The 5 Metrics to Measuring the Success of Your Staffing Partner

Ideally, recruitment is as easy as posting a job, interviewing a candidate, and then hiring them. Unfortunately, the process is much more complicated than that. Determining if you’re successfully hiring requires more than just answering the question of “is this position filled or not?”

Because recruiting and hiring takes a significant amount of time, many companies use outside staffing agencies or recruiters to help with the process. As you evaluate your staffing success, here are five recruiting metrics to use to determine if your staffing agency is successfully recruiting and hiring qualified candidates for your company’s needs.

RETENTION RATE
The ultimate way to determine if the candidate was a good fit is to evaluate the retention rate. The more employees like working for the company and feel that the job supports their career goals, the longer they will stay.

Replacing employees can be expensive and range anywhere from 50 to 60% of their salary. Companies want high retention rates to save costs and show that people enjoy working at their company enough to stick around. Measuring retention can be done company-wide or for a specific role, and the recommended time is often a year or longer.

DAYS TO HIRE
Days to hire is the length of time a specific applicant is in the funnel between when they first apply to when they accept an offer. Using this metric is beneficial because it takes a closer look at the candidate’s experience in the hiring process. To further evaluate the data, break it down into three parts:

• Time to first contact: When the company first receives the applicant’s resume.
• Time to set up the first interview with the company: How long does it take to set up the interview and how many days does that candidate have to wait.
• Time to hear back after the interview: How long does it take for the candidate to hear about next steps or an offer.

By gathering and evaluating this data, you can improve your procedures and cut these time intervals to be as short as possible. This will help the company, staffing agency and the candidate not waste time and help you efficiently find the best recruit possible.

HIRES TO GOAL
Hires to goal is the number of hires needed to meet a predetermined goal within a certain time period and gives your team a clear-cut indicator of how many hires they need to gain before they reach their target. This metric is the number one measurement to focus on because it informs all of the other metrics.

OFFER ACCEPTANCE RATE
The offer acceptance rate is the number of candidates who accept the job offer divided by the number of candidates who are sent an offer. This metric is used to determine the overall effectiveness of staffing agencies’ recruitment strategies. By evaluating this metric, you can investigate other indexes like the quality of applicants, the quality of offers and applicant satisfaction.

If you want to improve your acceptance rate, ask candidates to fill out a survey after they decline an offer detailing the reason why they declined. Was their benefits package lacking, was the compensation not up to industry standards or did they just not fit in with the company culture?

QUALIFIED CANDIDATES PER OPENING (APPLICANTS PER HIRE)
Qualified candidates per opening is how many candidates make it past the first stage of the hiring process. This metric tells you how many are worth talking to out of the ones who apply.​ This level of detail is necessary when you want to adjust the funnel of candidates you are interviewing.

This measurement can help you cut unnecessary interviews and unqualified candidates. Once you know how many qualified candidates you receive for an opening, you can set goals for future recruitment.

Evaluating your staffing agency is imperative to assess how your time and money is being spent to find candidates that will be best suited for the job. By measuring the success of your staffing partner, you can continue to hire better-suited candidates, which at the end of the day will positively affect the overall profitability and productivity of the company.