Recruitment KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) help you measure what’s working and what's not in your hiring process. With increasing pressure on Talent Acquisition teams to deliver better hires faster and more efficiently, tracking the right metrics is no longer optional. It’s essential.

But here’s the catch: while there’s no shortage of recruitment metrics you can track, only a few truly move the needle.

Today, more than ever, recruiters and Talent Acquisition specialists are facing increasing challenges in hiring and retaining the right people, with 74% of companies reporting challenges in finding qualified talent. Often, they are forced to do more with less, as talent acquisition teams shrink due to market instability.

To tackle this, we’ve seen a shift: the most successful teams are the ones measuring the qualitative metrics (like Candidate Experience and Quality of Hire), along with the traditional recruitment KPIs. They’re using data to drive better hiring decisions, hold stakeholders accountable, and improve the overall recruitment process.

So, what should you really focus on in 2025?

Here are the six most important recruitment KPIs to track and why they matter.

What Are Recruitment KPIs?

Recruitment Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are measurable metrics used to track and evaluate the effectiveness of a company's recruitment process. They provide insight into how well the company is attracting, screening, and hiring applicants. These metrics are usually determined by the time and money spent on various stages of the process or the quality of the outcome.

Having a recruitment KPI framework in place helps companies make data-driven decisions and optimize the process from start to finish to attract, hire, and retain top talent.

KPIs to Track in 2025

1. Candidate Experience

Candidate Experience is an important aspect of the recruitment process. It refers to the overall experience a candidate has as they move through the stages: from the first time they encounter the job opening to the final decision. As a KPI, measuring Candidate Experience encompasses many factors, such as:

1. Ease of application
2. Quality of communication with the recruiters or hiring managers
3. Interview experience
4. Access to feedback at every stage, especially if the candidate is unsuccessful

The way the candidate perceives the recruitment process is an effective way to get an insight into the overall performance of your hiring efforts.

Listening to the candidates will help you easily identify parts of the process that are not working: are there too many stages? Is the communication not adequate enough? Are you losing candidates due to poor time management or expectation setting?

Since recruitment is becoming more and more candidate-centric, an unhappy candidate can result in more damage to the organization than you think.

1. 69% of candidates believe that company reputation is important when deciding whether to accept a job offer or not.

2. Candidate Net Promoter Score (cNPS)

At Starred, we see Candidate Net Promoter Score (cNPS) as one of the main recruiting KPIs for the top-performing Talent Acquisition teams. cNPS is a metric that measures how likely candidates are to recommend applying for a job at the company to others based on their recruitment experience.

It is calculated by subtracting the percentage of detractors (candidates who would not recommend the company) from the percentage of promoters (candidates who would recommend the company).

A high cNPS indicates that the organization is providing a positive Candidate Experience and can help build a strong Employer Brand.

Tracking cNPS can also provide valuable insights into the recruitment process and help recruiters identify areas for improvement. For example, if the cNPS is low, it may indicate that the organization needs to improve communication with candidates or provide more transparency during the recruitment process.

By tracking cNPS, recruiters can make data-driven decisions to optimize the recruitment process and provide a positive Candidate Experience.

Learn more about How to Measure Candidate Net Promoter Score here!

Why it matters:

1. Candidates talk. A negative experience can impact your ability to attract top talent.
2. cNPS reveals friction in your recruitment funnel, whether it’s in communication, speed, interview quality, or rejection handling.
3. You can benchmark and improve the experience over time.

How to use it:

1. Send a short, automated survey tailored to the hiring stages in your Applicant Tracking System.
2. Track trends across roles, recruiters, departments, or stages.
3. Share results with hiring managers to drive accountability.

3. Time to Fill

This classic recruiting KPI isn’t going anywhere. Recruiters often talk about time to fill and time to hire metrics. They also often use them interchangeably. However, each metric encompasses a different time period within a recruitment process and allows companies to measure and improve in different ways.

1. Time to fill refers to the number of days it takes from the time a hiring process begins (i.e. from the day the job ad is posted) to the day the chosen candidate accepts their offer and signs the contract.
2. Calculating time to hire focuses more on the candidate journey: from the day they enter the recruitment funnel, through being shortlisted and interviewed, until they finally accept the job offer.

