Yield Ratio

What is Yield Ratio?

Yield ratios measure what percentage of candidates passes from one stage of the hiring process to another. It is usually used to measure how many candidates were hired from a total number of applications. But, their usefulness can expand beyond that to reflect every stage of the hiring pipeline and source of hire.

How to calculate Yield Ratio?

# of solid candidates resulting from stage n / total # of candidates who came in at stage n = Yield Ratio for stage n

Pros:

Yield metrics can help you figure out whether your recruitment strategies and sources are effective. For example, you could assess an external agency’s services as a candidate source. Imagine you received 200 resumes from an agency and only 5% of them passed through your screening call phase. This low yield could signify a problem. You might need to communicate more clearly with your external agency about position requirements. Or, maybe, the agency’s audience just isn’t right for you. You could also compare recruitment ratios from different sources like recruitment agencies, employee referrals and job boards to see which source is most effective for you.

Cons:

In general, the more yield ratios decrease over time, the more efficient your process becomes. It’s an indication that you’re employing better screening techniques. However, make sure that decreasing numbers of candidates who pass through each stage isn’t impacting the quality of hire. Also, when you want to measure the quality of a particular source, e.g. an external recruiter, passing more candidates from the ‘application’ to the ‘screening call’ phase could be a good thing. It could mean that this particular recruiter brings in a lot of good candidates.