Every few months, I get a call or email from an executive at a large organization that is in the middle of rethinking their recruiting program.They usually ask a simple question – “What’s the optimal workload for a recruiter?”
Up until now, I’ve never had a good answer, but that’s just changed.
The Corporate Executive Board Recruiting Roundtable has conducted a survey of several hundred Global 2000 companies “in order to map out the link between workloads and quality of hire, as well as cycle time”.
We’ve published an article written by David J. Williams summarizing their findings in our print Journal of Corporate Recruiting Leadership, but I wanted to share part of the findings with my blog readers as well.I’m sure they will be controversial (“I handle 50 open positions because I am a recruiting ace!!!”), but bear in mind that they are averages, and that different individuals at different organizations with different kinds of opening to fill will vary.
Check out this chart:
It is pretty common-sense – as workload increases, quality of hires (AKA quality of the product that recruiters create) decreases, and it takes longer to fill the positions (AKA production time increases).
What’s interesting is that the survey shows a pretty clear point at which these lines diverge.
It would seem that (on average) the optimal workload for a recruiter is between 11 and 20 open positions.
Does this match your experiences? (This question is more for the recruiters at Global 200 companies than smaller organizations, since that was the target for the survey.)
Recruiting to the max The Recruiting Roundtable says that the maximum workload for a recruiter is 11 and 20 positions at one time. Beyond that point, the quality of the work deteriorates as do the hires. And it takes more... [continue]
comments
Yield Analysis
posted 5/1/2006 at 3:15 p.m. PT by Master Burnett
The logic and the chart are attractive, and the question is a common one, if only the answer were as simple as 11-20. We too receive this question with a great deal of regularity and have looked into answering it with a finite number many times, only to pull back following some analysis. We have looked for trends relative to industry, organizational size, recruiting model, and even geography, and each time have found no significant trend.
To conclusively identify a finite range that pairs quality of hire with volume of req load irrespective of the environmental variables is both reckless and illogical.
I can point to two finance firms, both Fortune 200 enterprises that employ two very different recruiting models. Each employs a similar methodology for measuring quality of hire. In one organization the average requisition load per recruiter is 62, in the other it averages 28. Both organizations have strong brands and experienced recruiting leadership. Surprisingly, the organization with the higher average requisition load produces consistently higher quality of hire ratings.
The simple answer is that there is no simple answer. Organizations must take into account all of the processes, the technology, the policies, and behaviors that characterize their "recruiting system," and yield model that system to identify it's optimal performance level.
Yield modeling is simple, although once people find out how truly ineffective their systems are respective of the goals established for them, their reactions may not be.
A real “system” produces predictable output within a quality range established and inherit to the design. All systems have an optimal production level and a maximum capacity. Few recruiting functions are designed as recruiting systems, which is why most organizations can’t tell you how they are performing or how even what they are capable of.
Corporate or Third Party Numbers?
posted 5/3/2006 at 8:44 a.m. PT by Recruiting Animal
Dave do those numbers vary depending on whether the recruiter is an internal corporate recruiter or an external third party recruiter. (I suspect that it's higher on the corporate side).
Responses
posted 5/3/2006 at 9:50 a.m. PT by David Manaster
CH - The survey was conducted by The Recruiting Roundtable and responses were sent in by companies in the Global 2000, so the respondees are corporate.
Master - I agree that an answer like "11-20" is oversimplified. The actual article has more nuance, and certainly every company (and probably every recruiter within that company) will be different. It treats these numbers as rules of thumb rather than laws, and points out different variables that can change the numbers for different organizations. My brief summary here clearly did not do it justice - I intended only to point out something that I found to be interesting.
From the article:
"A caveat is probably in order here - namely, that these tipping points are averages, and should thus be regarded more as rules of thumb than absolute ironclad laws. In other words, there are a number of factors that will cause them to vary. Portfolio variation, for example: The tipping point for a recruiter hiring for openings that are relatively similar will be greater than that of a recruiter searching for openings that look nothing like each other. Complexity is another factor: If one of my openings is for a scientist, and there are only 50 such scientists in the world, then my tipping point just got a whole lot smaller, because I'm going to have to devote that much more time to that position. Another issue is the presence of sourcers and/or coordinators. Both graphics shown here are for full-life-cycle recruiters. Supporting them with extra help will increase their carrying capacity, and is a step that should be considered in that light."
numbers
posted 5/8/2006 at 3:53 p.m. PT by Keith Mitchel
I think it has to do with the kind of requirement a recruiter has in his hands and the freedom he has to fill it. by freedom i mean HIB and stuff. And by kind i'd say the level. Its always easier to fill a programmers position than an Analysts'. But altogether I'd say 12 -15 is a good number. Just my opinion
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