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How Recruitment Agencies Measure Success


Historically, Recruitment has been a ‘cut-throat’ sector with agencies measuring success simply by the amount of deals each Consultant makes and not looking at attitude or work ethic. Although target setting is important, it is more valuable to agencies to take a holistic approach when reviewing employee performance.


The following are the most common ways to measure Consultant success:

1. Target Placements to Actual Placements Ratio – Each agency will set monthly, quarterly or annual targets. These will include team goals and individual Consultant goals. At the end of each month, quarter or year teams and individuals will have their performance measured against these pre-determined goals. The closer the actual is to the target determines how successful an individual or team has been.


2. Placement time from Terms Signed to Acceptance – This can be measured by counting the number of days from a Consultant signing a new client to the candidate accepting the role or to the candidate’s start date. Each way is effective – the lesser the number of days the more successful a Consultant is.


3. Placement Fee – The higher each placement fee is can indicate the success rate of individual Consultants and Recruitment teams.


4. Client Retention Rates – The higher number of hires made each month, quarter or year from repeat business can also indicate the success of a Recruitment agency.


5. ‘Dropper’ Rates – The high an agency’s ‘dropper rate’ – the more candidates that leave their placements before the end of a rebate period, the less successful an agency tends to be. The less droppers an agency has, the bigger fees it collects, ergo its success rates go up.


Each of these methods are focused around numbers. None of them are designed to measure attitude – are high numbers really the only things that can measure a Consultant’s success? American author Booker Washington once said, “I have learned that success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has had to overcome while trying to succeed.” A common philosophy of all sales jobs is positive thinking - no matter how many times you get knocked down you keep getting back up. If Recruitment is the same as any other sales job shouldn’t how many blank months Consultants have between billing months be a factor?

The more Consultants pick their performance up after blanking shows how successful they are.

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