Analyzing Success Rates: A Comprehensive Guide to 15 Job Application Metrics
By Moradeke Owa
| Last updated:
Mar 12
|
9 min read
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While most companies make it seem like acquiring and retaining top talents is an easy process, it is not. Statistics show that on average companies lose 18% of their workforce annually, and a major reason for this is poor quality hires.
Companies lose employees for different reasons- cultural differences, employee burnout, and candidates jumping ship for better benefits. The ultimate consequence of losing employees is increased hiring costs, no company wants this.
However, analyzing your job application metrics can help you gain insight into specific issues of your recruitment process and identify ways to improve it to select the best candidates for your company. Let’s explore 15 job application metrics to optimize your recruitment strategy and applicant experience.
You have to be data-driven to attract and retain top talents- job applications provide valuable insights about your hiring process, enabling you to make better hiring decisions. Let’s break this down:
Job application metrics help you choose the best candidate regardless of the constantly changing recruitment tools and candidate’s approach.
With job application metrics, you see objective data to measure the success of your recruiting efforts. This allows you to identify areas for improvement in your hiring process, and attract and retain the best talents.
Employee Life Cycle in HR: Definition, Stages & Optimization
Job application metrics help you see the percentage of candidates who pass through each step of your hiring process, from the initial application to the offer acceptance. This helps you see if your application needs to be simpler, or slightly more difficult to increase the quality of your applications.
Overall, job application metrics help you know if your recruitment is optimized and identify ways to improve it.
The following are the most important job application metrics you should look out for in your recruitment process:
The completion rate is the percentage of candidates who complete the application. If your completion rate is low, it could be a sign that there are technical issues with the application or unclear guidelines preventing candidates from finishing the application.
However, if your completion rate is high, it is a sign that the application process is seamless for candidates. Overall, this metric helps you understand the reasons for application abandonment and can help you streamline your application process to make it more user-friendly.
This metric looks at how long it takes the average candidate to finish their application. While a fast completion rate may seem like a good thing, it’s important to think about why.
A very high completion rate could be a sign that applications are being submitted too quickly and of poor quality. However, an excessively long time to apply is also not a good sign, it could indicate a complex or tedious process.
So, when considering the time to apply metric, you have to strike a balance, the application shouldn’t be too easy to prevent low-quality applications and it shouldn’t be too difficult to discourage talented candidates.
This metric shows the percentage of candidates who start an application but drop out before it’s finished. A high drop-off rate is a great indicator of a difficult application process. It could be due to complex or lengthy application forms, unclear instructions, or technical issues such as device incompatibility.
If you notice a high drop-off rate, investigate why and optimize your job application process.
This metric group allows you to measure the performance of the various channels you use to draw in candidates. It enables you to track the number of candidates, the quality of candidates, and the hiring cost per candidate for each channel.
For example, if you use channels such as job boards, social media, employee referrals, and career fairs. Your candidate sourcing metrics would be identifying the number of applications from each source, and comparing the success rates across these channels to identify the most impactful ones for your target audience.
This metric tracks the percentage of candidates that transition from one recruiting phase to another. Conversion rate refers not only to the number of candidates who successfully applied for the position, but also to the entire recruitment process, from application to interview, interview to offer, and offer to acceptance.
This metric helps you identify specific areas of your application process that need to be optimized. For example, it can help you identify the specific interview stage where the majority of candidates drop off, preventing a high rejection rate.
The purpose of this metric is not only to fill the role but also to measure the performance of new hires and how well they fit into your organization. This metric includes employee retention rate (ERR), productivity, and employee happiness to measure the effectiveness of your hiring strategy in attracting and retaining top talent that is culturally fit for your organization.
This metric measures your applicant pool’s diversity by looking at demographics such as gender, race, age, disability status, and more. While most people might consider diversity as nice to have, diversity brings fresh perspectives, fosters innovation, and ultimately leads to a more successful organization.
So, ensure your application process is inclusive, by providing accommodation that encourages a diverse candidate pool to apply. You could start by adding your existing diverse workforce images to the application landing page. This would encourage other applicants from diverse backgrounds to apply.
