I’ve found that it’s easy to get caught up in tracking every recruiting metric and KPI, and lose sight of which ones actually move the needle.
At Remote Crew, I’ve worked with enough recruiting teams to know that more data doesn’t necessarily mean better decisions.
That’s the problem. Dashboards always look impressive, but unless you’re focused on the right numbers, they tend to distract more than they help.
If you’re having trouble filling roles fast enough, questioning whether your budget is actually being used effectively, or trying to improve the quality of hires, you'll find that many hirers are in the same boat as you.
These are common challenges, and the right recruiting metrics can help solve them.
But only if you know which ones matter and why.
This guide is for teams who want to cut through the fluff and focus on what genuinely drives better hiring outcomes.
The goal is simple: I want to help you use data to make smarter decisions, faster.
The Recruiting Metrics & KPIs I’m Tracking
When I first started working closely with talent teams, I made the mistake of treating every recruiting metric as equally important.
I’d look at dozens of KPIs, build complex dashboards, and walk away thinking we had everything under control, but the hires weren’t improving.
That’s when I learned: metrics are only useful if they drive action. They should tell you where to focus, what to fix, and how to scale.
Here are the recruiting metrics and KPIs I pay the closest attention to.
These are the ones that actually reveal something useful about the health of your hiring operation.
Time To Fill
This one often gets overlooked and misunderstood.
Time to fill is the number of days between opening a job and getting someone in the seat.
But to me, it’s less about raw speed and more about understanding where the delays are happening.
If a role is dragging on for weeks, that’s a signal: maybe your approval process is too slow, maybe your job ads aren’t converting, or maybe hiring managers aren’t aligned.
I use time to fill not just for planning workloads, but as a trust indicator.
If a team consistently takes too long to fill roles, other departments start to lose faith in recruiting.
Time To Hire
This metric tells me how fast we're moving once we’ve engaged a candidate.
Time to hire starts from the first interaction, and that makes it a direct reflection of how smooth (or clunky) your hiring process is.
If your time to hire is high, you’re probably losing great candidates to faster-moving companies.
I like to benchmark this monthly and track outliers.
Sometimes, a single bottleneck in the interview loop is enough to derail an otherwise strong funnel.
Cost Per Hire
Recruiting budgets aren’t infinite, especially in leaner times.
Cost per hire gives you a reality check on how efficient your process really is.
If you're spending thousands to hire entry-level roles, it's time to question your sourcing mix.
I once cut a client's cost per hire significantly just by consolidating job boards and doubling down on referral incentives.
It's a great KPI to revisit any time finance asks what they’re really getting for the recruitment spend.
Quality Of Hire
This is the holy grail.
But it’s also one of the hardest to measure.
For me, you can’t define quality of hire with a single number.
Quality of hire is a blend of how someone performs, how long they stay, and how well they gel with the team.
I’ve found success using a simple post-hire scorecard shared between hiring managers and HR.
I recommend including questions like “Would you hire this person again?” or “Have they met the goals we set in their first 90 days?”
If you combine that with retention data, you get a much clearer picture.
Offer Acceptance Rate
Low acceptance rates are a red flag I never ignore.
They usually signal one of three things: you’re underpaying, you’re misaligning expectations during interviews, or your employer brand needs work.
If you’re getting a lot of declines, don’t just guess. You need to ask for feedback.
Some of the best employer brand improvements I’ve seen started with a few uncomfortable conversations with candidates who said no.
Source Of Hire
This is one of the most practical metrics out there.
Knowing where your best candidates come from lets you double down on what’s working and ditch what’s not.
In a recent project, we discovered that referrals made up only 10% of applications but over 40% of successful hires.
That insight alone reshaped the team’s sourcing strategy (and saved them a lot of money on job ads).
Applicant To Interview Ratio
This one helps me assess sourcing quality.
If I’m reviewing 100 resumes to get 5 interviews, something’s broken.
Either the job description isn’t attracting the right people, or the screening criteria are off.
A good applicant-to-interview ratio tells me the sourcing funnel is aligned with the role, not just bringing in volume, but the right kind of volume.
Interview To Offer Ratio
Every time a candidate makes it to an interview, you’re spending time, often hours, across multiple stakeholders.
A low interview-to-offer ratio is expensive and demoralizing.
I use this metric to diagnose whether interviewers are aligned, if the scorecard is realistic, or if we’re scaring candidates off mid-process.
I’ve found that a quick interviewer training session can dramatically improve this KPI.
Diversity Hiring Metrics
This is a reflection of how fair and inclusive your hiring process is.
It’s not just a box-ticking exercise.
I track diversity at every stage of the funnel: who applies, who gets interviewed, who gets offers, and who accepts.
One thing I’ve learned: you can’t improve what you don’t measure. And you can’t fix diversity gaps just at the top of the funnel.
It’s about the whole system.
Retention & Attrition Rates
I always look at first-year retention as a reality check.
If people are leaving within 6–12 months, that tells me the hiring process probably oversold the role, or misjudged the fit.
Retention is one of the best lagging indicators of quality of hire, and it forces the team to think beyond “Can they do the job?” to “Will they stay and thrive here?”
Application Completion Rate
This one seems small, but it’s sneaky important, especially if you're hiring at volume.
If your application completion rate is low, you’re probably turning good candidates away with a bad form or clunky UX.
I always recommend testing your own application process regularly.
If it annoys you, it’s probably turning others off as well.
That’s the litmus test.
Pipeline Management Efficiency
This is about momentum.
That’s what it boils down to.
Candidates don’t like to sit idle in a pipeline, and neither do hiring teams.
I measure how quickly candidates move from stage to stage, and where they stall.
Improving pipeline efficiency has a direct impact on both speed and experience.
It’s also one of the clearest ways to reduce time to hire without cutting corners.
I Don’t Use A Complicated Tech Stack To Track Recruiting Metrics
I keep things simple. You don’t need a sophisticated setup to track the recruiting metrics that really matter.
Many Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) and CRM platforms already have built-in dashboards that do most of the heavy lifting.
These tools give you visual reports that make it easy to see how your recruitment is performing and where bottlenecks exist.
I prefer to start with the basics and track key KPIs in a straightforward spreadsheet or leverage an ATS dashboard.
I’ll only scale up if the business grows or hiring volume demands it.
If your process requires constantly exporting data into multiple tools or manually updating dozens of reports, it’s a sign to simplify.
When you use a streamlined system, setting benchmarks and monitoring progress becomes part of your regular routine, not a dreaded extra task.
You can make real-time adjustments based on clear data, ensuring your hiring strategy stays aligned with company goals.
Ultimately, the goal is to spend more time hiring great people and less time wrestling with software.
If you don’t have an ATS yet or your current tool lacks useful analytics, a simple spreadsheet can be a powerful place to start.
Our team at Remote Crew can help you build one that tracks the right metrics and is easy to update weekly or monthly.
Starting simple and growing your system over time is how you make recruiting metrics work for your team.
Why Remote Crew Is An Essential Partner For Remote Tech Hiring
I can’t end without giving a quick shoutout to my team at Remote Crew, and the work we’re doing to help startups and scale-ups hire top remote developers from Europe and Latin America.
With over 250 placements and 70+ happy clients, including Bosch, Hubstaff, and NA-KD, we know how to find the right talent fast.
You can choose to hire permanent employees, tap into our network of trusted contractors, or bring on one of our temporary tech recruiters to accelerate your hiring.
Ready to hire great developers without the hassle? Let’s talk.
