Staffing KPIs: how to measure fill rate and time to fill
By Drippay, Inc.Published 8 min read
Fill rate is the share of job orders you fill. Time to fill is the number of days it takes. Both are simple formulas, and both are easy to report in a way that flatters you or confuses a client, because each has several defensible versions.
This guide defines each version, works one example with labeled numbers, and adds the numbers most KPI lists leave out: the ones that sit upstream of the order, such as where job orders come from and how fast you reached the hiring manager.
Fill rate: what it is and three ways to count it
Bullhorn defines fill rate as the percentage of total job orders a firm has successfully filled, measured as job orders filled divided by job orders received. NextCrew points out that the argument is about what counts, and lists versions: by shift, by order, by shifts actually worked, and same-day requests.
The practical choice for a desk is the denominator. Orders received, orders you chose to work, and orders that have closed are three different numbers. Pick one, write it down, and use it every quarter. The example below shows the spread on one set of orders.
| Version (example) | Formula | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Of orders received | 24 filled / 60 received | 40.0% |
| Of orders you worked | 24 filled / 48 worked | 50.0% |
| Of worked orders that have closed | 24 filled / 42 closed | 57.1% |
Illustrative only. Of 60 orders received, 12 were declined at intake, 24 were filled, 6 are still open, and 18 closed unfilled.
The first number tells you how well your desk converts demand. The second tells you how well it delivers on what it accepts. The third removes open orders that have not had time to fill. Report which one you use. A client scorecard may define its own, and that is the one that moves you between tiers in a program.
Time to fill: where the clock starts and stops
Asymbl defines time to fill as the days between a role opening, or a job order arriving for a staffing firm, and the offer being accepted. Time to hire is a subset that starts later, when a candidate enters your pipeline. Time to start runs on to the worker’s first day.
Staffing Industry Analysts surveyed 327 staffing firms and found that two methods of calculating time to fill dominate. That is the reason to be careful with any benchmark: if two firms start the clock at different moments, their numbers do not compare.
Write down three timestamps for every order: received, first submittal, and offer accepted. They let you report time to fill and time to submit, and they show where an order stalls. Ascen suggests splitting the cycle into sourcing, screening, client review, and offer, so you can see which stage is the bottleneck and not push recruiters to speed up a step they already control.
Averages hide the order that went wrong
Use the median next to the mean. Example: nine filled orders took 4, 5, 6, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, and 60 days. The mean is about 12.9 days. The median is 7. One slow order pulled the average up, and the median shows what a typical order looks like.
Three more habits keep the number honest. Report perm and temp separately, because the cycles differ. Track the age of open orders, because time to fill only counts the ones that closed and hides the ones still stuck. And split by client and role family, so a bad search at one account does not read as a desk problem.
The core KPI set for a desk
Beyond fill rate and time to fill, a small set covers a desk. Keep it short enough to review weekly.
| KPI | Formula | What moves it |
|---|---|---|
| Fill rate | Orders filled / orders in your chosen denominator | Intake quality, candidate supply, pay competitiveness, speed |
| Time to fill | Offer accepted date minus order received date, median | Sourcing speed, client review lag, offer process |
| Time to submit | First submittal date minus order received date | Bench depth, recruiter load, intake clarity |
| Submittal-to-interview and interview-to-hire | Interviews / submittals, hires / interviews | Candidate fit, presentation, client decisiveness |
| Gross profit per placement | Fee, or bill minus pay and burden over the assignment | Rates, fee terms, assignment length |
Programs often use time to submit and interview-to-hire on supplier scorecards. See the guide to VMS and MSP programs.
Related: how VMS and MSP scorecards use these numbers to set your tier
The numbers upstream of the order
Fill rate starts when the order does, so it cannot tell you whether you reached the right employers. These lead-side measures can.
- Job orders received per week, by source: past client, referral, inbound, cold outreach, or a flagged opening. This is the first view of where demand actually comes from.
- Fill rate by source. Orders from past clients often differ from cold ones, and you want to know before you decide where to put hours.
- Share of orders with a named hiring manager and a dated opening. An order you can trace to a person and a date is easier to qualify and to follow up.
- Days from an opening appearing to your first message to the manager. Log the opening date and your first-touch date and you can measure how early you are.
- Expected fee per order worked: fill rate times average fee, or fill rate times expected gross profit for temp. It converts the quality of a lead into a number.
None of these needs software to start. A spreadsheet with a column for source and a column for opening date is enough for a quarter. The result usually shows that a few sources produce most of the orders you fill.
Do not copy a benchmark you cannot trace
Round-number benchmarks for fill rate and time to fill circulate widely. Many trace back to a survey that only members can read, and the methods differ. SIA’s own page for its fill rate and time-to-fill survey is behind membership, and NextCrew says there is no industry figure worth copying as a target because clients and programs set their own thresholds.
Use your own trend by role family and client, and use the target your contract or scorecard sets. If a client has a target, ask how it counts.
Raising fill rate and cutting time to fill
The fixes are mostly upstream. Qualify harder at intake so you decline orders you cannot fill. Price to the local market. Build the bench before the order arrives. Submit fast. Backfill cancellations the same day. NextCrew lists the same causes of a low fill rate: rates below market, requirements the pool does not have, late orders, slow notifications, and cancellations with no backfill.
There is one more lever: be earlier. An order from a hiring manager who has not yet gone to three other agencies fills more often than a stale req. dreach flags past clients hiring again and employers about to hire, with the manager and the warmest way in, so your first touch lands before the order is shared around. Measure the effect with the first-touch metric above, not with a claim.
Define fill rate by its denominator, start the time-to-fill clock at the same moment every time, report medians and open-order age, and add lead-side numbers so you can see which sources produce orders you fill. Then compare yourself to your own trend and your clients’ scorecards, not to a number you cannot trace.