5 recruiting metrics to present to the board
Boards expect metrics that link hiring to business outcomes. Focus on cost, speed, funnel health and hire quality.
-
Time-to-hire: report median by role and month-over-month change. Tech averages 60+ days; shortening to 14 days cuts project risk and delivery delays.
-
Cost-per-hire with opportunity cost: include lost productivity. An open role can cost about $500 USD/day—use this to convert hiring delays into dollar impact.
-
Candidate drop-off rate: show abandonment by stage. When 67% of candidates leave processes longer than two weeks, your funnel is bleeding. Highlight improvements after process changes.
-
Quality of hire: measure performance at 3 and 6 months, retention and business outcomes. Filling seats is not enough—demonstrate value delivered by new hires.
-
TA efficiency: hours spent screening and interviews per hire. Recruiters currently spend 23 hrs/week on CV review; tracking this helps justify automation and reallocation.
Operational note: track rejects due to CV format—if 75% of strong CVs are discarded for formatting, you’re losing talent. Benchmark pipeline depth (e.g., +25,000 candidates) to show sourcing capacity.
End board slides with financial implication and the next operational lever to pull (one line): projected savings, risk reduction and the KPI to move next. That turns data into governance-ready decisions.
