10 recruiting KPIs and metrics every recruiter should keep an eye on

How much do numbers matter when opening a search for a new position? A lot—very much so, even more than one might usually think. Yet often, in the rush to find the right person within a reasonable timeframe, numbers—or rather KPIs (Key Performance Indicators)—for recruiting are overlooked.
And instead, KPIs are an indispensable ally for HR professionals to understand what is truly working and what, on the other hand, is not.

But which KPIs are really useful, and how can they be evaluated correctly? In this article, we look at 10 performance indicators and recruiting metrics to monitor regularly, with practical examples and tips on how to measure them easily using ATS platforms such as Inrecruiting and Artificial Intelligence tools.

KPIs and recruiting metrics: what they are and what they are for

KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) and metrics are essential in the HR industry to assess the effectiveness of your recruiting strategies. These indicators and metrics allow you to measure the strengths and weaknesses of your recruiting strategy, monitor the results of the recruiting process and, if necessary, plan corrections and changes.

Keeping the main recruiting KPIs under control means managing the progress of the selection process and consistently aligning it with your company’s talent acquisition goals.

10 KPIs and metrics for more effective recruiting

In the list of top recruiting KPIs and metrics that every recruiter and HR team should monitor to increase the ROI and effectiveness of recruiting, we’ve included metrics that are relevant before, during, and after the recruiting process.

Many of these can be easily analyzed if you manage your search and selection process with an Applicant Tracking System (ATS) such as Inrecruiting. A special section of the software is dedicated to reports and statistics to provide a comprehensive analysis of the performance of key recruiting activities and metrics.

1. Clicks on the company website and career page

The first KPI inevitably concerns the company website. Social platforms like LinkedIn are incredibly helpful for talent acquisition, but the website is the “home” of a company and so allows for many more measurements and customizations.

Measuring the number of views to the company website, and in particular to the career page (“Work With Us”), is the first step in understanding how many people are actually entering your reach.

But that’s not all! Knowing the number of views of your job postings, the number of applications over a certain period, and the average conversion rate is very important. This indicates whether the job title, content, and publishing channels align with the expectations of your target audience. Low numbers may suggest that the posting is unclear, not competitive, or not placed on the right channels.

With an ATS like Inrecruiting, you can collect all this data in a single dashboard and easily compare the performance of different job postings.

Another important aspect of online presence concerns new access points for candidate information. Increasingly, before applying, people research companies not only on Google but also through tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, and other LLMs. Therefore, it’s important to check how your company is presented from an employer branding perspective when a candidate asks direct questions such as “What’s it like to work at [company name]?” or “Which are the best companies for [role] in [city]?”

The same applies to Google AI Overview, which uses Artificial Intelligence to summarize online content: if your digital presence is weak or inconsistent, these tools will also return a weak or incomplete image of your employer brand. Employer branding matters a lot—but it’s not the only thing that counts.

2. Source of candidates and CV database analysis

The reach of hire is the second KPI we consider—though remember, the order is purely arbitrary—which relates to the reach of your CV database. How many people potentially suitable for your roles are you reaching and retaining over time? It’s not just the total number of CVs that matters, but also their quality and their coverage in relation to the profiles you are looking for (role, location, seniority, key skills).

Some useful metrics in this regard:

• total number of CVs in the database and changes over time;
• distribution by role, geographic area, and seniority;
• percentage of candidates already in the database who are reactivated or reused for new searches.

With Inrecruiting, for example, it’s possible to centralize all CVs coming from job boards, career sites, social campaigns, referrals, and agencies, avoiding duplicates and maintaining a history of interactions.

3. Conversion Rate

A very low application conversion rate is not a good sign! This means that only a few candidates finish the screening and interviewing after submitting their CV.

Therefore, this KPI is very important because it helps you understand how effective the job posting you’ve written really is.

When applications are few, it’s important to investigate the causes. What could they be? Among the most common, a long and complex application form could definitely lead candidates to abandon the process before finishing.

With the introduction of artificial intelligence in the HR industry, the application conversion rate can easily be improved by introducing systems like Inda (Intelligent Data Analysis) that allow automatic screening of application forms, and also CV Parsing.

Using solutions like these can drastically reduce drop-offs and make the application process faster, especially on smartphone.

4. Job ad specific metrics

However, to understand if a job posting is performing well, it’s not enough to just look at how many applications are received. It’s useful to track the posting’s performance throughout the entire funnel, monitoring, for example:

• Job posting views
• Ad reading time
• Applications received and applications deemed relevant
• Number of interviews scheduled from that posting
• Number of offers and hires generated

These metrics help distinguish between postings that make a lot of “noise” (many applications, but few target profiles) and postings that generate few applications, but highly qualified ones.

