Recruitment: Do you measure up?

In the search for quality staff, agencies across the Australian Public Service (APS) are spending heavily. Advertising is becoming bigger, brighter, more creative. Reputations such as being a great place to work, commitment to staff wellbeing and family friendly and flexible policies are being extensively promoted. This investment however, is being undermined by poor internal recruitment practices¹.

In its 2008 audit report Management of Recruitment in the APS, the Australian National Audit Office assessed whether the recruitment processes of APS agencies assisted in providing the workforce capability to deliver government programs effectively². This document complements the audit report and the Commission’s suite of better practice recruitment advice by drawing out a range of key recruitment metrics into an easy–to–use format for agencies.

There is no ‘right’ list of related measures for an agency to analyse. Agencies should take a holistic perspective to measurement by selecting a variety of measures (such as cost, time and satisfaction) and setting targets that are most relevant to their particular circumstances, business outcomes and data available for analysis.

Helpful baseline data for individual agencies and the APS as a whole can also be obtained through the State of the Service suite of products, including:

The Statistical Bulletin is especially useful for those wishing to isolate agency-specific data such as staffing profiles, movements and separations.

The relevance and usefulness of metrics can be greatly improved if aligned to specific business objectives or strategic initiatives (e.g. increasing retention rates), analysed by particular employee groupings (e.g. by organisational structure, geography or workforce segment), and tracked over time in order to generate internal benchmarks. Understanding how results differ across areas of the agency can help to isolate high–impact targets for intervention and can reveal behaviour patterns across the workforce³.

Common recruitment metrics
Measure	Metric	Purpose	Formula
Volume	Candidate Ratio	For agencies wishing to track candidate interest and/or the short-listing resources required for a typical candidate pool. To add meaning to this ratio, an agency should first seek to understand various job application and short-listing methods and their relative effectiveness.	Candidates : Offers Accepted
	Internal/External Candidate Ratio	Useful for agencies that frequently use internal candidates to fill positions or that have established strategies around recruiting internal talent to reduce turnover and improve development opportunities. Internal recruits are often calculated to include all internal movements, transfers and promotions.	Internal Recruits : External Recruits
	Recruitment Source Breakdown	This metric presents the percentage of external engagements by the recruitment channel through which they first learned of the vacancy. It is particularly useful for agencies that use multiple channels to advertise employment opportunities and wish to monitor volume and quality of candidates by source in order to maximise advertising ‘spend’. Recruitment Source information can be captured via an application form or managed manually.	(External Engagements [recruitment source] / External Engagements) x 100
Time	Average Time to Start	Useful for agencies that wish to measure the efficiency and timeliness of their recruitment processes. The Australian Public Service Commission recommends a target of 45 days from the identification of the recruitment need to the new starter commencing for a typical, non-SES recruitment exercise.	Average time from Identification of Recruitment Need to New Starter Commencing
Time	Interviews per Vacancy	For agencies interested in finding the balance between interviewing ‘enough’ candidates and protracting the recruitment process by interviewing an excessive number of candidates. This metric can be a useful indicator of process quality (e.g. recruitment speed or short-listing ability), candidate quality or of a selection team’s understanding of the role.	Candidates Interviewed / Vacancies
Quality	Offer Rate	These metrics will help the agency to identify inefficiencies in the recruitment process and gauge the strength of the employment value proposition or ‘offer’ to candidates. These metrics are especially important for those who operate in highly competitive talent markets.	(Offers Extended / Candidates Interviewed) x 100
	Offer–Acceptance Rate		(Offers Accepted / Offers Extended) x 100
	Turnover Rate – New Recruits	Useful for those who wish to measure the rate at which new recruits (e.g. <1 year length of service) leave the agency. The early departure of an employee may be due to any number of factors, including poor job or organisational fit, a poor understanding of the position, or poor induction. In this way, this metric can be used as an indication of recruitment effectiveness.	(Terminations [new recruits] / Average Headcount) x 100
	New Recruits Performance Ratio	Arguably the most important metric – it does not matter what the process costs, how long it takes, or whether it meets expectations if the agency is recruiting the wrong people. This metric helps agencies to monitor the relative effectiveness of recruitment activities in securing high-performing candidates and to evaluate return on investment. It may be considered more useful to establish an ‘interim’ performance rating at the three or six month period as this can be more directly telling of recruitment effectiveness, while a performance rating a year into the employee’s service may be influenced by many other factors.	Average Performance Rating.Recent Recruits : Average Performance Rating.Agency
Cost	Recruitment Cost per Vacancy	These metrics will be most useful to agencies that wish to monitor the relative magnitude of direct and indirect recruitment costs. The ‘Cost Breakdown’ method can often be more valuable than the traditional cost–per–vacancy metric because it isolates the various individual factors that affect cost. High costs may be driven by process inefficiencies, poor technology, ineffective advertising, excessive allowances or travel expenses, or other factors. However, recruitment costs must be considered in light of the potential costs and benefits of acquiring high–quality candidates.	Annual Recruitment Cost / Number of Vacancies
Cost	Recruitment Cost Breakdown		(Recruitment Cost [type] / Total Recruitment Costs) x 100
Satisfaction	New Recruit Turnover Contribution	As a general rule, any employee who voluntarily leaves within the first year of service can be interpreted as a poor recruitment decision. This metric can also be an indicator of other problems within the agency. Recruitment mistakes result in higher turnover, higher costs and lower productivity. It is therefore important to spend more upfront to ensure that those recruited are the best suited to the agency.	(Terminations.Short Service / Terminations) x 100
Satisfaction	Retention Rate	This is a useful benchmarking metric for agencies who understand their patterns of candidate attraction and separation (who is joining, who is leaving, and for what reasons) and who wish to monitor and measure their retention rates in light of new HR strategies.	(Start of Period Headcount + External Recruits – Terminations) / (Start of Period Headcount + External Recruits) x 100

