7 Recruitment Metrics Every Small Business Should Track

What it is: the number of days from when a candidate applies (or you first contact them) to when they accept your offer. Some businesses also track time-to-fill, from job approval to joining. Track it separately for front-line, office and specialist roles, because each naturally moves at a different pace and one blended average hides the real problem.

Why it matters: slow hiring means empty seats, overworked teams and good candidates accepting other offers. If one role takes much longer than others, something in that process is stuck.

What to do if it is high: check where candidates wait the longest. Usually it is unread applications, hard-to-schedule interviews or slow approvals. Our guide on reducing time-to-hire covers fixes.

What it is: total applications divided by the number of positions. Track it per role and per job post.

Why it matters: too few applicants means your post is not reaching or convincing people. Too many unsuitable applicants means the post is too vague.

What to do: if numbers are low, check the title, salary, location and requirements in your post. If numbers are high but quality is poor, add clearer must-haves and a screening question. See our list of job posting mistakes for common causes.

What it is: where each person you hired came from: a job portal, resume database search, employee referral, walk-in, campus, social media or an agency.

Why it matters: it shows which channels actually bring joiners, not just applications. A channel that brings hundreds of applicants but no hires is costing you time.

What to do: record the source for every hire, even in a simple column. After a few months, put more effort and budget into the channels that bring people who join and stay.

What it is: the number of candidates interviewed for each offer made. If you interview 12 people to make two offers, the ratio is 6:1.

Why it matters: a very high ratio means your screening is letting through people who are not suitable, so managers spend hours in interviews that go nowhere. A very low ratio might mean you are not seeing enough options.

What to do if it is high: tighten phone screening on salary, location, notice period and must-have skills before inviting people in. A 10-minute call can remove most mismatches.

What it is: offers accepted divided by offers made, shown as a percentage. If you make ten offers and seven are accepted, the rate is 70%.

Why it matters: each rejected offer means restarting part of the process. A low rate usually signals a problem with pay, timing, candidate experience or how the offer was presented.

What to do: ask candidates who decline why, and listen. Common reasons include a better salary elsewhere, a long commute, slow process or unclear role. Confirming salary expectations early and moving quickly often helps.

What it is: total hiring spend in a period divided by the number of hires in that period. Include job post and plan costs, resume database credits, agency fees, referral bonuses, walk-in drive costs and, if you want a fuller picture, an estimate of staff time.

Why it matters: it helps you budget and compare channels. A channel with a higher upfront fee can still be cheaper per hire if it fills roles faster and with people who stay.

What to do: calculate it by channel, not just overall. BetterJobs has a free plan to start and paid plans with GST invoices, which makes recording hiring spend straightforward; see pricing for current plans.

What it is: the share of new hires who leave within their first 90 days. Some businesses also track 30-day or six-month figures.

Why it matters: a hire who leaves in a month costs you the hiring effort, training time and disruption, and you have to start again. High early attrition often points to a mismatch between what the job post or interview promised and the reality.

What to do: speak to people who leave early and to their supervisors. Check whether the job post was honest about shifts, workload and pay, and whether onboarding gave enough support in the first weeks. This is often the most revealing metric of all, especially for front-line roles.

A single spreadsheet is enough to start. Add one row per candidate who reaches the interview stage, and fill in dates and outcomes as they move. Once a month, spend 20 minutes calculating the seven numbers and writing one or two actions.

If you use an applicant pipeline, such as the applied, shortlisted, interview, offer and hired stages on BetterJobs, many of these numbers are easier to see because each candidate's stage is already recorded. Add the source and joining date, and you have most of what you need.

Keep the sheet in one shared place, not on one person's laptop, and agree simple rules for filling it, such as using the same source names every time ("referral", not sometimes "friend of Ravi"). Clean, consistent entries make the monthly calculation take minutes instead of an afternoon.

1. 1Create columns: candidate, role, source, applied date, interview date, offer date, accepted (yes/no), joining date, still working at 90 days (yes/no)
2. 2Add a separate small table for monthly hiring spend by channel
3. 3Fill it in as candidates move, not from memory at month-end
4. 4Calculate the seven metrics once a month
5. 5Pick one metric to improve next month and note the action

Numbers are only useful if they change what you do. For a small business, the aim is not a perfect dashboard but quicker, better decisions: which channel to spend on, which step to speed up, which job post to rewrite, and which manager needs help interviewing.

Avoid comparing yourself to large-company figures you read online, which may not fit your city, roles or size. Compare against your own numbers from last quarter. Steady improvement there is the clearest sign your hiring is getting better.

Look at the metrics together rather than one at a time. A fast time-to-hire is not a win if early attrition rises at the same time; it may mean you are rushing past checks that matter. A low cost-per-hire is not a win if offer acceptance falls because candidates feel the process was careless. The seven numbers work best as a set, each one keeping the others honest.

Share a simple summary with the people who hire alongside you, such as supervisors and managers. When a store manager sees that most of her stable hires came from referrals, or that candidates who travel more than an hour tend to leave early, she will make better choices without needing a new rule. Metrics that stay in the owner's notebook help less than metrics the whole team understands.