Recruitment KPIs: what are the 20 key indicators you need to know to boost your performance?
When it comes to recruitment, each company develops its own strategy.
Nevertheless, they are all looking to make savings by integrating the most qualified candidate into their teams as quickly as possible.
In order to optimise this recruitment process, it is essential to be able to rely on reliable and relevant indicators: recruitment KPIs 👍.
What are recruitment KPIs?
A recruitment KPI (Key Performance Indicator) can be defined as an indicator used to measure the effectiveness of a company's recruitment policy. These indicators can take a variety of forms depending on what the company is trying to assess.
👉 Generally speaking, we will find elements that reflect the quality of the recruitment process, the cost generated and candidate satisfaction.
What is the purpose of recruitment KPIs?
As precise and objective indicators, recruitment KPIs enable you to assess the strengths and areas for improvement in your recruitment policy. They give you an overall idea of the effectiveness of your practices in this area, which you can use as a basis for striving towards a higher level of performance.
In order to have a clear map, we tend to divide recruitment KPIs into several categories 👉.
💡 Tip: gathering recruitment data and calculating all the indicators by hand takes a considerable amount of time... which HR and recruiters don't have! That's why they often rely on specialist software.
Take Softy, for example, a solution for managing the entire recruitment process (processing applications, career site, multicasting vacancies, etc.). This tool incorporates statistical functions for in-depth analysis of the effectiveness of different aspects of the recruitment process, based on reliable, up-to-date information, for better decision-making.
Workforce-related recruitment KPIs
💡 These indicators, which could be described as basic, are the first on which the company will base its recruitment policy.
Staff turnover
For a company, it is normal to see a form of turnover between outgoing and incoming employees. This is all the more true at a time when spending one's entire career within a single structure is no longer the order of the day.
Too much turnover can be damaging or alarming. It may reflect a feeling of discomfort in the workplace. Conversely, a rate that is too low can be interpreted as reflecting a lack of ambition or dynamism.
💡 For information, INSEE has set the average turnover rate in France at 15% over the whole of 2021.
| Calculation of turnover rate = [(departures in year N + arrivals in year N) / 2] / Headcount at 1 January of year N |
Recruitment needs
Whether to compensate for announced departures or simply to respond to the company's development, recruitment takes place throughout the year.
To find out whether the recruitment policy is effective, we compare the number of actual arrivals with the number of desired arrivals, expressed in terms of recruitment needs.
Recruitment KPIs linked to the company's attractiveness
💡 To attract candidates, your company must demonstrate a minimum level of attractiveness. To assess this, you can base yourself on the following recruitment KPIs.
The number of applications received
Unsurprisingly, the more applications you receive, the more attractive you are to future employees.
☝️ However, these figures need to be interpreted in the light of various factors (current market conditions, recruitment marketing campaign, etc.).
Volume of applications received by job vacancy and area of activity
Similarly, the volume of CVs received for each profession (communications, sales, etc.) gives you a good idea of the most attractive areas within your company.
It's a good way of knowing where to focus your recruitment efforts.
Average career site traffic
If you have a careers site, analysing its traffic gives you a precise idea of the number of visitors.
Insufficient traffic, for example, could lead you to rework the site and give it more prominence.
Recruitment KPIs linked to the performance of your ads
💡 The number of applications is closely linked to the quality of your ads. To assess this, there are three main criteria.
Conversion rate
Your ad may have been seen a hundred times, but if it doesn't trigger any applications on arrival, its visibility will have had no impact.
To measure the performance of an advert, you need to focus on the conversion rate.
| Calculation of the conversion rate = (number of conversions / number of interactions) x 100 |
Bounce rate
The bounce rate of an ad is defined as the number of visitors who immediately leave the site without having interacted with the ad.
Generally speaking, a satisfactory bounce rate should be less than 50%.
Abandonment rate
Getting candidates to click on your ad is one thing. Getting them to actually apply is quite another!
The abandonment rate determines the percentage of visitors who decide not to go through with the application process.
A high abandonment rate is generally synonymous with an unsatisfactory candidate experience, which can be manifested in steps that are too long and tedious.
It's worth noting that the abandonment rate enables you to determine the breaking point that causes visitors to give up applying. So you can think about how to make your process smoother and more user-friendly .
Recruitment KPIs linked to your process
💡 Here, we're going to focus on the recruitment KPIs that highlight the effectiveness of your recruitment policy.
Time taken to process applications
The better a company's HR department is able to collect, sort and follow up on the applications it receives, the smoother the recruitment process becomes.
It is then easier to organise a series of interviews and, if necessary, launch a new recruitment campaign if no satisfactory candidate is found.
