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With the right sourcing metrics in recruitment you can learn which parts of the recruitment process are performing well and which need improvement.
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Being able to track and measure your sourcing and recruiting metrics enables you to get insight into the efficiency and effectiveness of your recruiting process and track progress over time.
Many companies miss the opportunity to make their process measurable and risk getting stuck on repeat with a process that doesn’t work.
Sourcing metrics in recruiting are measurable units that indicate performance of (part of) the recruitment process. Examples are time to hire, time to fill, quality of hire, conversion time, offer acceptance rate and top sources of hire.
In this guide we’ll explain the following sourcing and recruiting metrics:
Time to hire is the time it takes to hire a candidate measured from the initial touchpoint with the candidate to a signed employment contract. Time to hire is usually expressed in days. The goal of tracking time to hire is to learn about how long you as a company usually take to get to hire candidates. Also knowing the time to hire you can benchmark your average with competitors and you’re able to improve the time to hire by making the recruiting process more efficient.
How to calculate time to hire
date hired - date candidate engaged = Time to hire
Example of time to hire
X-Enterprise has an average time to hire of 45 days across all roles, and an average time of hire of 55 days for technical roles.
Time to fill is the time it takes for you to hire someone for a new job position you have opened. Time to hire is usually expressed in days. The goal of tracking time to fill is to get insights into how efficient your recruiting process has been for the specific job position and getting an idea of hiring difficulty for certain positions. Knowing the time to fill helps you better estimate time needed in the future for your next hires, set realistic targets and bring more efficiency in the recruiting process.
How to calculate time to fill
date position filled - date opening position = time to fill
Example of time to fill
X-Enterprise had a time to fill of 32 days for the new sales executive position.
Quality of hire is a measure of value of the candidates who are hired. Value in this case is the extent to which the candidate is expected to reach or exceed goals set for the positions. Quality of hire is usually expressed in a score from 0 to 10 given by one or more of the hiring managers.
How to calculate quality of hire
score (0 - 10) = quality of hire
Example of quality of hire
X-Enterprise has had an average quality of hire of 7.7 in 2022, the quality of hire in 2022 was highest for the Python Engineer role.
Cost per hire is the cost associated with hiring. The cost per hire is usually expressed as the total cost associated with hiring someone for a job position. The goal of measuring cost per hire is to get a better understanding of underlying internal recruitment costs (salaries of inhouse recruiters, internal HR and recruitment systems, etc.) and external recruitment costs (recruitment agency fees, employee dept payments, etc.) as well as pointing out points of improvement in the hiring process from an efficiency perspective.
How to calculate cost per hire
internal recruitment cost for position + external recruitment costs for position = cost per hire
Example of cost per hire
X-Enterprise has had an average cost of hire of $8.500 on average per position in 2022, the position with the highest cost of hire in 2022 was VP of Marketing with $45.800.
Candidate experience is the overall experience of a candidate during the entire recruitment cycle. Candidate experience is usually expressed in as well quantitative candidate feedback such as a feedback score from 0 to 10 as qualitative candidate feedback like written points of improvement. The goal of measuring candidate experience is to be able to highlight flaws in the recruitment process from a candidate perspective, improve the perception of the candidate about your employment brand and increase conversion from candidate to hires.
How to calculate candidate experience
depends on data collection method
Example of candidate experience
X-Enterprise provides an excellent candidate experience with an average candidate experience score of 8.5/10 given by candidates.
Outreach conversions are moments of action taken by the candidate based on desired or undesired actions. The outreach process has several desirable actions like opening your outreach email (open rate), clicking a link in your mail (click rate) and replying to your message (reply rate). Many companies talk about ‘conversion’ as if it is one measurable unit but it’s not. You have to specify which conversion is being tracked.
Below are the explanations of each individual outreach conversion.
Open rate is the percentage of emails that is opened by the candidate. Open rate is expressed as a percentage (%) of total emails sent. The goal of measuring open rate is to measure the effectiveness of your outbound (email) outreach and the quality of your subject line since the subject line is one of the most important reasons for candidates to decide if they will open your email.
How to calculate open rate
amount of emails opened / amount of emails sent * 100 = open rate
Example of open rate
Sarah from X-Enterprise had an open rate of 70% from the 220 cold emails she sent for the senior digital marketeer position.
Click rate is the percentage of links that you included in your email that were clicked by the candidate. Click rate is expressed as a percentage (%) of total emails sent. The goal of measuring click rate is to create insight into the extent to which candidates show further interest in additional information related to the position after opening your mail.
How to calculate click rate
amount of emails clicked / amount of emails sent * 100 = click rate
Example of click rate
Sarah had a click rate of 15% from the 220 cold emails she sent for the senior digital marketeer position.
Reply rate is the percentage of emails that is being replied to by the candidate. Reply rate is expressed as a percentage (%) of total emails sent.
How to calculate replied rate
amount of emails replied / amount of emails sent * 100 = reply rate
Example of replied rate
Sarah had a reply rate of 12.5% from the 220 cold emails she sent for the senior digital marketeer position.
Average number of applicants to fill is the average number of applicants that is needed for a position to be filled. The goal of measuring the average number of applicants to fill is to get a better understanding of when a position should be getting to completion and signal extreme cases of a very high number of applicants before filling the position.
How to calculate average number of applicants to fill
sum of all applicants for all positions / amount of positions * 100 = average number of applicants to fill
Example of average number of applicants to fill
X-Enterprise had an average number of applicants to fill of 115 in 2022.
