How much is too much for a recruiter?
How are you currently measuring your recruiter workload at your organization? If you are like most organizations, you may have many lingering questions on what is the best way to measure recruiter workload.I’ve seen the questions posted countless times. What is the maximum number of openings a recruiter should have? How many requisitions are too many for a recruiter to handle? Why can some of my recruiters handle far more openings at any given time than other recruiters? The questions are so important to effectively operating our businesses. As with many things, I think the question that is being is asked is the problem. Aren’t you really asking how efficient are my recruiters? How can I determine if they are at, near, or over capacity? How do they measure up against one another?
I can address the first question of efficiency. The second question regarding capacity, in my opinion, is a matter of each individual company situation. Benchmarking that data against other companies can be dangerous. How many companies operate exactly the same? Are recruiting roles the same from organization to organization? Is the value proposition for hiring people at your organization different than your competitors? Benchmark internally first to improve quarter on quarter and year on year results before looking externally. Once you look externally for benchmarking, pay close attention to processes that may help your company operate more efficiently. Don’t be too quick to focus on your numbers catching or beating your competition. Ultimately run your own race.
Now let’s get back to efficiency. How can I determine the maximum number of openings my recruiter should have? The first step is really measuring each recruiter equally which shouldn’t be done by calculating the total number of requisitions. If you agree with the premise that it is typically harder to fill a requisition that pays $100,000 salary than it is to fill a requisition that pays $35,000 salary then we are off to a good start. If you don’t agree with that premise then I suggest you stop reading after the next sentence and e-mail us why. Please note that my premise says “typically” a higher paying position is harder to fill but there will certainly be instances when that is not true. No metric or formula covers every situation. If you are looking for something that covers everything I wish you well and believe you’ll be searching endlessly. The second premise that I’d like you to agree with is that positions that pay higher than others are typically more important to the organization. I expect that phrase to stir some controversy based on the common belief that every part of an organization contributes to their success and all are important. I agree with that but organizations pay different people in different positions more than others simply because they have to. It is supply and demand. If you agree with those two premises, then we can move on regarding how to calculate a measurement so we can fairly measure workload of each recruiter. If compensation is the best indicator of both difficulty in recruiting and importance of a hire to an organization, then we should use total compensation recruited to measure workload of each recruiter as well as average compensation recruited to determine the difficulty level of requisitions a recruiter is trying to fill. With both those data points you should be able to fairly compare workload of each recruiter to another.
Recruiter #1 has 25 Open Reqs
Average compensation recruited at $80k
Total comp recruited $2,000,000
Recruiter #2 has 10 Open Reqs
Average compensation recruited at $150k
Total comp recruited $1,500,000
Recruiter #3 has 40 Open Reqs
Average compensation recruited at $30k
Total comp recruited $1,200,000
By the standards that many people measure by today, Recruiter #3 has the most open reqs and therefore has the largest and most difficult workload. Taking only average compensation recruited as a factor, Recruiter #2 has the toughest workload. With only factoring in total compensation recruited, Recruiter #1 has the largest workload. I would probably argue that Recruiter #1 has the toughest and biggest workload compared to the others when I look at all sets of data. While Recruiter #2 is probably recruiting higher-level executives, having 10 open reqs seems manageable. Who has a tougher workload? Who has more of a workload? Those questions are really for you to individually decide. The numbers above do not take into account if recruiters are trying to fill the same positions (say 40 open reqs for CSRs or 40 unique reqs). The numbers above simply give you tools to measure fairly but the analysis is ultimately up to you. you measure top down or bottom up? Over 38% of respondents to our metrics survey have stated that Technology/Data accessibility is the biggest challenge their organization faces regarding adopting metrics. In talking with hundreds of HR and Staffing professionals it has become clear that many of them start the process of measurement from the bottom up instead of the top down. They focus on collecting the most specific and granular pieces of data to analyze and draw conclusions. Frequently they get stuck, become frustrated, and cannot pass go due to the complexity of getting the data, validating it, cross referencing it, etc. Due to the lack of being able to gather data in this way, it becomes quite a challenge to articulate how this information impacts the bottom line of the organization and effects business outcomes either positively or negatively. I’d like to suggest there is a better way.
