Five KPIs tell you whether permanent hiring is working: time to fill, cost per hire, offer acceptance rate, new-hire retention and quality of hire. Here are the formulas, worked examples, SHRM benchmarks and agency KPIs.
- Track five core direct hire KPIs: time to fill, cost per hire, offer acceptance rate, new-hire retention and quality of hire.
- SHRM’s 2026 benchmarking data puts the median time to fill for nonexecutive roles at 39 calendar days, measured from requisition opening to offer acceptance.
- In SHRM’s 2025 report, median cost per hire was $1,200 for nonexecutive roles and $10,625 for executive roles, so always benchmark the two separately.
- Speed and cost only matter if hires stay: measure 90-day and one-year retention for every direct hire cohort.
- Hold recruiting agencies to their own scorecard: time to first slate, submittal-to-interview ratio, interview-to-offer ratio and placement retention.
In this article
Direct hire KPIs are the few numbers that tell you whether your permanent hiring is fast, affordable and producing people who stay and perform. The ones that matter most are time to fill, cost per hire, offer acceptance rate, new-hire retention and quality of hire. If you use a recruiting agency, add a short set of agency KPIs such as submittal-to-interview ratio and placement retention.
What direct hire KPIs measure
Direct hire means bringing someone onto your payroll as a permanent employee from day one, whether your own team recruits them or an agency does. Direct hire KPIs answer three questions:
- Speed: How long does a permanent seat stay empty?
- Cost: What do you spend to make each hire?
- Quality: Do the people you hire perform and stay?
Most teams track too many numbers and act on none. Start with the five below, review them monthly, and add more only when a specific problem needs one. For the full menu of recruiting measures, see our recruitment metrics list.
The 5 direct hire KPIs that matter most
| KPI | Formula | What it tells you |
|---|---|---|
| Time to fill | Offer acceptance date minus requisition open date (calendar days) | How long the seat is empty and where your process stalls |
| Cost per hire | (External costs + internal costs) ÷ number of hires | Whether recruiting spend is in line for the type of role |
| Offer acceptance rate | Offers accepted ÷ offers extended × 100 | Whether your pay, speed and pitch are competitive |
| New-hire retention | Hires still employed at 90 days (or 1 year) ÷ hires in that cohort × 100 | Whether you’re hiring people who fit the job |
| Quality of hire | Average of a few agreed scores, such as performance rating, manager satisfaction and retention | Whether hires actually deliver |
Time to fill: the speed KPI
SHRM defines time to fill as “the number of days from the time the job requisition was opened to the time the offer was accepted by the candidate,” counted in calendar days including weekends and holidays (SHRM 2025 Recruiting Benchmarking Report). Use the same definition so you can compare your numbers with the benchmark.
In SHRM’s 2026 benchmarking data, drawn from more than 4,600 organizations, the median time to fill for nonexecutive roles was 39 calendar days, down from the year before. Size matters too: SHRM’s 2025 report found that extra-large organizations (5,000 or more employees) had medians of 61 days for nonexecutive roles and 60 days for executive roles.
Worked example: a requisition for a staff accountant opens on March 2 and the candidate accepts on April 13. Time to fill is 42 days. Break it into stages to find the delay:
| Stage | Days |
|---|---|
| Requisition open to first qualified candidates | 12 |
| Screening to first interview | 9 |
| First interview to final interview | 14 |
| Final interview to offer accepted | 7 |
| Total time to fill | 42 |
Here the two weeks between first and final interviews is the biggest stage, so that is where to look first: interviewer availability, extra rounds or slow feedback. Our guide on how to reduce time to hire covers fixes stage by stage, and our cost of vacancy guide shows how to put a dollar figure on each extra day.
Cost per hire: the efficiency KPI
Cost per hire adds up everything you spend to recruit and divides it by the number of hires in the period. SHRM’s definition includes agency and advertising fees, job boards, referral bonuses, travel, relocation, recruiter pay and benefits, and talent acquisition system costs.
Worked example: in one quarter you make 12 direct hires. External costs are $18,000 in job board spend, $25,000 in agency fees for two hard-to-fill roles and $3,000 in referral bonuses. Internal costs are $30,000 of recruiter time (prorated salary and benefits) and $4,000 of ATS cost. Total: $80,000 ÷ 12 hires = $6,667 cost per hire. Without the two agency placements, the other 10 hires cost $55,000, or $5,500 each.
That split matters because the benchmark depends heavily on role level. SHRM’s 2025 report found median cost per hire of $1,200 for nonexecutive roles and $10,625 for executive roles. The executive median more than doubled since 2017, while the nonexecutive median fell.
Report cost per hire by role level and by source (job boards, referrals, agency), and never chase a lower number at the expense of retention. If you use agencies, our guide to recruiting fees explains how fees are structured.
Offer acceptance rate: the competitiveness KPI
Offer acceptance rate is offers accepted divided by offers extended. If you made 20 offers and 17 were accepted, your rate is 85%.