Measuring your time to hire and time to fill can show how quickly your recruitment process is bringing in new hires. This can help your talent acquisition team figure out which parts of the process might be slowing things down or making your best candidates lose interest and leave for other opportunities.

Why Time to Fill matters:

1. Top candidates get snatched up fast. If your hiring process is too slow, you’ll lose them.
2. It exposes inefficiencies in the recruitment workflow, whether it’s in screening, interviews, or feedback loops.

How to use it:

1. Break it down by department, role, recruiter, or hiring manager.
2. Compare against benchmarks by function or industry.
3. Combine it with candidate NPS to see if a slower process hurts candidate satisfaction.

Should You Keep Time to Hire as Low as Possible?

Yes. But not at all costs.

A shorter time to hire can positively impact your Candidate Experience. Candidates who receive timely feedback and updates during the recruitment process are more likely to have a positive experience, which can lead to a better Employer Brand and higher Candidate Net Promoter Scores (cNPS)

However, it is also crucial to balance a quick time to hire with other KPIs, such as the Quality of Hire and Candidate Experience. Rushing the recruitment process can result in hiring the wrong candidates or creating a negative Candidate Experience, which can be detrimental to the organization in the long run.

According to Employ's Recruiter Nation Report 2024, the average time to fill across industries is 41 days. Yet, on average, 55% of candidates expect it to take no more than 2 weeks from the first interview with a company to a job offer.

4. Cost per Hire

Cost per hire measures the cost of filling a vacancy within your organization. This includes all potential recruitment costs, such as:

1. Advertising the new role
2. The necessary time to identify the right candidate (e.g., a percentage of the recruiter's monthly salary)
3. Onboarding the new employee
4. Providing the necessary equipment

For example, the average cost per hire in the US is $4,700.  Let's say that you hire an average of 10 open positions a month, giving you a monthly cost of $47,000 on hires alone. This should already be a good enough reason to start monitoring the cost per hire metric in your recruitment efforts.

Moreover, by calculating the total cost of recruitment and dividing it by the number of hires made, recruiters can get a clear picture of the amount of resources required to fill a position. This information can be used to optimize the recruitment budget, make more informed decisions, and allocate resources more efficiently.

Monitoring the cost per hire allows you to ensure that you have enough budget for significant hiring expansions when they occur. For example, if significant roles within the organization need to be replaced or expanded, you can be confident that you have the financial capacity to hire the right person for the job.

Let's state the obvious: a lower cost per hire indicates that you're hiring more people while spending less on recruitment. Keeping an eye on this can help you identify trends and patterns that could optimize your overall hiring efforts.

For example, if your average cost per hire is quite low, yet you're not attracting the right candidates or the retention rates are dropping, you might find that increasing your investment in advertising on job boards and social media, such as LinkedIn, might positively impact your other KPIs.

Why Cost per Hire matters:

1. Helps optimize recruitment channels (job boards, agencies, etc.).
2. Provides a clear view of your recruitment team’s ROI.
3. Crucial for planning and forecasting recruitment budgets.

How to improve it:

1. Invest in Employer Branding to drive organic applicants.
2. Automate wherever possible to reduce manual work.
3. Look at your recruitment spend and compare outcomes between teams.

5. Source of Hire

Talent Acquisition teams nowadays have access to various channels when advertising a job opening. From job sites, recruitment agencies, LinkedIn, and other social media to employee referrals, all are used to find new employees.

The source of hire is the metric that measures the effectiveness of your recruitment channels. It is measured by factors such as:

1. Number of hires by source
2. Cost per hire by source
3. Retention rate per source

Knowing the most effective sourcing channel and comparing the number of high-quality candidates from each potential source can ensure that you focus on these when you begin the recruitment process. Source quality also enables your HR teams to know where to spend their time and resources building a reliable pipeline of great talent.

Our 2024 Candidate Experience Benchmark report revealed that internal applicants and referred candidates had the highest success rates in hiring. Despite making up only 1.10% and 5.98% of applicants, respectively, internal candidates have a 45% success rate, while 25% of referred candidates are hired.

This shows that not all sources will yield the same results, and you should have a good grasp of your performance with each channel to make sure you are not wasting time or money.