I can address the first question of efficiency. The second question regarding capacity, in my opinion, is a matter of each individual company situation. Benchmarking that data against other companies can be dangerous. How many companies operate exactly the same? Are recruiting roles the same from organization to organization? Is the value proposition for hiring people at your organization different than your competitors? Benchmark internally first to improve quarter on quarter and year on year results before looking externally. Once you look externally for benchmarking, pay close attention to processes that may help your company operate more efficiently. Don’t be too quick to focus on your numbers catching or beating your competition. Ultimately run your own race.
Now let’s get back to efficiency. How can I determine the maximum number of openings my recruiter should have? The first step is really measuring each recruiter equally which shouldn’t be done by calculating the total number of requisitions. If you agree with the premise that it is typically harder to fill a requisition that pays $100,000 salary than it is to fill a requisition that pays $35,000 salary then we are off to a good start. If you don’t agree with that premise then I suggest you stop reading after the next sentence and e-mail us why. Please note that my premise says “typically” a higher paying position is harder to fill but there will certainly be instances when that is not true. No metric or formula covers every situation. If you are looking for something that covers everything I wish you well and believe you’ll be searching endlessly. The second premise that I’d like you to agree with is that positions that pay higher than others are typically more important to the organization. I expect that phrase to stir some controversy based on the common belief that every part of an organization contributes to their success and all are important. I agree with that but organizations pay different people in different positions more than others simply because they have to. It is supply and demand. If you agree with those two premises, then we can move on regarding how to calculate a measurement so we can fairly measure workload of each recruiter. If compensation is the best indicator of both difficulty in recruiting and importance of a hire to an organization, then we should use total compensation recruited to measure workload of each recruiter as well as average compensation recruited to determine the difficulty level of requisitions a recruiter is trying to fill. With both those data points you should be able to fairly compare workload of each recruiter to another.
Recruiter #1 has 25 Open Reqs
Average compensation recruited at $80k
Total comp recruited $2,000,000
Recruiter #2 has 10 Open Reqs
Average compensation recruited at $150k
Total comp recruited $1,500,000
Recruiter #3 has 40 Open Reqs
Average compensation recruited at $30k
Total comp recruited $1,200,000
By the standards that many people measure by today, Recruiter #3 has the most open reqs and therefore has the largest and most difficult workload. Taking only average compensation recruited as a factor, Recruiter #2 has the toughest workload. With only factoring in total compensation recruited, Recruiter #1 has the largest workload. I would probably argue that Recruiter #1 has the toughest and biggest workload compared to the others when I look at all sets of data. While Recruiter #2 is probably recruiting higher-level executives, having 10 open reqs seems manageable. Who has a tougher workload? Who has more of a workload? Those questions are really for you to individually decide. The numbers above do not take into account if recruiters are trying to fill the same positions (say 40 open reqs for CSRs or 40 unique reqs). The numbers above simply give you tools to measure fairly but the analysis is ultimately up to you. you measure top down or bottom up? Over 38% of respondents to our metrics survey have stated that Technology/Data accessibility is the biggest challenge their organization faces regarding adopting metrics. In talking with hundreds of HR and Staffing professionals it has become clear that many of them start the process of measurement from the bottom up instead of the top down. They focus on collecting the most specific and granular pieces of data to analyze and draw conclusions. Frequently they get stuck, become frustrated, and cannot pass go due to the complexity of getting the data, validating it, cross referencing it, etc. Due to the lack of being able to gather data in this way, it becomes quite a challenge to articulate how this information impacts the bottom line of the organization and effects business outcomes either positively or negatively. I’d like to suggest there is a better way.
Labels: Staffing Metrics
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