Only by analyzing the data by channel (specific job boards, social media, career site, referrals) can you understand where it makes sense to invest budget and where it’s better to revise job titles, descriptions, and requirements.

5. Source of applicant and source of hire

Sometimes people tend to confuse “source of applicant” and “source of hire,” but they are not the same. Let’s look at the differences. The source of applicant indicates where the applications are coming from (job boards, company website, social media, referrals, agencies, internal talent pool). The source of hire, on the other hand, focuses on the channel that actually led to the person being hired.

Why is it important to monitor both KPIs? For several reasons, including the fact that they allow you to understand:

• which channels generate the most applications;
• which channels actually bring in candidates who are ultimately hired;
• the cost per hire for each individual channel.

Analyzing this data enables recruiters to evaluate how to manage the company budget, which channels to focus on, and whether it’s worth investing in software that allows for multiposting.

6. Time to hire and time to fill

Time to fill and time to hire are two KPIs that measure the speed of the recruiting process, but from different perspectives:

• Time to fill indicates the number of days from the opening of the position (or approval of the job requisition) to the candidate’s acceptance of the offer.
• Time to hire measures the time the hired candidate spends in the process, from application (or first contact) to acceptance of the offer.

Analyzing these timelines by role, location, and seniority helps identify so-called “bottlenecks”: application collection, screening, interviews, offer approval. It also allows you to understand how long a candidate stays within the hiring pipeline. If the process takes too long, there is a higher risk of losing the best candidates for the open role, and it also negatively impacts the candidate experience.

On the other hand, if the process is too short, it can have the opposite effect: candidates might perceive the selection process as too rushed and not sufficiently attentive to people.

7. Cost per hire

Cost per hire measures the average cost of taking a person from “open position” to “hired.” It’s a key financial KPI because it allows you to evaluate the efficiency of recruiting investments and plan future budgets.

When calculating it, you should include:

• external costs: paid job boards, advertising campaigns, agency or headhunter fees, recruiting events, software;
• internal costs: time spent by recruiters, hiring managers, and HR, onboarding costs, and any assessment tools.

Monitoring cost per hire, even by individual channel, helps you understand which tools and channels are costing too much and where it makes sense to increase investment because the return – in terms of hire quality and speed – is higher.

8. Candidate Experience

Candidates who experience the selection process in a positive way can only do the company good. First of all, a positive candidate experience influences the company’s reputation and credibility; secondly, candidates feel valued and this only increases engagement. On the other hand, slow and cumbersome processes, lack of attention to the candidate, non-existent feedback, detachment and disinterest are all factors that detract from candidate engagement.

Candidate experience refers to how candidates perceive your recruitment process: response times, clarity of communication, quality of interviews, and feedback received. It’s a cross-cutting indicator that impacts both employer branding and the effectiveness of recruiting.

But how can it be measured and assessed as positive or negative? For example, through:

• end-of-process surveys (even for candidates who are not hired);
• candidate satisfaction scores or candidate NPS (Net Promoter Score);
• drop-off rates in the application form;
• average response and feedback times.

9. Quality of candidates, retention and turnover

Quality of hire measures the impact of hired employees on company performance and is therefore closely linked to candidate experience and the employee’s life in the company after hiring. It is not a single metric, but a composite indicator that can include: performance evaluation results, time required to reach full productivity, adaptation to company culture, manager feedback, and engagement.

To get a complete picture, it’s useful to connect quality of hire with retention and turnover of new hires, especially within the first 6–12 months.

High turnover in the first months can indicate issues with selection, onboarding, or alignment between promises made during recruiting and the organizational reality. Analyzing quality of hire, retention, and turnover together is essential to understand whether you are truly hiring the right people, not just “filling” positions.

10. Performance evaluation

Evaluating the performance of new hires completes the circle of the 10 recruiting KPIs: it helps understand whether the people you’ve chosen are actually bringing value to the company. This is an area where recruiting and people management need to work closely together.

Some of the metrics to monitor include:

• achievement of individual goals within the first 6–12 months;
• manager performance evaluations (e.g., average score on an evaluation form);
• participation in key projects or taking on greater responsibilities in a short time;
• role changes or internal promotions related to recently hired employees.

Integrating performance data with recruitment process data (source channel, type of job posting, process timelines, feedback collected during interviews) is the right way to refine your recruiting strategy and understand which selection decisions translate into better business results.

Do you want to know how an ATS can help you with all of this?