Recruiters are the backbone of staffing agencies. They drive candidate outreach, communication, and interviews. It’s up to recruiters to find the best person for your job orders in a timely manner. It’s up to recruiters to find quality candidates who won’t ghost on the first day or leave midway through the assignment. Recruiters drive the overall success of staffing operations. Because recruiters play a vital role in staffing agencies, clearly measuring recruiter performance is essential, including gross margin per recruiter.

Your ATS recruiting software is not just a tool for finding and placing candidates on assignments; it can also be a critical tool for establishing recruiter performance benchmarks and measuring overall activities and outcomes.

In this article, we will look at key metrics for measuring recruiter performance, how owners and managers can utilize their ATS for visibility, and lastly, we will explore recruiter gamification, because who says you can’t have a little fun along the way?

Measuring Recruiter Performance

To measure recruiter performance, you first need to establish benchmarks. What metrics are important to your staffing agency for recruiter performance? This can be a mix of activity and performance measurements. Activity measurements are the number of specific activities you want the recruiter to complete each week, such as calls/outreach, interviews, etc. Performance measurement measures the success of the recruiter’s placements.

Tracking Activities and Establishing Benchmarks

Activity tracking and goals help set standardized benchmarks for recruiters. This helps the recruiters know what is expected each week and helps managers ensure goals are being met. Activities can be measured daily, weekly, monthly, etc., all depending on preference. Weekly is generally a good benchmark.

Activities to Measure

When choosing activities to track, below are several activities you can establish benchmarks for within a recruiting software, depending on what is important for your agency.

Calls/Outreach – Number of candidate calls/outreach
Interviews – Number of candidate interviews
Submittals – Number of candidate submittals to customers
Assignments Ending – Number of assignments ending. This might not necessarily be a metric that you establish a benchmark for, but it’s important to track so recruiters can stay on top of assignments ending and reach out to those candidates to place them at new opportunities.
Starts Per Week – Number of candidates starting an assignment. This metric is important because it is what helps drive revenue and brings in actual dollars for staffing agencies.

See the example below of an Activity Measurement Dashboard within the Ultra-Staff EDGE recruiting software. This measures all activities and can be filtered by client.

Performance Measurement

Performance metrics help measure recruiter performance. How are the candidates they are placing? What percentage of job orders are being filled? What is the gross margin per recruiter? These are examples of metrics within the recruiting software system that can be leveraged to track individual recruiter performance and impact.

Below are several benchmarks you can establish and track for each recruiter, depending on what is most important to your agency.

Time to Fill – Length of time it takes for a job order to be filled
Fill Rate – Percentage of job orders being filled
Quality of Hire – This measures the quality of the candidates being placed. Measuring this depends on what you establish as a quality hire. Two metrics to consider for this are “Turnover Rate” and “No Show Rate.” “Turnover Rate” measures the percentage of employees who leave an assignment mid-way through. “No Show Rate” measures the percentage of candidates who don’t show up for the job.
Redeployment Rate – This measures the percentage of employees who are reassigned to a new assignment. This metric is an important way to track retention. How are your recruiters at retaining candidates? It also ties back to tracking the assignments’ ending. Are recruiters tracking assignments ending and reassigning those recruiters?
Revenue/Gross Margin – This measures the revenue and gross margin per recruiter. At the end of the day, this is the most important metric because it provides clear visibility into the dollars each recruiter brings in and how it impacts your bottom line.

Establishing benchmarks for both activities and performance will help set clear expectations for recruiters. What you establish benchmarks for all depends on what is most important for your staffing agency. What activities do you want recruiters to accomplish each week? What metrics are important to you for measuring recruiter performance?

See an example below within the Ulta-Staff EDGE recruiting software of a Performance Measurement Dashboard measuring “Time to Fill.”

Dashboard Insights for Owners and Managers

Once you establish your benchmarks, it’s time to track. This is where your ATS can play a vital role in your operations. See how your ATS can track the above metrics for individual performance and team performance. You and the team use your ATS every day, so these metrics should be automatically tracked for easy visibility. If your ATS has dashboards, see what metrics you can add to your dashboard so you can track activities and performance in real time. Visibility into these metrics is key to establishing accountability and ensuring company goals and revenue are met. Displaying these metrics on a dashboard provides the information you need in a clear, concise format.

Your ATS may also have an integration with reporting tools that allow you to visualize these metrics on a dashboard, and daily, weekly, and monthly metrics can be automatically sent to you.

Your ATS is a powerful tool for tracking key recruiter metrics. All of the information you need is already being input into your ATS. Don’t miss the opportunity to track these key metrics and see clear, real-time visibility into your staffing business.

Gamification for Recruiters

While tracking metrics is important for your business, it can also be rewarding for your recruiters. Accomplishing and exceeding goals is something to celebrate. See what gamification features your ATS might have to make meeting and exceeding goals a little more fun.

Can the recruiter get a star on their dashboard or a trophy when they meet or exceed their goals? Perhaps confetti can come down on their screen! Small features in your ATS like this can make goal tracking fun and rewarding for recruiters. It also becomes a win-win. They are meeting their goals, and in turn, your staffing agency is meeting theirs. See the example recruiter software dashboard below with gamification. Recruiters receive a star when they meet goals and a trophy when they exceed goals.

Recruiter Office Leaderboard

Providing gamification within your recruiting software motivates team members to perform at a higher level. Some staffing agencies display recruiter leaderboards on a TV in their office. This helps celebrate the top monthly recruiters and motivates recruiters to try to reach the leaderboard. Staffing agencies can even offer prizes and rewards to top-performing recruiters on a monthly or quarterly basis. Below is an example of a leaderboard that measures activities. This can be filtered by the activity you want displayed on the leaderboard.

Visibility in Recruiter Performance

Knowing which metrics are important to your staffing agency for measuring recruiter performance is the first step toward gaining insights. Be sure you are taking advantage of the data in your ATS and the tools you have at your fingertips to visualize this data. Visibility into key metrics will provide instant insights into recruiter and company performance.

Tracking metrics and goals doesn’t just have to be for accountability. It can be a way to motivate recruiters to reach their goals, have fun along the way, and maybe even get rewarded for their performance. Gamification can be built into your recruiting software, demonstrated by company rewards given, and sometimes even both! Your ATS system is a powerful tool. Be sure you are taking advantage of everything it has to offer to meet and exceed your company goals and measure performance.

Written by Jennifer Roeslmeier Mikels

Jennifer Roeslmeier Mikels is a Sr. Digital Marketing and Brands Manager at Automated Business Designs, developers of Ultra-Staff EDGE Staffing Software. Jennifer regularly publishes articles about key topics surrounding the staffing industry with both local and national staffing associations.

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