The 10 Critical Hiring Metrics You Need To Know

Each of these metrics can be easily found in your ATS system (if you’re using one), and for vendors that have advanced analytics capabilities, shouldn’t require separate excel spreadsheets or CSV downloads to calculate.

For each metric, we’ll look at:

1. Definitions and uses
2. How to calculate it
3. How to use it tactically
4. How to use it strategically

Plus, some examples of how metrics could sound when they’re being presented to the board.

Let’s dive into the metrics  👇

1. Number of Applicants

How should it be defined?
How many people applied for a role.

How should it be measured?
Count the total applications for the role to get a whole number.

Tactical Use: How it’s used (day to day)

• Shows how much traction your job post is getting, often indicating whether your post needs to be optimised.
• Helps recruiters see if they’re reaching enough potential candidates at the top of the funnel.

Strategic Use: How it’s used (big picture)

• Reflects brand visibility and competitiveness in the talent market.
• Consistently low applicant numbers – especially for key roles – can point to deeper issues like employer brand issues, poor job ad SEO optimisation, or an overly niche sourcing strategy.

Board-level Insight
“We need to invest in improving our employer branding because candidate volume is half the industry average and our EVP is within the benchmark figures for the role. Widening our candidate pool will help us hire faster and improve the quality of new hires entering into the business to meet our hiring demand for the next few quarters.”

2. Application Completion Rate

How should it be defined?
The percentage of candidates who start your application but don’t finish it.

How should it be measured?
Application completion rate should be calculated as a percentage, with a higher number indicating better performance.

Calculation: (Completed Applications ÷ Started Applications) × 100

Tactical Use: How it’s used (day to day)

•  Identifies friction points in the early application process. For example, if most candidates drop off at page three of your application, you’ve likely found one of the simplest problems to solve.

Strategic Use: How it’s used (big picture)

•  Reflects candidate experience, employer brand strength, and EVP.
•  A low completion rate means that your process is costing you quality candidates before you even meet them.

3. Cost per Application

How should it be defined?
How much you spend, on average, to get a single application across your sourcing strategy (with the correct data structure, this can also be applied to individual channels).

How should it be measured?
Cost per application is measured using currency units, typically in GBP (£) or USD ($) depending on your region. Lower numbers are typically better, but there’s a significant variance based on seniority of the role, desired experience or location.

Calculation: Total sourcing spend ÷ applications received

Tactical Use: How it’s used (day to day)

• Compare sourcing channels to see which delivers applications most efficiently.
• Shift budget away from expensive, underperforming channels and double down on the ones that perform strongly.

Strategic Use: How it’s used (big picture)

• Combine this with applicant quality to understand which channels are truly delivering value, not just volume.
• Cost per application is a commercially driven metric by nature, although it should be used alongside cost per hire when reporting to the board to provide a more strategic viewpoint.

Board-level Insight
“We reduced cost per application by 25% by prioritising referrals, saving £50,000 annually. In response to this success, we’ve designed an employee referral program to scale the volume of candidates that we receive from referrals to drive additional savings over the next year.”

4. Quality of Applicant

How should it be defined?
The percentage of applicants who meet minimum criteria or pass early-stage screening.

How should it be measured?
Candidate quality should be calculated as a percentage, with a higher number indicating better performance.

Calculation: (Qualified Applicants ÷ Total Applicants) × 100

Tactical Use: How it’s used (day to day)

• Prevents recruiters drowning in unqualified CVs.
• A high-quality candidate pool means less wasted time for hiring managers.

Strategic Use: How it’s used (big picture)

• Shows how well your job advertising matches the actual role requirements.
• If applicant quality is consistently low, it’s a clear sign to rethink your job descriptions or adjust your sourcing strategy.

Board-level Insight
“We improved applicant quality by 20% this quarter, reducing our average time to fill and unlocking 10 days of extra productivity per hire.”

5. Sourcing Channel Effectiveness

How should it be defined?
The percentage of hires made from each sourcing channel.

How should it be measured?
Sourcing effectiveness is calculated as a percentage. This should be combined with candidate quality to not only understand what’s driving volume, but where your sourcing strategy can be optimised.

Calculation: (Hires from a channel ÷ Total applicants from that channel) × 100

Tactical Use: How it’s used (day to day)

• Rank channels by actual hires, not just volume of applications.
• Focus investment on channels that convert, saving time and budget on managing candidates that don’t match the job requirements.

Strategic Use: How it’s used (big picture)

• Influences budget allocation, sourcing strategy and employer branding.
• Ties sourcing back to ROI, assisting in providing insight that directly impacts commercials: “Referrals accounted for 40% of hires, with the highest retention rates across the first 12 months of employment.”

