KPIs to evaluate recruiter’s performance

Any company starts with a recruiter, and this is not just a metaphor. In fact, a recruiter is the first representative of the company that the applicant meets. Thus, a recruiter needs to do their best in the job position. How to evaluate recruiter performance?

This blog post teaches how to evaluate whether the recruiter performs their work well. This will be extremely useful for the HR generalists who delegate and manage the hiring process. Stay tuned!

Why is the recruiter’s performance important?

You have definitely heard the phrase “war for talents”. And no matter how long ago it was uttered, its relevance in modern business realities cannot be overestimated. The recruiter is the one who provides the best personnel and helps win this war.

Recruiters’ performance is the key point in evaluating the recruitment process and understanding how effectively the company covers its needs for labor resources.

Evaluating recruiter’s performance doesn’t mean revealing their flaws. Instead, it means finding ways to improve the hiring process and find growth areas for employees. 

What does good performance mean for every hiring process participant?

A good recruiter brings positive hiring experience to the candidates, satisfies the hiring manager's needs, and has positive talent acquisition KPIs!

• Positive hiring experience
• Satisfied Hiring Manager 
• Positive KPIs (for HR or Team Lead)

You could ask why you have to measure KPIs if the candidates and managers are satisfied. Everything is simple. This is a data-driven approach!

Free calculator to measure recruitment KPIs

Don't think that these metrics are important only for the performance review for recruiter. The main goal of recruitment analytics and recruiter evaluation is to study the patterns and efficiency of recruiting. For example, if there is a high turnover in a particular position (new employees leave within 3 months), then this may indicate a mismatch in the job description and the actual role of the employee.

Recruitment analytics provides insight and answers to important questions for HR planning:

• Which recruiting source offers the best candidates?
• What is the cost of hiring an employee?
• What do the best candidates have in common?
• How to eliminate a fast staff turnover?

To answer these questions and make your recruitment data-driven, use the following KPIs:

What KPIs to use when measuring recruiter’s performance?

1. Candidate pipeline

The candidate pipeline reflects the overall number of candidates in the pipeline. It is a simple but clear indicator for understanding the average number of candidates for each vacancy. How to evaluate recruiter performance in terms of candidate management? The candidate pipeline measurement will help the HR manager forecast hiring plans and report to the company’s management.

How often to calculate: by the duration of the vacancy 

Formula: The formula is as straightforward as possible. To calculate the candidate pipeline, sum up all the candidates for each position in the pipeline. We recommend calculating the average number of candidates for vacancies of the same level in one department.

Healthy rate: depends significantly on the job position

2. Sourcing Channel Efficiency

Recruiters can look for the best-fit candidates by means of various sourcing channels, such as social media, referral programs, networking events, etc. But how to understand whether recruiter’s efforts bring results? You can measure sourcing channel efficiency, i.e., the conversion of each source of search.

How often to calculate: quarterly or annually

Formula: To calculate the sourcing channel efficiency, divide the total number of hired employees by means of a particular recruitment method by the total number of job applicants from this channel, and multiply the result by 100%. 

For example, if you received 200 CVs from the target Instagram ad and they resulted in four hires, your sourcing channel effectiveness would be 2%.

Healthy rate: depends significantly on the job position

3. Interview-to-offer ratio

This indicator reflects the number of interviews a recruiter has to conduct before making an offer. Thus, the ratio is defined as the number of job offers extended compared to the number of interviews conducted.

This concept is often confused with the average time per hire, but the difference lies in the omission of the rejected job offers. If your offer acceptance rate is high, these 2 KPIs are almost the same.

How often to calculate: quarterly or annually

Formula: To calculate the interview-to-offer ratio, take the number of sent offers and divide by the number of conducted interviews, and then multiply the result by 100%. 

