A recruiting metrics report shows leadership how hiring is going against plan: how many people you hired, how fast, at what cost and with what results. This recruiting report template works as a monthly report or as the outline of a recruiting metrics dashboard, and it is free to copy and edit. A weekly manager note and a quarterly executive summary follow.
Recruiting metrics report template
When to use it
Send the full report in the first week of each month, after the ATS data for the prior month is complete. Lead with the headline block, because most readers will stop there. The rest is for the people who need to act on a specific number.
The weekly note is for hiring managers with an open role. It replaces the "any update?" message with a short, scheduled answer and makes it obvious when the delay is on their side of the desk.
How to customize it
- Pick one definition per metric and print it in a footnote. Time to hire and time to fill measure different spans, and mixing them makes trends meaningless.
- Use medians for speed metrics. One role open for 200 days will drag an average far from what most candidates experienced.
- Count both internal and external spend in cost per hire: recruiter time, ads, agencies, referral bonuses and tools. The cost per hire calculator and the time to hire calculator give you a starting number.
- Track offer acceptance rate with the reasons for every decline. The reasons tell you whether to fix pay, speed or the pitch.
- Report quality by cohort. Ninety-day retention for last quarter's hires is a lagging number, so label which month's hires it covers.
- Show each number next to its target from the hiring plan, so readers know whether a number is good.
Variations
Mistakes to avoid
- Reporting activity instead of outcomes. Emails sent and calls made belong in a recruiter's own notes, not the leadership report.
- Changing a metric's definition mid-year without saying so. Note the change and restate the prior months.
- Dropping the fairness check because the numbers are small. The Uniform Guidelines ask employers to keep records showing the impact of their selection procedures by race, sex and ethnic group, so track it anyway and say when a sample is too small to read.
- Publishing selection rates by group to a wide audience. Keep demographic data with HR and share only the summary.
- Presenting numbers without a next step. Every red number should have an owner and a date.
About the fairness check: the federal Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedures say a selection rate for a race, sex or ethnic group that is less than four-fifths (80%) of the rate for the group with the highest rate will generally be regarded as evidence of adverse impact. They also note that smaller differences can still count when they are significant. The four-fifths rule is a screening test, not a final answer, so involve HR or counsel when a ratio falls below it. This is not legal advice.
Automating this with Carolina
Most of this report is pipeline data, and that is what Carolina, NTRVSTA's AI Head of Talent, can answer in plain English. Ask Carolina which roles have been open longer than 60 days or how many finalists are waiting on feedback, and you get an answer from the systems you already use. Hiring managers can get a morning digest in Slack or Microsoft Teams instead of a weekly note.
Because Carolina also handles scheduling and candidate updates, slow stages such as "waiting for an interview slot" or "decision not sent" tend to shrink, and the speed section reflects that. Plans start with a free Starter plan for one open role; details are on our pricing page.
Questions
What metrics should a recruiting report include?
Cover volume (open and filled requisitions), speed (time to hire and time to fill), funnel conversion, offer acceptance rate, cost per hire, quality of hire signals such as 90-day retention, candidate and hiring manager feedback, and a fairness check of selection rates by group.
How often should you send a recruiting metrics report?
Send a full report monthly, a short pipeline note to each hiring manager weekly, and a summary to the executive team each quarter. Monthly reporting is frequent enough to catch problems while there is still time to fix them.
What is the difference between time to hire and time to fill?
Time to hire usually runs from when a candidate applies or is first contacted to when they accept an offer. Time to fill usually runs from when the requisition is approved to when an offer is accepted. Pick one definition for each and keep it fixed.
Want pipeline answers without building the report by hand? Book a 20-minute demo and ask Carolina your own questions. More planning and reporting templates live in our template library.
