Why You Must Redefine Quality of Hire (and How) | Gartner

According to a LinkedIn report on the future of recruiting, tactical recruiting metrics — like time to hire, candidates per hire, or offer acceptance rate—are commonly used since they are easy to measure. However, more strategic measures, such as quality of hire (QoH), remain elusive for many recruiting teams because they are harder to quantify. Of the eight recruiting metrics mentioned in the report (page 24), recruiters that were surveyed view QoH as having the most significant gap between its importance and current use. Stated differently, recruiters believe QoH is a critical metric that is difficult to measure. As recruiting teams think through ways to track and measure QoH—an indicator of how much value a new employee brings to a company—this Gartner article provides a few ideas. It mentions that one challenge of measuring QoH is that organizations often rely heavily on what the hiring manager thinks about the new hire in the current role. And given how rapidly skills and role requirements change — coupled with the focus that many organizations have on internal mobility—the authors argue that: 1) the emphasis on QoH must shift from hiring manager satisfaction to the organization’s perspective, and 2) from specific, role-based skills to cross-role potential. Figure 6 on page 27 includes a 2×2 matrix and a set of questions that can help determine QoH by assessing an employee’s current and future skills preparedness.