Incentives for Recruiters?

Behind the Metrics - Here are some of the better-known metrics applied to recruiting:

Cost-per-hire: Total recruiting costsadvertising, travel, office rent, equipment, staff salaries, search-firm fees, background checks and moredivided by the number of new hires. This metric gauges expense control but does not measure quality-of-hire.

Staffing efficiency ratio (recruiting efficiency index): Total recruiting costs divided by total starting compensation of new hires. This metric is more precise than cost-per-hire because it accounts for different pay levels of new employeesit costs more to hire executives than to hire line workersas well as variations in industry and geography. It does not measure quality-of-hire.

Time-to-fill (time-to-acceptance): The average number of days from the day a job is requisitioned to the day a candidate accepts an offer. This yardstick measures how quickly jobs are filled but does not include other considerations such as the type of position, the state of the labor market and the hiring managers schedule.

Time-to-start: The average number of days from the day a job is requisitioned to the day a new employee starts the job. Some staffing experts prefer this metric to time-to-fill because most hiring managers care more about when new employees start working than when they accept offers.

Hiring manager satisfaction: The hiring managers satisfaction with the performance of recruiters and new employees. Subjective impressions can be quantified through surveys that use a ratings scale to measure a recruiters timeliness of contacts, sourcing, quality of referred candidates, scheduling and other factors. A new employees performance can be assessed three, six or more months after starting the job.

Turnover: The number of employees who leave divided by the total number of staff. This metric, a rough indicator of quality-of-hire, can be specified for each recruiter. Some employers measure the flip side: retention.