6. Quality of Hire

Quality of Hire is the metric that connects recruitment efforts with business impact. At Starred, we help companies define and measure Quality of Hire using a mix of hiring manager and new hire feedback. By focusing on three core drivers (job fit, company fit, and performance), you can get a well-rounded view of Quality of Hire.

A high quality of hire score is the ultimate proof of the effectiveness of your hiring efforts, from start to finish. It reflects on your team's ability to attract, engage, and hire the right people for the organization, both in terms of performance and cultural fit.

By measuring and improving the quality of hire metric, companies can ensure that they are hiring the right candidates who will be successful in their roles and will fit well within the organization. This can ultimately lead to improved business outcomes, as well as a more positive work environment for all employees.

Why it matters:

1. It gives Talent Acquisition a seat at the table, showing how hiring supports business objectives.
2. It aligns hiring teams and managers on what ‘good’ looks like.
3. It helps you refine sourcing and screening to attract qualified candidates.

How to measure Quality of Hire? We explore the full “how” in our next blog, including the quality of hire metrics, timing, and how to make sense of the data once you have it. Read it here!

Honorable Mentions

Offer Acceptance Rate

You’ve made an offer but will they say yes? Offer acceptance rate is a leading indicator of how competitive and compelling your hiring package and experience are.

Why it matters:

1. Low acceptance rates can signal issues with compensation, role clarity, or candidate experience.
2. Helps you measure your offer strategy and employer brand.
3. Reveals disconnects between what was promised and what’s offered.

How to use it:

1. Track by recruiter, role, and department.
2. Pair with candidate feedback to understand why offers were rejected.
3. Monitor trends over time to catch problems early.

Hiring Manager Satisfaction

Your recruitment team isn’t working in a vacuum. Hiring manager satisfaction is crucial for measuring internal alignment and partnership.

Why it matters:

1. It's a reflection of the quality of hires and the level of collaboration.
2. Shows how effectively the recruitment team supports hiring goals.
3. Improves communication and alignment between TA and the business.

How to measure:

1. Implement and automate a post-hire feedback survey for hiring managers.
2. Ask about speed, quality of candidates, and communication.
3. Use results to improve recruiter performance and hiring manager engagement.

Learn more about measuring Hiring Manager Satisfaction here!

So, What Recruitment KPIs Should You Track?

If you want to improve recruitment, you need to know what to optimize. Tracking Candidate Experience (cNPS) and Quality of Hire gives you visibility into both the journey and the outcome.

From there, Time to Fill, Cost and Source per Hire, Offer Acceptance, and Hiring Manager Satisfaction round out the picture.

Together, these KPIs help you:

1. Prioritize the right candidates
2. Improve hiring manager collaboration
3. Align recruiting efforts with business goals
4. Make smarter, data-driven decisions

In Short‍

Tracking recruitment KPIs isn’t just about hitting targets. It’s about understanding and improving the full hiring journey. In 2025, the KPIs that matter most go beyond just speed and cost:

1. Candidate Experience gives you insight into how candidates perceive your process and where friction points might be hiding.
2. Candidate Net Promoter Score (cNPS) measures how likely candidates are to recommend the company based on their recruitment experience.
3. Time to fill and time to hire are important metrics to track, as a shorter time can positively impact Candidate Experience, but rushing the process can result in hiring the wrong candidates.
4. Cost per hire measures the cost of filling a vacancy within an organization and can help optimize recruitment budgets.
5. Source of hire measures the effectiveness of recruitment channels and can help companies focus on the most effective sources.
6. Quality of Hire connects your hiring process to real business impact ensuring your efforts lead to top-performing employees who stick around.

Together, these KPIs give you a complete, data-driven view of your hiring performance. Tracking recruitment KPIs can ultimately lead to improved candidate quality, increased retention rates, and reduced costs, while prioritizing Candidate Experience KPIs can lead to a positive experience for candidates and build an attractive Employer Brand.

Conclusion

Recruiting is no longer just about filling roles, it’s about finding the right people, creating great experiences, and proving the impact of your work. That’s where metrics come in. Start by tracking what matters most and build a data-driven foundation for better hiring.