Funnel conversions are moments of successful competition of stages in the hiring funnel (or recruitment funnel). The recruitment process has several stages through which the candidate moves with separate milestones that have to be achieved before they move to the next stage. Examples of funnel conversions are the percentage of applicants who got hired (applicant to hired rate), the percentage of prospects who got hired (prospect to hired rate) and the percentage of applicants who got to the interview round (applicant to interview rate). Between any two steps in the funnel, you can track the percentage of contacts who moved from one stage to the other.
Below are the explanations of several funnel conversions.
Applicant to hire rate is the percentage of candidates who got hired from the total number of applicants. The goal of measuring applicant to hire rate is to get an understanding of how many applicants you typically need to fill a job or to track how effective your conversion is from moving applicants to hires.
How to calculate applicant to hire rate
amount of hires / amount of applicants * 100 = applicant to hire rate
Example of applicant to hire rate
X-Enterprise reported an overall applicant to hire rate of 1% on average, requiring about 100 applicants to fill a position on average.
Prospect to hire rate is the percentage of prospects who were targeted who eventually got hired. A prospect is a prospective candidate who is reached with marketing or outbound channels. The goal of measuring prospect to hire rate is to get insight into how effective your targeting and outreach efforts are and your conversion rate to hires.
How to calculate prospect to hire rate
amount of hires / amount of prospects * 100 = prospect to hire rate
Example of prospect to hire rate
X-Enterprise had a prospect to hire rate of 0.2% in 2022 overall.
Applicant to interview rate is the percentage of candidates who got interviewed in respect to the number of applicants, for one specific job or overall. The goal of measuring applicant to interview rate is to learn how many applicants get to the interview rounds which can give insight into (pre)screening effectiveness.
How to calculate applicant to interview rate
amount of first interviews / amount of applicants * 100 = applicant to interview rate
Example of applicant to interview rate
X-Enterprise had an applicant to interview rate of 2% overall in 2022 and the highest applicant to interview rate was for the Operations Manager position with 6%.
Interview to offer rate is the percentage of candidates who get an offer out of the total number of candidates who got to the interview rounds. The goal of measuring interview to offer rate is to learn how many candidates are needed on average to interview to get to an offer.
How to calculate interview to offer rate
amount of offers / amount of first interviews * 100 = interview to offer rate
Example of interview to offer rate
X-Enterprise had an interview to offer rate of 22% overall in 2022.
Sourced candidate to interview is the percentage of candidates who were sourced pro-actively (outbound) who got to the interview rounds. The goal of measuring sourced candidate to interview is to learn how effective the proactive sourcing efforts are of the hiring company (compared to other methods such as recruitment marketing).
How to calculate sourced applicant to interview
amount of first interviews / amount of sourced applicants * 100 = sourced candidate to interview rate
Example of sourced applicant to interview
X-Enterprise had a sourced candidate to interview rate of 5% overall in 2022.
Conversion time is the time between any two given stages in the recruitment funnel. Conversion time is typically expressed as the number of days. Conversion time can be tracked for example from applicant to hire or from prospect to interview.
How to calculate conversion time
date funnel stage B - date funnel stage A = conversion time
Example of conversion time
X-Enterprise had an average applicant to hire conversion time of 23 days for software engineer roles.
Offer acceptance rate is the percentage of candidates who accept an offer. The goal of measuring offer acceptance rate is to get insight into how attracted candidates are to what the hiring company is offering in terms of function, responsibilities, salary, employer brand and benefits.
How to calculate offer acceptance rate
amount of offers accepted / total amount of offers made * 100 = offer acceptance rate
Example of offer acceptance rate
X-Enterprise has an overall average offer acceptance rate of 52%.
Top sources of hire are the sources of candidates where most of the hires come from. Top sources of hire is expressed in a list of sources including the percentage of hires that are coming from each particular source. The goal of measuring top sources of hire is to find out which sourcing channels are best for which candidate target groups. For sales executives for example referrals might return the most hires but for software engineers it might be direct sourcing from GitHub.
How to calculate top sources of hire
amount of candidates hired from source (for each source) / total amount of hires * 100 = top sources of hire
Example of top sources of hire
For X-Enterprise the top 3 sources of hire in 2022 were Referrals (35%), LinkedIn direct sourcing (28%) and GitHub (13%).
Top reasons for decline are the reasons that candidates give most frequently for declining your job offer. Top reasons for decline expressed as a list of reasons for decline followed by the percentage indicating frequency of that reason being given. The goal of measuring top reasons for decline is that you better understand why candidates don’t choose to work for you (and choose to work for someone else).You need some level of standardization of reasons of
How to calculate top reasons for decline
reason of decline (clustered) / total declines *100 = top reason for decline (highest percentage)
Example of top reasons for decline
For X-Enterprise the top 3 reasons for decline in 2022 were uncompetitive salary (25%), unsatisfying secondary benefits (22%) and no remote allowance (7%).
Active/Passive ratio is the ratio of active candidates vs passive candidates. Active candidates are those who are actively looking for a job and applied to a job by their own initiative and passive candidates are those who are not openly looking for a job but who have shown interest after being reached out to. The goal of measuring active/passive ratio is to get a better understanding of which sourcing methods work for the hiring company and to highlight differences in the methods’ effectiveness per job family.
How to calculate active/passive ratio
amount of active candidates / total candidates *100 = active candidates
amount of passive candidates / total candidates *100 = passive candidates
Example of active/passive ratio
X-Enterprise had an active/passive ration of 30% over 70% for 2022.
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