This metric measures the average number of job applications you need to screen before making the job offer. A high number means your recruitment process isn’t running as efficiently, wasting time and resources.
For example, you may not be filtering candidates effectively during your interview stages leading to a high number. You can mitigate this by using assessment and skill tests to select the best candidates from the first or second interview stage.
This metric shows the percentage of candidates that take your job offer. If your acceptance rate is low, it could mean your offer isn’t competitive or you are interviewing candidates with way more experience than the position.
Your offer acceptance rate is a metric you have to monitor closely, to avoid repeating your recruitment process.
These metrics track the overall experience of candidates throughout the application process. You can track factors such as application speed, communication frequency, and feedback. Keep in mind that a great candidate experience will not only attract top talent but will also help to strengthen your company’s brand and reputation.
A good way to measure this metric is by adding a short survey to your application process that measures your NPS (the likelihood of candidates recommending you to their network). This will help you understand how candidates view your application process and identify improvement opportunities.
This metric tells you how many applications you turn down during the recruitment process. While you can’t possibly accept all candidates, a high number of rejections may indicate an ineffective recruitment process.
For example, you may have a high rejection rate because you have overly strict requirement criteria or a poor job description that misleads so many candidates that aren’t a good skill match to apply.
Ultimately, the key is to get to the root of why you’re turning down candidates, and then adjust your hiring strategy, so you do not turn down well-qualified candidates.
If you use an ATS, you can track metrics like the time to apply, the source of applications (channels and candidate location), and the effectiveness of interview scheduling. These metrics provide insights into your recruitment process, and help you identify areas of improvement.
The cost per hire (CPU) is a metric that evaluates all the costs associated with filling a position, such as advertising, screening, and interview costs. Every organization aims to achieve a low cost per hire, however, while you want to achieve a low CPU, investing in recruiting and retaining the best talent pays off.
So, you have to strike a balance between achieving a good cost per hire and hiring talent quality. For example, instead of telling applicants to send an email, you can use a job application form with points that allows you to effectively screen candidates without bia
This metric examines how long new hires stay with the company. High turnover rates can be costly and disrupt your team dynamic because you would have to time and resources to hire new employees.
You can improve your retention rate by optimizing your onboarding experience, offering competitive compensation and benefits, and career development opportunities within the company.
Candidate feedback metrics help you collect feedback from the people who matter most: the candidates. It helps you understand your recruitment process, pinpoint areas of improvement, and ultimately, attract and retain the best talent. You can do this by adding NPS exit surveys to measure candidates’ experience and sentiment toward your application process.
It’s not enough to job application metrics, you also have to implement them to get the desired result from your recruitment process. Here are some tips on how to use job application metrics in your hiring process:
While the 15 metrics we’ve discussed are valuable, it’s crucial to tailor your selection to your specific needs and goals. You can do this by evaluating your company size, the candidate pool in the industry you’re hiring from, and your organization’s recruitment goals.
The purpose of job application metrics isn’t to use all metrics. The purpose is to help you recruit the best candidates while optimizing your organization’s resources. So, do not overload yourself with metrics; start with the most important metrics and scale up as your company recruitment goals grow.
There are so many job application metrics to consider, so calculating them manually is not only slow but also prone to error. Here are some tools to help you streamline your recruitment data analysis:
Most ATS offers built-in analytics dashboards, allowing you to track key metrics like application completion rate, time-to-hire, and offer acceptance rate.
After collecting your recruit data, you can import them into data visualization tools to create charts and graphs to present data in an easily understandable format, helping you identify trends and patterns.
However, if you use Formplus for your application forms, you wouldn’t need a different data visualization tool, it helps you collect applications and summarize key metrics such as abandonment rate, completion rate, candidate source, and more.
Job application metrics help you see gaps in your recruitment process and help close job application metrics, allowing you to create a seamless application process and save resources.
Also, using recruitment tools such as application forms, screening tests, ATS, and others helps you speed up your hiring process, choose candidates without bias, and easily identify improvement opportunities in your hiring strategy.
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