The selectivity rate
Receiving a large number of applications for a job vacancy is a very positive aspect. On the other hand, retaining only a very small number of "credible" candidates indicates a need to rework your advertisements.
The same reasoning can be applied to the validation of successful candidates and the organisation of interviews. If for every 10 interviews you carry out, you formally reject 8 candidates, this means that your work on analysing CVs and candidate profiles is not optimal.
| Selectivity rate = (number of successful applications / number of applications received) x 100 |
The drop-out rate during the recruitment process
During your recruitment process, it can happen that a candidate in the running decides to withdraw. There can be many reasons for this, such as accepting a competing offer or a recruitment model that is deemed to betoo demanding or too long (two telephone interviews followed by a test to be handed in, then a face-to-face interview itself followed by a two-month trial period, etc.).).
A high drop-out rate would therefore suggest that you would do well to review your recruitment process.
| Drop-out rate = (number of candidates who withdrew during the recruitment process / number of candidates selected) x 100 |
Offer acceptance rate
This is the final stage in the recruitment process for a company.
If everything has gone well with a candidate, you end up sending them your final offer of employment. However, sometimes the offer is put off, leading you to turn to another candidate.
An abnormally low acceptance rate indicates that there is a real problem with the offers you are making. This could, for example, be linked to the working conditions or, more simply, the salary on offer. It's up to you to survey the candidates who have turned you down in order to determine what obstacles need to be removed to make your offers more attractive.
| Acceptance rate = (number of proposals accepted / number of proposals carried out) x 100 |
Cost-related recruitment KPIs
💡 When it comes to recruitment policy, profitability is a very important aspect. The costs and efforts invested must necessarily be kept under control.
The total cost of recruitment
When we look at the sums invested in a recruitment campaign, we naturally think of the costs inherent in publishing advertisements on job boards or the rates charged by the recruitment agency where applicable.
But there are other resources to consider, particularly in-house. For example, the time spent sorting CVs, conducting interviews or planning training for future onboarding.
| Total cost of recruitment = all internal costs + all external costs |
Cost per recruitment
In order to optimise your recruitment profitability, you need to aim for the lowest possible cost.
This recruitment KPI tells you how much it costs to turn a candidate into an employee of your company. It is estimated that the average cost of recruitment is around €6,000.
| Cost per recruitment = total cost of recruitment / number of candidates recruited |
The internal recruitment rate
There are many advantages to recruiting internally. Less expensive than an external campaign, this method of recruitment also helps to strengthen commitment to the company, as well as building loyalty among your employees.
According to various studies, internal mobility offers greater satisfaction - for both employer and employee - and can result in savings of up to 50% compared with traditional recruitment.
| Internal recruitment rate = (number of candidates recruited internally / total number of candidates recruited) x 100 |
Post-recruitment KPIs
💡 When we think of recruitment KPIs, we mostly think of all the indicators that lead up to recruitment. Yet there is valuable data to analyse once the employment contract has been signed by the new employee.
Non-renewed trial periods
Although trial periods are not compulsory, many companies choose to introduce them to ensure that both parties are satisfied.
Unfortunately, sometimes the company or the new employee decides to end the trial period. This means going back to the drawing board to find a new candidate, which generates additional work and costs.
The retention rate
The chemistry between employer and employee may well develop during the first few months with the company.
However, it can also happen that employees want to leave for a variety of reasons. If you notice a low retention rate among your new employees, it probably means that improvements need to be made in terms of employee commitment.
| Retention rate: (number of employees still in post at N+X / number of employees recruited at N) x 100 |
Level of satisfaction and performance
On the employer's side, it is possible that the new recruit's level of performance falls short of expectations.
Insofar as this is the case for the majority of employees recruited, it may reflect a lack of discernment or rigour in the selection criteria.
It is therefore important to ensure that the various managers are satisfied with the successful integration and development of new employees.
These other recruitment KPIs might interest you
The parity rate
Ensuring gender diversity within your company is a good practice to maintain. The parity rate can help you in this task. It is a good way of guiding your recruitment policy and giving preference to certain profiles.
Candidate satisfaction levels
The easiest way to find out about the strengths and weaknesses of your recruitment process is to ask the people you're recruiting!
With this in mind, don't hesitate to talk about it during your interviews or to distribute a questionnaire to all the candidates selected.
Recruitment KPIs: what you need to remember
Collecting and analysing recruitment KPIs is the best way to identify the strengths and weaknesses of your recruitment policy.
For a company, the benefits are numerous, ranging from lower recruitment costs to improved employee commitment, not to mention better targeting of candidates likely to bring satisfaction.
To help you with this task, there are a number of specialist recruitment software packages available on the market 💻.
Article translated from French