Recruiting Benchmarks 2017: New Jobvite Research

Adrian Dixon

November 21, 2017

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Jobvite recently published their 2017 Recruiting Funnel Benchmark Report, an analysis of data from over 50,000 posted job listings, 15 million job applications, and 69 million job seekers.

recruiting benchmarks - Jobvite research

Phew! That’s a lot of data.

Having an accurate grasp of your recruiting metrics is important for optimizing your processes and showing the business value of your recruiting activities.

An important aspect of assessing metrics is knowing where you stand compared to industry benchmarks.

Here are the stats from Jobvite’s 18-page report I thought were the most insightful. How does your recruiting process compare?

Applicants per open req

The number of applicants per open req is going to vary greatly depending on the size of your organization, the industry, and the role.

Jobvite’s data reveal the number of applicants decreased slightly from 2016, which validates recruiters’ beliefs that the competition for talent has become stiffer as the economy has improved.

  • 2015: 59
  • 2016: 52

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the ratio of unemployed persons per job opening is currently 1.1.

The challenge of attracting the right talent means recruiting departments are investing in new sourcing technology to get an edge on their competitors.

Time to hire

With 52% of recruiters stating a lengthy hiring process is the biggest obstacle to adding headcount, time to hire is top of mind for both job seekers and recruiters.

Time to hire is the number of days between first contact with a candidate to the day the candidate accepts the offer.

Jobvite’s data is somewhat promising with the average time to hire decreasing by 2 days in 2016 from 2015.

  • 2015: 41 days
  • 2016: 39 days   

As Jobvite concludes, “With economic uncertainty, fewer qualified applicants in the market, and more candidates rejecting offers, it’s likely that this decrease is resulting from more efficient hiring processes.”

Whether your time to hire is shorter or longer than Jobvite’s average, it’s a good time to ask yourself what you can do to make your hiring processes more efficient.

Recruiting conversion rates

The data on conversion rates is interesting because overall the top-to-bottom funnel efficiency has improved slightly YoY but more candidates are rejecting offers than previously.

                                                    2015    2016

Applicants to interviews        12%      15%

Interviews to offers                17%      20%

Offers to hires                         89%     83%

Top-to-bottom funnel           0.2%   0.3%

The lower offers-to-hires rate also speaks to the fact that candidates have more choices these days.

This is a major reason why recruiters are focusing on improving candidate experience, whether it’s adopting AI recruiting software or using a chatbot for candidate pre-screening.

Sources of hire

The data reveals the main sources of applicants are still job boards and career sites.

However, their percentage of hires are much lower indicating these sources are less effective.

Percentage of applicants 

  • job boards: 52%
  • career sites: 34%

Percentage of hires

  • job boards: 19%
  • career sites: 27%

It’s likely these conversion rates from applicants to hire would be seriously improved with better screening software to optimize matching candidates’ qualifications to job requirements and creating more accurate candidate shortlists.

Download the entire Jobvite report as it breaks down recruiting benchmarks by revenue and company size and includes a lot more stats than I’ve covered here.