Understanding quality of hire

Quality of hire is a metric that helps you evaluate the effectiveness of your recruitment efforts. It looks at how well new employees perform once they’re hired and whether they contribute to your company’s goals. This can help you understand what’s working within your hiring process and potentially adjust what isn’t working.

Recruitment includes everything from identifying a staffing need to writing job descriptions, reviewing applications, conducting interviews and making an offer. For example, your process might involve sourcing candidates through job boards, using structured interviews or screening applicants based on job-specific assessments.

As one of several key recruiting metrics, quality of hire can help you answer questions such as:

• Which sourcing methods bring in the strongest candidates?
• Are there ways to reduce recruiting costs without affecting results?
• How can we improve candidate selection at each stage?
• Which skills or attributes lead to better long-term performance?
• What steps help us consistently choose high-performing employees?

Although quality of hire is measured after onboarding, it often reflects earlier decisions, including how well a candidate scored during the screening process. If your team notices high turnover or inconsistent performance, this metric can reveal opportunities to refine your approach.

Challenges in measuring quality of hire

Measuring quality of hire works best when it balances data with manager feedback. While opinions can vary, combining them with objective information gives you a fuller picture of how new hires are performing. This approach makes it easier to identify patterns and opportunities to strengthen your hiring program.

For example, if your company uses a human capital management (HCM) system, you can track retention, productivity or performance scores in a consistent way. If you don’t have an HCM in place, you can still gather reliable data through methods like employee surveys, one-on-one check-ins or project results. Training HR staff to collect and interpret this information ensures the quality of hire metric remains accurate and actionable.

Defining quality

Before tracking quality of hire, it helps to decide what “quality” means for your organization. Some employers focus on reliability factors like attendance or punctuality, while others emphasize results such as project completion rates or customer satisfaction. Defining these criteria upfront gives you a foundation for building a consistent quality of hire scorecard.

Unlike metrics with a single formula, quality of hire often combines several data points into one view. You might track retention, performance reviews and cultural fit scores, then average them into an overall quality rating. While this approach takes more effort, it can provide deeper insight into how well your hiring process is delivering long-term value.

Choosing success metrics

Quality of hire can be measured in many ways, and selecting the right mix of metrics helps you notice results sooner. Short-term measures such as early performance reviews, attendance records or project completion rates allow you to evaluate new hires within weeks or months, rather than waiting years for data tied to promotions or long-term career growth.

Using multiple metrics is often the most effective approach. For example, combining manager feedback, retention rates and customer satisfaction scores provides a balanced view of how a new employee contributes. This broader perspective makes it easier to refine your recruiting strategy and identify practices that consistently lead to stronger hires.

Determining who should be responsible for measuring quality of hire

The responsibility for tracking quality of hire often depends on the size of your organization. In small businesses or start-ups, HR teams may be limited, so the HR Director can take the lead on collecting data and evaluating how new hires are performing.

If you don’t have a formal HR department, you can assign this responsibility to a manager or business leader. Having a designated person track the metric promotes accountability and ensures that insights from the data are consistently applied to strengthen your hiring process.

Key metrics for measuring quality of hire

Quality of hire is usually based on several metrics combined into a single score. Assigning a percentage weight to each factor allows you to create a balanced view of how well new employees are performing. For example, if you track five metrics and weight them equally at 20% each, you might have the following calculation:

Adding these results together gives you a quality of hire score of 9.32. This method can be used for individual employees or averaged across all recent hires to measure overall effectiveness.

Common metrics to include in a quality of hire scorecard are job performance, employee engagement and turnover rates. Many employers also consider culture add, teamwork and growth potential. Choosing a mix of short-term and long-term factors provides a more complete picture of how new hires contribute to the organization’s success.

Indicators of quality

Quality of hire metrics can highlight whether new employees are productive, engaged and aligned with your company’s values. The most useful results often come from combining pre-hire and post-hire data. For example, you might compare a candidate’s assessment scores with their 90-day review to assess how well early indicators match on-the-job outcomes.

Early feedback from managers during onboarding is another valuable tool. Structured check-ins can track how quickly employees are meeting expectations, adapting to workflows and collaborating with team members.

Pre-hire metrics

Pre-hire metrics focus on the recruitment process itself. You might want to track the following:

• Source yield: Measures the effectiveness of different recruitment sources in helping you attract quality candidates
• Time to fill: Measures the number of days between when a job request is approved and when a candidate accepts a job offer
• Time to hire: Counts the number of days between application and acceptance
• Cost per hire: Measures the cost of hiring a new employee
• Hiring velocity: Indicates the percentage of jobs filled on time

Monitoring these metrics may help your organization reduce its recruitment costs while increasing overall candidate quality.

