Yield Ratio: How To Calculate & Analyze This Recruitment Metric
“For years, talent acquisition has been focused on metrics like time-to-fill and acceptance rates. But today, leadership is asking us about the quality of our hires and how we are measuring that,” says Amy Schulz, Head of Talent Acquisition at Canva.
Yield ratio in recruitment could be the answer.
Yield ratio is a key recruiting metric for data-driven hiring teams. In the past three years, applications per hire have tripled. But more candidates don’t necessarily mean better ones—volume doesn’t always equal quality. That’s where metrics like the yield ratio come in, helping teams focus on what’s actually working in their hiring process.
With 3 in 4 organizations struggling to fill full-time roles, it’s essential to know which channels and strategies are attracting qualified candidates. The yield ratio gives clear insight into the effectiveness of your sourcing and screening efforts by showing how many candidates move from one stage of the hiring funnel to the next.
In this article, we’ll explore the recruitment yield ratio in detail: what it means, the exact yield ratio formula, how to calculate it, and how to maximize its full potential.
Contents
What is the yield ratio?
Why is yield ratio important?
How to calculate yield ratio
What is a good yield ratio?
How to improve yield ratios
FAQ
What is the yield ratio?
Yield ratio is a recruiting metric that shows the percentage of candidates who move from one stage of the hiring process to the next, for example, from applicants to interviews or from interviews to hires. It’s calculated by dividing the number of candidates who advance to the next stage by the total number at the previous stage, then multiplying by 100 to get a percentage.
Recruiters use yield ratios to evaluate the effectiveness of sourcing channels, screening methods, interviewing practices, and the overall selection process. These insights help teams fine-tune their recruitment strategies, improve the candidate experience, and increase the quality of hires.
Below is an example of how a yield ratio would look in practice, represented in a recruitment yield pyramid:
Why is yield ratio important?
Recruiting takes time, money, and coordination across teams. Tracking yield ratios helps spot issues early, streamlines the hiring process, and supports more informed decision-making.
Measuring the effectiveness of sourcing strategies
Yield ratios allow you to assess how well different recruitment channels perform. For instance, you might receive 985 applications from a job board, but only 2% move past the first screening. That would suggest the channel is generating a high volume of unqualified applicants, which costs time and resources.
By comparing this to other sources, such as referrals, social media, or niche job platforms, you can identify which channels consistently bring in stronger candidates. This insight helps you decide where to invest your time and budget for future hiring efforts.
Pinpointing bottlenecks in your recruitment process
When candidates drop off between stages, it’s important to understand why. A sharp decline between screening and interviews might mean your screening criteria are too strict or that your filters are excluding qualified candidates.
Looking at the yield ratio helps you spot where the process is breaking down. Once you identify the issue, you can adjust your criteria, provide clearer instructions to recruiters, or even change the tools you’re using. These small shifts can shorten time to hire and improve the experience for both candidates and hiring teams.
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Identifying bias in the recruitment process
Yield ratios can also reveal potential bias. If your applicant pool is fairly balanced but the interview stage shows a large discrepancy, for example, significantly fewer women progressing, you may be facing an unintentional bias in the screening or interview phase.
Tracking yield ratios by demographic factors helps you spot disparities. This gives you the opportunity to revisit your screening methods, interview training, or evaluation criteria to create a fairer, more inclusive process.
Benchmarking and comparing previous recruitment cycles
Storing yield ratio data over time allows you to benchmark current recruitment efforts against previous ones. If you’re hiring for the same role again, you can compare yield ratios at each stage to see if the changes you made—like using a new screening tool or rewriting job ads—have improved results.
This kind of internal benchmarking helps you set more realistic expectations for hiring timelines and identify long-term trends in your recruitment process. You can also compare your metrics with industry benchmarks to see how your process stacks up.
Optimizing recruitment budgets
Yield ratios help you assess whether your recruitment spending is paying off. If a tool or platform has a low yield ratio and a high cost, it’s probably not worth the investment. On the other hand, a less expensive channel that consistently brings in quality candidates could be worth expanding.
By monitoring yield ratios alongside cost data, you can allocate your budget more effectively, focusing on sources that offer better results and cutting down on those that don’t deliver.
How to calculate yield ratio
Here are the key steps for calculating yield ratios across your recruitment process:
Step 1: Outline the key stages of your recruitment cycle
Start by identifying the main stages in your hiring funnel. This usually includes:
- Sourcing channels
- Applications received
- Candidates screened
- Candidates interviewed
- Job offers extended
- Hires made.
Defining each stage clearly helps you track yield ratios more effectively.
Step 2: Collect essential data
Gather the required data for each recruitment stage, which can be easily obtained from your Applicant Tracking System (ATS) or similar software tools. Make sure the data is recent, accurate, and specific to the roles or hiring cycles you’re analyzing.
