roveNew to recruiting and staffing? If so, you may not know what the term “fill rate” means. However, you may be hearing it from your clients and colleagues on a regular basis. The simple answer is that fill rate describes the percentage of jobs that are being filled by candidates compared to the total number of job openings. So as a recruiter you want to have a high fill rate! That’s true if you are a direct hire recruiter, or if you focus on contract staffing like our customers here at FoxHIre. That’s because if you are making placements, you are making money! And making placements can be difficult, so having a high fill rate is key.
What is “fill rate”?
Fill rate is the average amount of job orders that are filled by a recruiter. This is a measure of efficiency and performance. As a recruiter or an agency owner, you want to know how well you are capitalizing on opportunities.
Why is it important?
Fill rate can inform a couple of key metrics specific to the health of your recruiting business. If you have plenty of opportunities, it can clearly show you how well you are able to close placements for those opportunities. Segmenting the data at the client level, job level, or recruiter level, can give you added insight specific to those segments. As an example, if you run a fill rate report for a specific client, and the fill rate is low, that might tell you that they aren’t a good fit for your business, or that your team isn’t focused enough on that client.
How to improve Fill Rate
Your ability to improve fill rate will depend on what’s causing you to have a poor fill rate. This may be due to skill set alignment, focus, candidate quality, and more. Reviewing trends that are contributing to your fill rate is key to figuring out your how to improve your numbers.
Can an EOR improve your fill rate?
Actually, yes! It’s been shown that direct hire firms that can offer contract-to-perm recruitment improve their close rate by 10%! That’s 10% more revenue for your firm, and it enables you to capitalize on conversion fees for candidates that start on a contract basis. If you’ve never heard of an EOR, don’t worry. EORs or “Employer of Record” providers offer an outsourced back office for recruiting firms. This enables recruiters to staff contract roles in all 50 states without carrying insurance, having payroll funding, offering benefits, and all those difficult things you need to worry about. If you are interested in seeing if an EOR is right for you, set up a demo with FoxHire here.
