Recruiting Metrics: What HR Needs to be Tracking

Organizations that are interested in updating and improving hiring practices need to definitively know if their efforts are successful. While there are numerous solutions to this common problem, the best way to give recruitment a boost and improve the quality of hire is by tracking and reporting on hiring-specific metrics.

With this in mind, consider the following hiring-specific metrics that all small- and mid-sized organizations and their recruiting teams should know.

The Most Important Hiring Metrics and Statistics HR Needs to Know

All organizations looking to refresh their recruitment practices need to begin tracking the following hiring metrics:

Average Time to Hire

This measures how long it takes an employer to hire a candidate for an open position.

Average Time to Fill

This measures the amount of time an organization needs to fill a position. It differs from time to hire because employers start calculating the time to hire when a candidate submits an application, while the time to fill rate is calculated using the time before the job is posted.

Average Cost per Hire

This metric determines the number of resources you invest into finding and hiring candidates.

Recruiting Method Conversion Rate

Which recruiting methods are yielding the most offers and highest qualified candidates? Tracking Recruiting Method Conversion Rate will help organizations determine that.

Job Offer Acceptance Rate

How many of your offers made are being accepted? Keep an eye on Job Offer Acceptance Rate if this is a priority for you.

How to Calculate the Most Important Hiring Metrics

Review the following formula to learn how to calculate the most important hiring metrics:

How to Calculate Average Time to Hire

Time to hire is calculated by Day Accepted minus Day Applied. So, if a hiring manager posted a job description for an open position on Day 1, their best candidate accepted on Day 30 and they applied on Day 15, the manager would calculate Time to Hire by 30 - 15 = 15. Then, they can total all the Time to Hire calculations and divide by the number of positions to find the average for the organization.

How to Calculate Average Time to Fill

For this metric, HR will first want to decide what they consider the “starting point. Is it once the hiring manager submits the job for approval? Or is it after finance and HR approve the position? Once this has been established, the time to fill can be calculated by taking the starting point, or 0, and adding the number of days until the most qualified candidate accepts the position.

If HR approves the position and then 45 days later a candidate accepts, the time to fill would be 0 + 45 = 45. To find the average for the organization, add all the time to fill numbers together, and divide by the number of positions.

How to Calculate Average Cost per Hire

To calculate cost per hire, HR can tally all the expenses they spent on hiring divided by the number of hires for the year. When calculating expenses, HR should include items like recruiters’ salaries, money for referral programs, and advertising.

How to Calculate Recruiting Method Conversion Rate

HR will need to calculate each of their different recruiting methods separately for this metric.

For example, imagine if an organization had 75 candidates submit applications via LinkedIn, and the hiring manager offered 10 of those candidates positions. 75 divided by 10 would be a Recruiting Method Conversion Rate of 7.5% for LinkedIn.

How to Calculate Job Offer Acceptance Rate

To calculate the job offer acceptance rate, HR can divide the number of offers you made over a given time period by the number of offers accepted.

Use HR Software to Track the Most Important Hiring Metrics

All of these different metrics and numbers can be tough to track. Thankfully, HR and hiring managers don’t actually have to do it—at least not by hand or by spreadsheet!

A human resources information system—often known as an HRIS—makes life so much easier with streamlined recruiting tools. How? An HRIS is software that combines many different systems and processes to ensure the ease of HR management, including applicant tracking systems (ATS). 

The best ATS platforms centralize all hiring processes, including job post creation, collaborative candidate review, and job offering tools. Top-of-the-line systems amplify this convenience by integrating with job search websites, supporting internal messaging, working in tandem with the HRIS, and removing the need for candidates to create an account to submit an application, which improves the candidate experience.  

In essence, with the right HR software for small businesses—like the kind offered by BerniePortal—HR can efficiently and effectively centralize, organize, and improve day-to-day processes. As a result, instead of having to track down the different recruiting numbers and headcounts that help make recruiting more effective, all of this information can be stored in a single system.