Step 3: Calculate by using the yield ratio formula
The yield ratio is a fairly straightforward calculation that can be done using this formula: Yield Ratio = Number of candidates who move to the next stage x100 Number of candidates at the current stage
You can apply this formula for each stage to help you get a clear picture of how many candidates progress from one phase to the next.
Step 4: Analyze the results
Once you have your yield ratios, review them to spot patterns, bottlenecks, or potential red flags. Comparing results across roles, departments, or time periods can help identify areas for improvement.
Yield ratio example
Let’s say a multinational tech company is hiring a data scientist. It received 750 applications for the position. Here’s how the yield ratio breaks down at each stage:
- Applicant-to-screening ratio
- Formula: (Number of screened applicants ÷ Number of applicants) x 100
- Yield ratio calculation: (40 screened ÷ 750 applicants) x 100 = 5.3%
- Screened applicant-to-interview ratio
- Formula: (Number of interviewed candidates ÷ Number of screened applicants) x 100
- Yield ratio calculation: (8 interviewed ÷ 40 screened) x 100 = 20%
- Interview-to-offer ratio
- Formula (Number of job offers ÷ Number of interviews) x 100
- Yield ratio calculation: (2 job offers ÷ 8 interviewed) x 100 = 25%
- Offer-to-hire ratio
- Formula (Number of job offers ÷ Number of hires) x 100
- Yield ratio calculation: (1 hire ÷ 2 job offers) x 100 = 50%
Yield ratio analysis
The results indicate that there was a high number of applicants (750) for the position, which is normal for a major multinational technology company. The 5.3% screening yield suggests a selective screening process. A 20% interview yield and 25% offer yield point to a competitive selection process. With only one of two offers accepted, a 50% offer-to-hire ratio is reasonable, especially in specialized fields where top candidates often juggle multiple offers.
HR tip
Don’t keep yield ratio insights to yourself; share them with hiring managers, external recruiters, and other members of your HR team. Doing so can ensure that your various recruitment campaigns are supported by data-driven insights.
What is a good yield ratio?
What makes a recruitment yield ratio good or strong? It depends on a number of factors, such as your targeting, selection criteria, and the specific stage being measured. Always consider the “why” behind measuring ratios. Do they reveal a need to optimize costs, time-to-hire, or quality of candidates?
For example, a 25% applicant-to-interview yield ratio may indicate your recruitment drive is going well, but a bit too broad. You may have to adjust filters and screening criteria to be more specific and targeted. On the other hand, a low interview-to-offer ratio may indicate problems with candidate experience or compensation packages.
A further best practice would be to compare recruiting yield ratios across departments (e.g., legal vs. finance) and seniority levels to gain deeper insights and make targeted adjustments. For instance, while your yield ratio for entry-level jobs might be similar for females and males, you might uncover differences for more senior positions.
You could take it a step further and measure the yield ratios of individual recruiters. Depending on the outcome of these ratios, you could facilitate the cross-sharing of knowledge among managers and recruiters. They could, for example, share best practices and techniques that produce the highest-quality candidates.
Finally, remember to use industry benchmarks that consider your organization’s size, sector, and role characteristics. A recent Gem recruiting benchmark report provides insightful industry benchmarks to compare with your process. Ensure, however, that you stay up to date with the latest recruitment data.
How to improve yield ratios
Improving yield ratios means being more deliberate at every stage of the recruitment process. Here are a few practical ways to do that:
- Use data to refine sourcing: Look at which channels (job boards, referrals, social media platforms) produce higher-quality candidates. Focus your efforts on these instead of casting a wider net with low returns.
- Streamline screening: If you are unsatisfied with candidates’ qualifications after the initial screening phase, carefully review your screening criteria. Are you asking for too much upfront? Are strong candidates being weeded out?
- Train interviewers: Hiring managers may benefit from training to improve their ability to spot strong candidates, minimize bias, and create a better applicant experience, which can increase the chances of offer acceptance.
- Review compensation and perks: Beyond your recruitment process, revisit the quality and competitiveness of your organization’s total compensation and benefits package. Over 60% of candidates consider a significant increase in wages or benefits very important before accepting a new job offer.
- Analyze post-hire performance: A reliable way to assess the success of your recruitment process is to track how new hires perform once they’re on the job. Look at metrics like retention, job satisfaction, and performance reviews. These insights help determine whether your hiring efforts are bringing in candidates who thrive long-term.
A final thought
Tracking yield ratios at every step of the hiring funnel helps you make smarter, data-backed decisions. Instead of relying on guesswork, you’ll have the information you need to streamline your process, improve candidate quality, and adapt to what’s working, especially in a fast-moving hiring environment.
FAQ
A yield ratio in HR is a crucial metric that measures the percentage of candidates who move from one stage of the recruitment process to the next. It’s often used to evaluate the success of sourcing methods, screening techniques, and overall recruitment effectiveness.
A yield ratio of 12:1 means that only 1 out of every 12 candidates advances to the next stage. If you screen 12 applicants and only one moves forward, that may suggest overly strict screening criteria or a mismatch between sourcing and job requirements.
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