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Permalink Reply by Peter Ceccarelli on May 15, 2009 at 12:51pm

This is not a cut and dry type of answer. It really depends on how many openings you have, what level those opening are (non-exempt, exempt, manager, director, etc.), how "rare" or "common" the skill set you're looking for is, if it's a relocation position, etc. If you are an internal recruiter and working for a large corporation then your work load is probably 20 to 30 openings, at varying stages, at any given time. Therefore 8 to 12 hires per month would be about right. If you work for a midsize company, on average you probably have 10 to 15 openings and 6 to 8 hire per month is about what you'd expect. Smaller firms, (300-500) employees I'd expect your monthly job openings to average around 5-10 positions, therefore 0-5 hires per month. It really depends on so many factors and circumstances that I might think an average of 5 hires per month is great, and someone down the street will think that sucks! I've recruited for every scenario and size company I've described above and those are about what I used to average.

Hope this helps!

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Permalink Reply by Jennifer McClure on May 15, 2009 at 12:56pm

Thanks for the input Peter!

To answer some of your questions:

- It's an exempt position (salary plus commission) and entry level.
- A *very* small relocation benefit is available.
- The company has a great sales training program, so they're more interested in sales mentality, work ethic and ability to be trained versus prior experience.
- It's a mid-size company and growing very fast!

Peter Ceccarelli said:

This is not a cut and dry type of answer. It really depends on how many openings you have, what level those opening are (non-exempt, exempt, manager, director, etc.), how "rare" or "common" the skill set you're looking for is, if it's a relocation position, etc. If you are an internal recruiter and working for a large corporation then your work load is probably 20 to 30 openings, at varying stages, at any given time. Therefore 8 to 12 hires per month would be about right. If you work for a midsize company, on average you probably have 10 to 15 openings and 6 to 8 hire per month is about what you'd expect. Smaller firms, (300-500) employees I'd expect your monthly job openings to average around 5-10 positions, therefore 0-5 hires per month. It really depends on so many factors and circumstances that I might think an average of 5 hires per month is great, and someone down the street will think that sucks! I've recruited for every scenario and size company I've described above and those are about what I used to average.

Hope this helps!

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Permalink Reply by Craig Fisher on May 15, 2009 at 1:05pm

On a large recruiting team, your chance to fill openings is obviously decreased if you are all recruiting from the same talent pool. Also if you are only supporting 2 hiring managers you won't fill as many positions as a lone recruiter who supports many managers in the organization. Supposing there are an endless number of positions to fill each month for your two managers, a good recruiter should be able to fill at least 10 entry level positions, and 3-4 high level positions. If it's just one or the other (entry or high level) those numbers obviously go up. All of this is also highly dependent on the hiring process within the organization. Some are much slower than others.

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Permalink Reply by Michael Glenn on May 15, 2009 at 1:09pm

Jennifer,

That's like asking how much food can you eat? We need to know what type of food. I can eat a hundred tic-tacs in 10 minutes, but I can probably eat 2 hotdogs in 10 minutes.

Are they IT, medical, admin, engineer positions?

Here is my guess to your question (assuming it's IT)


I filled about 85 positions each year while working for large company. These were IT Jobs.

Small companies. I filled 20 to 30 positions this year.

Currently recruiting for company that 650 employees. I am on track to fill about 60 - 70 this year.

So about 5 people per month this year. All IT jobs.

HOWEVER,

Most corporate recruiters have around 20-30 Active open job reqs. That't pretty high. But thats the avg.

I believe a senior recruiter should have no more than 15 active open Reqs at any time. And I think 48 is a good target number of hires per year.

Anything above 60 hires per recruiter you need to hire someone.

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Permalink Reply by Mark Sullivan on May 15, 2009 at 2:52pm

Jennifer,

I agree with the comments above and what I have seen on Twitter. Depends.....

The question is not so much how many can they fill but how many can they "effectively support at one time." After reviewing our processes and streamlining efforts we are confident that our high volume recruiters can manage 80-100 positions which could translate into three to four open requisistions. Our high volume positions have set start dates in order to meet training class timelines. If a recruiter misses then we can roll those positions into the next req with a post mortem to try and avoid in the future (source, process, hiring manager responsivness, failed background checks).

If the positions are ongoing with no set start date for training, being a midsize company, growing fast and that you mention "improving their internal process" I would agree with Peter's numbers - 6-8.

Thanks,

Mark

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Permalink Reply by RecruiterGuy on May 16, 2009 at 1:22pm

Mark nails it.

Depending on the types of jobs and the hiring process that is in place for those titles it might not be unreasonable to have a range from 200 a month to 25 a month.

With some rigor around what's being asked I think this question could develop into some interesting dialogue.

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