A falling rate usually points to one of three things: pay below market, a slow process that lets candidates take other offers, or a mismatch between what the interview promised and what the offer delivers. Ask every candidate who declines why, and log the reason. Our offer acceptance rate guide covers how to diagnose and fix a low rate.
New-hire retention and quality of hire: the outcome KPIs
A fast, cheap hire who leaves in two months is your most expensive hire. Measure retention by cohort:
- 90-day retention catches bad fit, misleading job previews and weak onboarding.
- One-year retention reflects management, growth and pay.
Worked example: you made 25 direct hires in the first half of the year. At 90 days, 23 are still employed (92%). At one year, 20 remain (80%). The drop between 90 days and a year suggests problems after onboarding, not at selection, so look at manager feedback and new-hire surveys such as 30-60-90 day check-ins.
Quality of hire is harder to measure, and fewer employers try: SHRM’s 2025 report found that only 20% of organizations measured it. A simple version works: at six or 12 months, average three scores on the same scale (for example 1 to 5): the hiring manager’s rating of the hire, the hire’s latest performance rating, and whether they are still employed (5 if yes, 1 if no). Compare the average by source, recruiter and role.
Direct hire KPIs for recruiting agencies
If an agency fills some of your direct hire roles, track its performance separately. These KPIs show whether the agency understands the role and sends people you actually want to hire.
| Agency KPI | Formula or measure | Red flag |
|---|---|---|
| Time to first slate | Days from kickoff to first qualified candidates presented | Long gaps with no candidates and no update |
| Submittal-to-interview ratio | Candidates submitted ÷ candidates you chose to interview | You reject most submittals on paper |
| Interview-to-offer ratio | Candidates interviewed ÷ offers made | Many interviews, few offers: the brief may be off |
| Fill rate | Roles filled by the agency ÷ roles assigned to it | Roles assigned but rarely filled |
| Placement retention | Agency placements still employed at the end of the guarantee period and at one year | Early departures and repeated replacement requests |
| Candidate experience | Short survey of candidates the agency presented | Candidates say they weren’t told about pay, location or the role |
Agree on these numbers and response times up front. Our recruiter SLA templates show how to put them in writing.
How to set targets and report direct hire KPIs
- Use the same definitions every time. Write down when the clock starts (requisition approved) and stops (offer accepted), and which costs count.
- Build your own baseline. Pull the last 6 to 12 months of hires and calculate each KPI by role family. Your history is a better target than any national average.
- Segment. Report executive and nonexecutive roles, and hard-to-fill specialties, separately. A blended average hides problems.
- Pair speed and cost with quality. Never report time to fill or cost per hire without 90-day retention next to it.
- Review monthly, act quarterly. Look for trends, pick one bottleneck to fix each quarter, and check whether the number moves.
A one-page scorecard is enough:
| KPI | Last quarter | This quarter | Target | Owner |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Time to fill (nonexecutive, median days) | TA lead | |||
| Cost per hire (by role level) | TA lead and finance | |||
| Offer acceptance rate | Recruiters | |||
| 90-day retention | HR and hiring managers | |||
| Quality of hire score | Hiring managers |
How Careerscape can help
Careerscape is a U.S. staffing and recruiting firm that fills permanent roles through direct hire and executive search. If your time to fill or retention numbers are off target for certain roles, we can take on those searches and report against the KPIs you set.
Frequently asked questions
What is a good time to fill for direct hire roles?
Compare against your own history for the same type of role first. As a national reference point, SHRM’s 2026 benchmarking data put the median time to fill for nonexecutive roles at 39 calendar days, measured from requisition opening to offer acceptance. Specialized and hard-to-fill roles often take longer, and in SHRM’s data the largest organizations reported longer medians than average.
What is the difference between time to fill and time to hire?
Time to fill measures how long a position stays open, from the day the requisition is approved or opened to the day a candidate accepts the offer. Time to hire measures how quickly you move a specific candidate, usually from the day they apply or enter your pipeline to the day they accept. Time to fill shows the business impact of a vacancy; time to hire shows how efficient your process is for candidates.
How do you calculate cost per hire for direct hire?
Add your external recruiting costs (agency fees, job board and advertising spend, referral bonuses, travel and relocation) to your internal costs (recruiter pay and benefits, recruiting technology), then divide by the number of hires in the same period. Calculate it separately for executive and nonexecutive roles, because the two differ by several times.
Which KPIs should I use to evaluate a recruiting agency?
Track time to first slate, submittal-to-interview ratio, interview-to-offer ratio, fill rate and how many of the agency’s placements are still employed after the guarantee period and after one year. Together these show whether the agency understands your roles, sends candidates you want to interview and produces hires who stay.
How often should direct hire KPIs be reviewed?
Review them monthly so you can spot problems early, and make bigger process changes quarterly so there is enough data to see whether a change worked. Retention and quality of hire need longer windows, so report them by hiring cohort at 90 days, six months and one year.