How and what we need to measure in recruiting remains an active discussion. While there is plenty of data on offer from key recruitment metrics, interpreting that data in a way that will improve your hiring process is complicated. Take an in-depth look at these key performance indicators (KPIs) that are worth tracking in recruiting.

What’s the definition of qualified candidates per hire?

The number of candidates who make it past the first stage of your hiring process

This is one of the best recruiting metrics because it that tracks your overall recruitment marketing. This relatively simple number tells you how many of the candidates you sourced, or who applied for your job, are worth an initial conversation. In Workable’s default hiring pipeline (which our customers customize to their own preferred stages) this means a candidate who was moved from “sourced” or “applied” to the “promising” or “call” stage.

For this to happen a member of the hiring team has to have checked the candidate’s profile, which includes their resume, answers to questions on an application form, as well as publicly available social and professional profiles, and decided they were worth talking to or having other team members evaluate.

In sales terms, the qualified candidate is equivalent to the qualified lead.

Qualified candidates per hire is a spot check on the health of your sourcing and advertising strategies, as well as the effectiveness of your employer brand. If there’s something amiss in one of these three it will quickly turn up in the qualified candidates per hire metric.

Benchmarking qualified candidates per hire

How to benchmark your recruiting metrics

Just as there is a wide variance between industry and area be aware of the variance between different jobs in the same industry. Benchmarks should be used as a starting point to ask useful questions about your hiring process, not as an absolute measure of what is a complex process.

Nonetheless, if your numbers are completely out of touch with industry benchmarks or other businesses in your location, here are some things you should consider to improve your qualified candidates per hire:

• The first step is to delve into your job advertising. Cross reference your Qualified candidates per hire with a candidate source report. If you’re using paid job boards, check which ones are bringing you qualified candidates. Double down on the sources that are working for you. Cut your spend on those that aren’t. If you’re using free job posting sites, it may be time to increase visibility using a premium job board.
• Revisit your sourcing strategy. Does your recruiting team (or whoever is doing the recruiting for you) properly understand the role you’re hiring for? Could you do a better job of describing the role? If you’re not sourcing enough candidates, is is time to add to your recruiting team?
• If you’re not getting enough qualified candidates, your job descriptions could also be at fault. Make sure you’re writing about the job in a way that will appeal to the kind of people you’re looking for.
• Review your recruiting budget to ensure that you’re spending in the most effective recruiting channels.

The top recruiting KPIs

The recruiting metrics that matter:

• Time to fill: The planning metric
• Time to hire: The efficiency metric
• Interviews per hire: The process metric

Using recruiting metrics effectively is about finding the signal in the noise. Hiring managers, business owners and recruiters need data that delivers actionable insights.

The proper role of recruiting metrics is to answer useful questions about your business. While superficially similar to time to fill, time to hire starts the clock ticking once you’ve already engaged with the candidate, so it tells you something different about your hiring process and recruiting team.

What is time to hire?

Time to hire is the time elapsed between engaging a candidate and then accepting an offer. By tracking this metric, you can answer questions like:

• How long does it take you to spot that you have the right candidate?
• How fast do you move when you find the right person?
• Where are the bottlenecks in your hiring process?

Looking for better reporting analytics? Workable’s reports will refine your recruiting process. Sign up for our 15-day free trial.

Time to hire vs. time to fill

If the main function of time to fill is to inform realistic business planning, then the time to hire metric is about tracking the speed with which good candidates move through your hiring process once they’ve already been sourced or have applied. See how quickly your hiring team are making decisions and look at time to hire for an understanding of how quickly you spot the right candidate when they arrive in your hiring pipeline.

Hiring is a complex activity with too many external factors, from the labor market, to location, to seasonality, for a simple read. But time to hire is the efficiency metric, the one that gives senior management the clearest picture of how the recruiting team is performing.

Time to hire is measured from sourcing until their offer is accepted, not when they start their position, because there are a number of complicating factors. These may include obligations to a former employer, to personal commitments that are often beyond the recruiting team’s control. It’s measured from sourced/applied to the acceptance of the offer.

Should you need additional reporting based on start dates, custom reports can be built using your raw recruiting data in Workable and can be integrated with your preferred business intelligence tool.

More: FAQs about time-to-fill and time-to-hire

What is the average time to hire?

While they can be useful, don’t put excessive weight on benchmarks based on industry averages. Our data at Workable has shown us wide variances by role in most industries, where differences in the labor market can cause lags in closing candidates.

How to improve time to hire:

If your average time to hire is completely out of touch with industry benchmarks or other businesses in your location, here are some things you should consider for reducing time to hire:

• Track hiring velocity. This metric shows how much time you spend in each step of your recruitment process. With this information, you’ll identify areas for improvement. For example:
  • If your sourcing is working well but candidates are getting stuck in the screening call stage it may be time to add to your recruiting team or divert resources from elsewhere.
  • If there’s a slowdown in the interview stage look at how you’re managing interview scheduling.
• Break down the time to hire metric by job or department. If there’s an obvious lag in one team or on one role, talk to your hiring manager to find out why. Stress to them the importance of quick decision-making.
• Invest in an Applicant Tracking System. Instead of manually calculating time to hire, opt for an ATS that tracks recruiting metrics automatically. With detailed reports in your hands,  spot quickly where your hiring process is less efficient and work on fixes. If you’re using Workable as your recruiting software, you can view time to hire reports organized per job or department, for your preferred time frames, or for the entirety of your organization. These reports are easy to share with your team and compare with industry benchmarks and will help you hire faster and better over time.

What are the recruiting metrics that matter?

• Time to fill: The planning metric
• Qualified candidates per hire: The sourcing metric
• Interviews per hire: The process metric
• Use the right recruitment KPIs to get more signal and less noise. Read our recruiting metrics FAQ.