Post-hire metrics

Post-hire metrics show how employees perform and engage once they join your organization. Tracking these results can reveal ways to strengthen onboarding, improve retention and ensure new hires are contributing effectively. Common post-hire metrics include:

• Time to productivity: Measures how long it takes a new hire to perform their role independently. For example, you might track when a Customer Support Specialist can manage a full caseload without extra guidance.
• Onboarding survey scores: Capture how satisfied employees feel with the onboarding process and how quickly they feel connected to the team.
• Performance ratings: Compare new hires’ performance levels to peers in similar roles, based on manager feedback or standardized review systems.
• Job performance: Evaluates how well employees handle responsibilities, often using measures such as sales numbers, project completion rates or defect counts.
• Retention: Tracks how long employees stay with the company, using hire and separation dates already stored in HR systems.

Data for retention and turnover is often straightforward to collect. Other metrics can be gathered by combining manager input, employee surveys and objective performance data. For example, customer satisfaction scores, error rates or monthly sales can all show how effectively new hires are contributing in their roles.

Developing a quality of hire scorecard

A quality of hire scorecard helps you bring multiple metrics together into one view, making it easier to evaluate new hires consistently. To create one, ask HR team members and Hiring Managers for input. Their feedback ensures the scorecard reflects different perspectives and aligns with your organization’s goals.

Once your scorecard is in place, review and update it regularly. Business priorities often shift, and the metrics you track should evolve too. For example, one year you may focus on customer satisfaction as you enter a new market, while the next year you might emphasize revenue growth as your company expands.

Improving quality of hire through recruitment strategies

Your recruitment process directly affects quality of hire. It influences how many candidates apply, how quickly you can fill roles and how prospective employees view your organization. A strategic approach can also reduce hiring costs, build a stronger talent pipeline and improve retention.

Consider these strategies to improve results:

• Administer skills tests: Using job-relevant tests to confirm candidate abilities may give you objective data to compare candidates rather than relying only on interviews.. For example, if you are hiring an Administrative Assistant, you might include a typing test.
• Enhance candidate communications: Personalizing messages throughout the hiring process helps candidates feel valued. Positive communication can improve the candidate experience and increase the likelihood that they will stay with your company if hired.
• Automate repetitive tasks: Automating steps like application confirmations or scheduling interviews speeds up response times. This creates a more efficient process for your team and leaves candidates with a stronger impression of your organization.

Enhancing candidate attraction

A strong employer brand helps you attract more qualified candidates. It represents how current employees, prospective hires and even community members view your organization. By investing in your brand, you can build stronger connections with candidates and increase the overall quality of your applicant pool.

Consider these strategies to strengthen your employer brand:

• Optimize your hiring process: Make it simple for candidates to apply. This could mean shortening application forms, streamlining skills tests or improving your careers page so opportunities are easier to find.
• Create a welcoming environment: Respond to candidate emails with personalized messages and greet visitors warmly during onsite interviews. Small gestures like these can make candidates feel valued from the start.
• Highlight opportunities for growth: Many candidates are drawn to companies that offer career advancement. Showcase training programs, mentorship opportunities or promotion paths in your job postings and on your website.

Effective pre-hire assessments

Pre-hire assessments help evaluate a candidate’s knowledge, skills and abilities. One way to enhance the assessment process is to incorporate multiple interview types, such as group interviews, panel interviews and one-on-one interviews. Each type of interview helps assess candidates in a different way. 

For example, a group interview involves multiple candidates, giving you an opportunity to observe how they communicate, negotiate and resolve conflict.

Leveraging employee referrals

An employee referral program can be a valuable way to connect with candidates who already know your company and understand what you do. Referred candidates often adapt more quickly because they have realistic expectations about the role and the workplace. Employees who make referrals usually recommend people who fit well with the company’s culture, which can improve hiring outcomes.

Referral programs can also shorten the time it takes to find qualified candidates. Instead of waiting for someone to discover a job posting, current employees can introduce you to applicants who are already interested in the company. For example, a Sales Associate might refer a former colleague with proven industry experience, helping you fill an open position more quickly and with greater confidence.

Using technology to enhance quality of hire

Technology can help streamline the hiring process and provide more accurate insights into quality of hire. Tools such as applicant tracking systems (ATS) can organize resumes, manage applications, schedule interviews and track recruitment metrics in one place. This makes it easier to evaluate both the efficiency and the outcomes of your hiring efforts.

You can also use technology to support skills testing, performance tracking and candidate communications. For example, assessment platforms can score tests automatically, while survey tools can gather feedback from new hires and managers. Collecting this type of data early helps you compare results across candidates and identify which hiring practices lead to stronger long-term performance.

To use technology effectively, decide which key performance indicators matter most to your organization. Aligning your tools with these goals ensures that the data you collect is consistent, relevant and actionable.

The role of Hiring Managers in quality of hire

Hiring Managers play an important role in measuring and improving quality of hire. Their feedback about candidate performance and new-hire integration provides valuable insights into how well employees are adapting. They also help introduce new hires to company policies and culture, which can influence time to productivity, job satisfaction and long-term retention.

Including Hiring Managers in recruitment decisions can also improve the accuracy of candidate evaluations. Because they have deep subject matter knowledge, they can help define the skills, experience and attributes needed for success in a role. For example, a Hiring Manager in IT might highlight specific certifications or troubleshooting skills that are critical for a technical support position.