6. Interview-to-Hire Ratio

How should it be defined?
How many interviews are required to make a single hire.

How should it be measured?
As the name implies, interview to hire is measured as a ratio, typically written as multiple of one (x:1, where x is the number of interviews conducted). A lower ‘x’ number indicates better performance, where less interviews are required to find a candidate that matches the role.

Calculation: Interviews Conducted ÷ Number of Hires

Tactical Use: How it’s used (day to day)

• Indicates efficiency of screening, and internal ability to assess candidates accurately against desirable skills and experience.
• A ratio of 20:1 suggests recruiters are forwarding too many unsuitable candidates.

Strategic Use: How it’s used (big picture)

• Reflects hiring manager satisfaction and the overall productivity impact on teams actively hiring.
• Improving this ratio saves time and reduces workload for leaders and recruiters.

Board-level Insight
“We identified that our interview-to-hire ratio was above the benchmark for our industry. We launched interview kits, improving our ratio and reduced unnecessary interviews by 30%, saving over 100 hours of leadership time per quarter.”

7. Candidate Drop-Off

How should it be defined?
The percentage of candidates lost at each stage of the hiring process.

How should it be measured?
Calculated as a percentage, candidate drop off should be applied between individual stages of your hiring process. The lower the percentage, the better the process is performing. This is especially important for late stage candidates, where a significant amount of resources and time have been spent in qualifying and (potentially) interviewing.

Calculation: (Candidates Lost ÷ Candidates Entered) × 100

Tactical Use: How it’s used (day to day)

• Pinpoints bottlenecks or gaps in candidate communication that can be fixed to improve hiring performance
• Example: If 50% of candidates drop after the first interview, your process might be too slow, or your interview panel isn’t selling the role well.

Strategic Use: How it’s used (big picture)

• Whilst the figure is representative, the causes behind the metric could indicate negative impacts on employer brand reputation, potentially harming future hiring success.
• High drop-off rates may indicate a competitive disadvantage, breakdowns in communication, or a hiring process that doesn’t match the role’s seniority.

8. Offer Acceptance Rate

How should it be defined?
The percentage of candidates who accept offers.

How should it be measured?
Offer acceptance rate (OAR) is measured as a percentage, with a higher number indicative of stronger performance. OAR is a critical metric to understand, given that your top candidates are the cohort that will receive offers. If your rate is low, it should be a top priority for improvement to prevent you from missing out on top talent.

Calculation: (Offers Accepted ÷ Offers Sent) × 100

Tactical Use: How it’s used (day to day)

• Flags whether compensation and benefits are competitive.
• Recruiters can use it to fine-tune negotiation tactics to improve acceptance.

Strategic Use: How it’s used (big picture)

• Strong acceptance rates = strong employer brand, candidate experience and interview technique.
• Weak acceptance rates = evidence to take to leadership that compensation, benefits, or the overall employee value proposition (EVP) needs revisiting.

9. Cost per Hire

How should it be defined?
The total spend required to make one hire.

How should it be measured?
Cost per application is measured using currency units, typically in GBP (£) or USD ($) depending on your region. Similarly to cost per application, lower numbers are typically better, though there’s a high degree of variance. Where cost per application is a leading indicator, cost per hire can be seen as a lagging metric (only reviewed after the role has been filled).

Calculation: Total Hiring Costs ÷ Total Number of Hires

Tactical Use: How it’s used (day to day)

• Helps recruiters manage budgets and forecast the spend required to meet hiring demand
• Essential for workforce planning and evaluating the efficiency of the current hiring strategy.

Strategic Use: How it’s used (big picture)

• A board-level KPI that’s a simple way to tie hiring efforts to commercial outcomes and gains.
• Provides visibility into HR’s financial impact and helps demonstrate ROI on hiring budgets and investments.

10. Time to Fill

How should it be defined?
The total time taken from job requisition approval to accepted offer.

How should it be measured?
Time to fill is measured in days, with a lower number signifying a more efficient hiring process. Not to be confused with time to hire, which only concerns the amount of time between a candidate entering the pipeline and accepting an offer. Whilst both metrics are useful, time to fill includes a broader definition which can be useful in identifying internal approval bottlenecks.

Calculation: Date Offer Accepted − Date Job Requisition Opened

Tactical Use: How it’s used (day to day)

• Highlights delays in the hiring process, such as slow job postings or interview scheduling, helping improve efficiency and candidate experience.
• Supports proactive workforce planning and forecasting of hiring budget requirements, for example, a longer time to fill may require more budget

Strategic Use: How it’s used (big picture)

• Links directly to revenue impact through faster access to required workforce productivity.
• A faster hire means teams are at full capacity sooner, which can accelerate business growth.