Healthy rate: 42,1%

4. Quantity of hire

The clearest KPI that HR can give the recruiter is the quantity of hires per quarter. This general number provides the recruiter with an understanding of the company’s hiring plans. Of course, it depends on the company size and the number of open vacancies, but it serves as a specific goal that the recruiter aims to pursue.

How often to calculate: quarterly 

Formula: To calculate the quantity of hires, take the total number of employees engaged to the company by a particular recruiter. 

Healthy rate: depends significantly on the company size

5. Quality of hire

How to measure recruiter performance? Here quality of hire is important.

Quality of hire indicates an employee's performance evaluation in the probation period. It is an essential indicator since a failed hire results in additional direct and indirect costs (depending on the employee's rate and bonuses).

Quality of hire metrics is basic and also crucial for understanding the adequacy of your organization’s recruiting procedure. There are many variations of the quality of hire formula. The most common is the inclusion of job performance, engagement, and cultural fit. The main challenge of this KPI is that it is difficult to measure, i.e., to place a numeric value on things like employee engagement and cultural fit. We recommend you standardize your company’s approach on how to measure recruiter performance to overcome this issue.   

How often to calculate: quarterly 

Formula: To calculate the quality of hires, sum up several indicators, divide them by their number (in our formula - 3), and then multiply the result by 100%. 

• Job performance: job-specific KPI including the percentage of clients engaged, number of products sold, etc.
• Engagement: average point of the employee engagement survey collecting valuable information about the company’s quality of hire.
• Cultural fit: average point of the hiring manager assessing the candidate’s match with the team. 

Healthy rate: depends on the survey criteria

6. Hiring Manager Satisfaction

Along with the quality of hire, hiring manager satisfaction is another indicator of successful recruiting. When a manager is satisfied with the new candidates in their team, the candidate is more likely to perform well and quickly join the team. In other words, the candidate is more likely to be a successful match. You may think that this metric is quite biased. So, how to measure hiring manager satisfaction?

This metric measures the share of managers satisfied with the hiring process and the quality of candidates. Hiring manager satisfaction measurement requires preliminary preparation. It would be best if you determined the preferences of hiring managers before recruiting (like language proficiency, ability to work in a team, leadership, creativity, etc.). Then make a survey for hiring managers after the candidate’s probation period using these points. For example, use such evaluation criteria: E = Exceeds expectations; M = Meets expectations; B = Below expectations. With this survey, you will be able to determine the satisfaction of each manager.

How often to calculate: quarterly or annually 

Formula: To calculate average hiring manager satisfaction, divide the number of satisfied hiring managers in a certain period (those having mostly E and M survey responses) by the total number of hiring managers and multiply the result by 100%.

Healthy rate: 80%

There are some not less crucial indicators that we talked about in our recent blog post - 15 Best Metrics And KPIs For HR. 

You may define the high-priority metrcis and include them into the recruiter performance review.

Pay attention to such KPIs as Recruiting conversion rate, Job offer acceptance rate, Time per hire, and Cost per hire. These indicators are also essential for HR to measure.

How to simplify the recruitment process?

According to Forbes, some companies are already using chatbots to find new employees. But not a single robot will conduct an interview with the same quality as a person. 

However, specialists can delegate routine work to software while concentrating on more complex and creative functions.

Axterior is an online recruitment platform automating the hiring process. With Axterior, HRs don’t have to take control of each recruiters’ steps. Everything is kept in a convenient and attractive dashboard. You can track the progress of each recruiter with all the job positions and candidates. 

The software allows customizing the hiring process according to the specifics of your organization. With so much time saved, you’ll be able to devote more time to strategic planning of employee engagement and other critical tasks.

Conclusion

At first glance, all these KPIs seem complicated. But the role of these KPIs for talent acquisition is crucial. Such control has many advantages, both for HR and the manager. They allow you to see an accurate picture of what is happening in the company. With their help, you can detect weaknesses in management in time and eliminate them. Don’t be afraid to implement a data-driven approach in human management!