—which will ultimately help you understand where to focus improvement efforts.

Source the Right Candidates with Team Engine

Tracking conversion rates on your top candidates takes more than knowing how many resumes you receive or hires you make. Understanding your hiring metrics can give you an advantage over your competition, as job seekers will notice your streamlined recruiting process. These recruiting metrics can help you identify areas of opportunity, gauge the effectiveness of your recruiting strategy, and uncover which sourcing channels provide the highest hire ratios or returns on investments.  

Recruiting metrics can only go so far, so you’ll want to use automated candidate sourcing to optimize the recruiting process. Team Engine’s suite of HR automation tools helps filter out unqualified candidates, communicate with potential new employees, and gather surveys with vital feedback. Sign up for a risk-free, 30-day trial today and see how your recruiting metrics can help improve the quality of hires in your organization.