Through internal surveys, agencies may also wish to measure factors such as employment brand strength, satisfaction with the recruitment process, and levels of employee commitment and engagement.

Support and resources

The Commission provides better practice advice and consultancy services to APS agencies. Contact hrcapability@apsc.gov.au for more information.
Better, Faster: Streamlining recruitment in the APS is a booklet and card set targeted at HR practitioners that encourages and provides a tool for the focused evaluation of agency recruitment processes. It includes process mapping methodology, better practice tips and a diagnostic tool aimed at generating discussion on issues and solutions.
Get it Right: A recruitment kit for managers is a toolkit aimed at HR and line managers that provides tactical end–to–end advice on the conduct of an efficient and effective recruitment exercise. It addresses several recruitment myths and helps managers to define the role, attract a quality field and choose the most effective selection methods.
MAC7, Reducing Red Tape in the Australian Public Service, presents a framework for ensuring that processes do not become redundant, ineffective or inappropriate over time. The report provides a sample streamlined recruitment case study and provides answers to common APS recruitment myths.
The booklet Ongoing Employment: Recruitment and related issues provides general advice on non–SES, ongoing recruitment and selection issues.
The State of the Service suite of products provides baseline data for the entire APS and for individual agencies on a range of measures including staffing profiles, movements and separations.
The APS Employment Database Internet Interface (APSEDII) is another source of useful data for agencies [https://www.apsedii.gov.au].

All publications can be accessed from the Commission’s website at www.apsc.gov.au.

1 Australian Public Service Commission 2007, Better, Faster: Streamlining Recruitment in the APS, Commonwealth of Australia, Canberra.

2 Australian National Audit Officer 2008, Audit Report No.31 2007–08, Management of Recruitment in the APS, Commonwealth of Australia, Canberra.

3 Corporate Leadership Council 2006, Selecting HR Metrics – Key Findings, Corporate Executive Board, Washington.

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Recruitment: Do you measure up?

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