10 applicant tracking system metrics you should care about

Hiring in today’s fast-paced market is not easy. Recruitment is being measured in speed; candidates are expecting more, and recruitment costs seem to be increasing year after year.  As in-house recruiters find it more and more difficult to find, attract and hire top talent, tracking the right recruitment metrics have never been more important. 

Key points

• Recruitment metrics are numbers, values, or other types of quantifiable data that can be used to measure the success of a recruitment campaign. Hiring metrics can be tracked via an applicant tracking system, such as Talos ATS
• Common recruitment metrics to track include time to hire, cost per hire, quality of hire, application completion rate, staff retention rate, and candidate diversity, equality and inclusion
• Tracking recruiting metrics is important to assess a hiring campaign’s effectiveness, so that future campaigns can be adjusted or optimised accordingly

What are recruitment metrics? 

Recruiting metrics are quantifiable measurements such as numbers and values that show you how well your previous recruitment campaigns performed. There are no right or wrong recruiting metrics to track; it depends entirely on your organisation and hiring objectives.

Recruitment metrics are essential to any organisation looking to improve their hiring efficiency. Tracking the right metrics will help you to identify which stages of your recruitment process are working, and which areas could do with some care and attention. 

Top hiring metrics to track 

Tracking the best recruiting metrics will not only help you save time and money, but also help you hire the best possible candidate for your business. 

Whilst these aren’t all the recruiting metrics you could be tracking, our lists below include some of the best hiring metrics to track to guarantee hiring success. 

1. Time to hire 

Quite possibly the most common recruiting metrics to track is time to hire. Quite simply, time to hire is the measurement of the time it takes to hire an individual. Time to hire initially begins when a candidate applies for a role and enters the pipeline and ends the date they are hired. 

On average, organisations take 44 days to hire a candidate. The longer this process takes, the higher the cost, and longer your organisation goes with a gap in the team. 

Tracking time to hire allows recruiters to identify which areas of the recruitment process are slowing you down. Measuring this hiring metric is the first step for organisations looking to reduce time to hire within their organisation. 

2. Cost per hire 

It’s no secret that recruitment is expensive. The average cost per hire can be up to £62,000 and the more specialised the role is, the higher the costs. Why is it so expensive? Hiring costs encompass the entire recruitment process from job adverts, and recruitment agencies to recruitment compliance, salaries and training costs. 

The cost per hire refers to the average cost to fill a vacant role. As this is an average cost, it is measured by dividing the total hiring costs by the number of hires made. 

For recruiters looking to reduce recruiting costs, it’s likely this will be the top hiring metric to track.

3. Quality of hire 

The quality of hire is becoming more and more important for organisations. As we know hiring isn’t cheap, so it’s important to get it right, first time. Measuring the quality of hire identifies whether your new hires are worth the hiring costs incurred.

Tracking the quality of hire allows recruiters to make better hiring decisions in future campaigns with data-backed decisions. 

If recruiters notice a dip in the quality of hires, they may consider improving their job adverts, introducing candidate assessments, and outsourcing to recruitment agencies to reach better-qualified talent. 

4. Time to fill

Believe it or not, time to fill is different to time to hire. Often mistaken as the same recruiting metric, time to fill offers recruiters a more complete view of the hiring process right the way through from job requisition to job offer and onboarding. 

Time to fill is one of the best recruiting metrics to track for recruitment teams looking to evaluate the entire hiring process. 

5. Application completion rate 

This hiring metric is often overlooked by hiring managers and in-house recruiters, but it is an important hiring metric to track for organisations struggling to attract the real top talent. 

Application completion rate measures how many job seekers have fully completed the application process on a company’s career site or job board. 

Tracking this hiring metric provides insight into how effective and application process is, and how user friendly it is to job seekers. Organisations facing a low application completion rate likely have application forms that are too long, too complicated, and difficult for users. 

6. Sourcing channel 

Do you know what is the most effective channel for potential job seekers in your industry?

How are you going to reach the best candidates if you don’t even know where they are? By measuring your sourcing channel, you can identify which channels your ideal candidates reside in.

Tracking this recruiting metric is easily done with hiring software such as an ATS, and is calculated by dividing total number of applications by hires per channel. Tracking your source effectiveness allows you to improve your next campaign and focus on the channels that work for you.

7. Candidate experience 

One of the most important recruiting metrics to track is candidate experience. Your candidate’s experience could be the difference between a successful candidate and an early dropout. 

A reported 58% of candidates expect to hear back from recruiters within a week of their application. If you’re slacking on your candidate experience, it could be costing you big time. 

By implementing candidate surveys you can effectively track and improve candidate experience, and gather information about your candidate journey that you can use to improve in future hiring campaigns.

8. Candidate diversity 

Candidate diversity is another hiring metric commonly tracked by organisations, especially those with diversity objectives. 

Tracking this hiring metric is a good opportunity to identify whether your hiring process is truly inclusive and free of any unconscious bias. If your organisation has poor candidate diversity, it’s probably a sign to go back and assess your job adverts, career sites, social media content and any other applicant facing material.

9. Offer acceptance rate 

Another important hiring metrics, the offer acceptance rate is the difference between the number of candidates presented with an offer and the number of candidates that accepted.

A low acceptance rate could indicate an issue with pay, and deterring candidates from joining your organisations. A solution could be to display salary on job averts or earlier in the recruitment process.

10. Attrition rate 

The attrition rate is an essential hiring metric for HR teams to monitor as it gives visibility into the turnover rate within an organisation. Organisations with a high attrition rate find more employees leaving, whether that be voluntary or involuntary than employees coming in.

A high attrition rate could indicate poor retention, and is something that HR professionals will be aware of.

What are the best recruiting metrics to track?

The best recruiting metric to track will depend on your organisation and your specific hiring needs. Before identifying which hiring metrics you should be tracking, you must first identify your hiring objectives.

Once you have your objectives laid out, you can identify which hiring metrics you will need to track to achieve your objectives.

How to track recruiting metrics with an ATS

The best way to track recruiting metrics is with an applicant tracking system. An advanced piece of hiring software, and ATS provides complete visibility of the entire recruitment process. 

With an ATS in place, you will be able to collect data throughout the entire recruitment process through automated data collection. An applicant tracking system will collect and store each candidate’s information, from basic demographic details to more specific data such as interview feedback and engagement rate. 

Important to note when choosing an ATS, is that the best systems can integrate with additional software, giving you even more flexibility on recruiting metrics to track. 

Applicant tracking systems like Talos ATS also allow recruiters to export data to generate reports and dashboards, making it even easier to go back and evaluate previous hiring campaigns. 

Introducing…

Data-backed hiring with Talos ATS

Make better hiring decisions with our award-winning applicant tracking system, Talos ATS.

Talos ATS allows hiring managers and in-house recruiters complete visibility of the entire recruitment process from attracting candidates right through to onboarding and beyond.

With automated processes and secure candidate data collection, Talos ATS is the perfect tool to attract, manage, hire and report on your previous hiring campaigns.

Start your journey with Talos ATS today.