Measuring the quality of hire has gained in importance over the last few months. Well, this is not a surprise, as investments in recruitment are significantly growing due to the talent shortage.

However defining the right metrics to measure the long term success of a recruitment campaign is hard. It really depends on what the company is trying to measure and what is defined as important. Is having an increased retention in the first 12 months of new employees a sign of an improved quality of hire? If time to productivity decreases, are you improving the quality of hire? Is the ability to fill skills gaps also an indicator of quality? There is no answer to the question „what is the best metric to measure quality of hire?“, as it could be all of the above mentioned.

Caroline Mancioppi, Author of this article

We find mainly two kinds of metrics: the pre-hire metrics (also called „quality of candidate metrics“) and the post-hire metrics („Quality of hire metrics“). Improving the quality of candidates is the earliest stage which is part to the talent acquisition strategy contributing to reach a good quality of hire. Indeed, newly hired employees whose profiles and expectations did not entirely match the job description are more likely to leave the company.

To help you measure your quality of hire, here are some post-hire metrics that you should take into consideration:

• Post-hire assessments: nearly one half of companies conduct new hire assessments after 90 days.
• Hiring manager satisfaction: satisfaction surveys such as 360° Feedbacks can also be conducted after 90 days.
• Performance ratings: such as supervisor ratings of performance, time to reach expected performance levels, 3-month or 6-month performance measures.
• Candidates satisfaction: which benchmarks recruiter performance and also ensures that candidates are satisfied with the hiring process.
• New hire turnover rates: according to research, one of eight new hires leave the job within the first 12 months.

Not one of these alone can measure quality of hire. However, these metrics overlap with other HR issues: where do we stop measuring quality of hire and realize that we are measuring employee engagement?

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