Healthcare recruitment metrics that actually predict hires.

1. Cost per qualified applicant

Not cost per applicant, which rewards junk. Qualified means licensed, in the right specialty, in the right geography. Track it per role family and per channel. This is the number campaigns optimize to.

2. Time to first human reply

Minutes, not hours. Median and 90th percentile. The single stage most correlated with conversion, and the one almost nobody measures. Under five minutes is the standard; next business day is where candidates are lost. Grade yours with the speed to lead grader.

3. Applicant-to-interview rate

Directionally, below 40 percent from qualified applicants to booked interviews signals slow or weak first replies, not bad leads.

4. Cost per interview booked

The first number that ties spend to something a hiring manager can feel. Compare it across channels and it tells you where the budget should go.

5. Time to fill, by role family

Posting date to start date. Averages hide the specialty units that take twice as long; report by role family. Every day here has a vacancy cost attached (see the cost of an unfilled nursing position).

6. True cost per hire

Board spend, agency fees, recruiter time, and vacancy cost for the days the role sat open, divided by hires. Most organizations have never calculated it with vacancy included, which is why agency fees look like the whole problem when they are half of it. The cost per hire calculator does the arithmetic.

The weekly report

One page: the six numbers with week-over-week change, two to four bullets on what moved and why, and two or three decisions for next week. Anything else is a screenshot. Swings under about 15 percent on small volumes are noise; label them as such instead of explaining them.

What to stop reporting

Impressions, clicks, and total applicants as headline metrics. They belong in a diagnostic row, not at the top of the page.