The Science of Hiring: What Actually Works (and What’s Just Hype) Part 4 of 7
John Hazelton
Helping TA & HR Leaders Unlock Hidden Insights with Custom Recruitment Dashboards
Part 4/7: Metrics That Actually Matter
Over the past few weeks, we’ve been building the ultimate evidence-based hiring process step by step:
Week 2: What actually predicts job performance (spoiler alert! Structured interviews and job-specific assessments win).
Week 3: How to design a hiring process that balances efficiency, fairness, and candidate experience.
Now we face another big question I am often asked: How do we measure success? For this I want to take a look at
“What’s a Driver Metric” is.
This is something I learned a lot working for a product and combining the product sales and other business metrics to help us understand what we need to do to move the needle. A driver metric directly influences hiring success. If you improve these, everything else improves too.
Something Nico Meunier from talent.io used to tell me is, that if you’re not measuring you are not learning. If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it. But here’s the problem:
? Most hiring metrics don’t actually tell you if you made a good hire.
? TA teams track “time to hire” and “cost per hire” but struggle to show impact.
? HR leaders want hiring data but often don’t know what “good” looks like.
This week, we’re fixing that. Here are the only hiring metrics you need in 2025—how to track them, what "good" looks like, and how they actually help you hire better.
So here we go…. I know you all love data… Stay with me
Time to Impact (Not Just Time to Hire)
?? Speed is irrelevant if the hire isn’t effective. Time to Impact measures how long it takes a new hire to reach full productivity.
Why You Should Care
?? How to Calculate It ??
Time to Impact = (Date of Full Productivity - Start Date)
( ‘Full productivity’ is a defined success benchmark—e.g., hitting KPIs, revenue targets, closing X deals in sales.)
Simple Example:
You hire a Sales Manager on Jan 1.
They close their first 5 deals on April 1 (your full productivity benchmark).
Time to Impact = 90 days.
How to Work on It:
Set a clear 90-day success plan for all new hires. Align with hiring managers on realistic ramp-up expectations. Track onboarding effectiveness with manager feedback.
Top Tip: Test this metric with one manager-level role or a high-volume position (e.g., sales reps, recruiters) where multiple hires allow comparison.
Hiring Velocity (Are You Losing Candidates to Slow Hiring?)
If you’re losing candidates to faster-moving companies, your process may be the problem.. Hiring Velocity measures how long each hiring stage takes.
Why You Should Care If applicants drop off before interviews, screening is too slow.
?? How to Calculate It ??
Hiring Velocity = (Total Days to Hire / Number of Stages)
Simple Example :
Your hiring process takes 40 days with 4 stages.
Hiring Velocity = 10 days per stage.
But if screening takes 15 days, you know where the slowdown is.
How to Work on It: Use AI-driven tools to screen faster (e.g, Chatbots, ATS automation etc). Set hiring manager SLAs for response times. Use pre-scheduled interview blocks to eliminate delays.
Top Tip: Test this with a role that’s historically slow to fill see where delays happen and cut unnecessary steps.
Candidate Experience Score
?? Better candidate experience = better hiring outcomes. It measures how candidates perceive and rate their hiring experience.
Why You Should Care
?? How to Calculate It ??
Candidate Experience Score = (Positive Feedback / Total Survey Responses) × 10
Simple Example Calculation:
100 candidates complete an interview.
80 give positive feedback.
Candidate Experience Score = 80%.
How to Improve It: Send post-interview surveys with a simple NPS-style rating. Audit your process, what’s frustrating candidates? Fix common complaints (e.g., lack of feedback, ghosting, slow timelines).
Top Tip: Implement this for a high-visibility role (e.g., Sales, Tech, Leadership) to gauge impact. Pro Tip: If you want to move beyond just basic Candidate NPS let me know, and if enough of you say yes I will write something about it.
Offer Acceptance Rate (Are You Winning or Losing?) ??
?? A low acceptance rate means something is wrong, either your process, your offer, or your reputation. This measures how often candidates accept your job offers. Now you may say this is too simple or why are you telling me, but how many of you could locate this information right now? Or who has audited the whole process to understand why? What is good per role, department or manager or TA for example?
Why You Should Care
?? How to Calculate It ??
Offer Acceptance Rate = (Accepted Offers / Total Offers) × 100
Simple Example:
You extend 10 offers.
7 candidates accept.
Offer Acceptance Rate = 70%.
How to Improve It: Speed up the offer process final interview to offer should be <48 hours. Benchmark salary & benefits against competitors—don’t lose talent over ￡5K. Get direct feedback from declined offers don’t assume, ask why.
Top Tip: Sometimes the basics are what you need to get right first. Not everything complicated or fancy will get you the desired outcomes.
How to Set Meaningful KPIS and Targets for These Metrics
Measuring without a benchmark = flying blind.
Look at Your Current Data
Start with your historical data. Where are you today? Example:
Compare Against Industry Benchmarks
Are you slower or faster than the market?
Coming Up Next: Week 5
Next week, we’ll tackle optimising the length of the hiring process—how to cut unnecessary steps, speed things up without sacrificing quality, and keep candidates engaged throughout. Plus, I’ll share practical ways to streamline your process without losing great talent.
After that, we’ll dive into customizing selection processes for different roles—because what works for high-volume hiring won’t work for specialised positions.
CTO & Co-Founder @ Evidenced | Working to make interviews consistent, fair and transparent.
2 周You should have come to Birmingham!