Fill Rate

What Is Fill Rate?

Fill rate is the percentage of job openings that are filled with qualified candidates within a specified time period. It’s one of the KPIs used in recruitment to determine the effectiveness and efficiency of the recruitment process.

How is fill rate calculated?

You calculate fill rate by using a fill rate formula. There are different formulas depending on the type of fill rate meaning you’re calculating for.

In order to do the fill rate calculation, you would divide the number of filled open positions by the total number of open positions and then multiply that number by 100, which would result in the percentage for your fill rate.

Fill Rate (%)=(Number of Filled Positions/Total Number of Open Positions​)×100.

Common Fill Rate Terms Defined

There are a lot of fill rate terms that are talked about in recruitment agencies but a definition isn’t always provided at the time of use.

Time-to-Fill Rate

Time-to-fill rate measures the average amount of time that it takes for a job listing to be filled. This helps to determine the efficiency of the filling process from the initial listing of jobs, to interview, through to when they are hired by managers. To calculate, divide total number of open positions from the total time to fill all positions and multiply by 100.

Time-to-Fill Rate = (Total Time to Fill all Positions/Total Number of Open Positions​) × 100.

Requisition Fill Rate

The requisition fill rate calculates the percentage of individual jobs/requisitions that are successfully filled within a specific time or over the same time period. It helps recruitment agencies to understand the success of the recruitment process for a specific role. To calculate, you would divide the number of filled vacancies/requisitions by the total number of requisitions and then multiply by 100.

Requisition Fill Rate = (Number of Filled Requisitions/Total Number of Requisitions​) × 100.

Source Fill Rate

The source fill rate is a crucial calculation for recruitment agencies as it tells you how effective your sources for filling jobs actually are to your agency. These fill rates are calculated by taking the number of hires from a specific source and dividing it by the total number of hires, then multiplying it by 100. This tells you where you need to focus your attention and helps you to develop a relationship with a specific job board.

Source Fill Rate = (Number of Hires from a Specific Source/Total Number of Hires​) × 100.

Vendor Fill Rate

Vendor fill rates can either be how many positions are filled by a specific recruitment agency or third-party vendor OR it can be how a recruitment agency determines the proportion of business coming from specific clients. It is calculated by dividing the number of positions filled for specific client by the total number of positions filled by your agency and then multiplying that number by 100.

Vendor Fill Rate = (Number of Positions Filled for Specific Client/Total Number of Positions Filled by Vendor​) × 100.

No matter which fill rate definition you use, it’s important to have a keen understanding of where you have a high fill rate and a low fill rate, so you can focus on it. To improve fill rate, you would put more of your attention on improving your recruitment process, so that you have a higher number of roles filled at a faster rate and thus, improve your service level.

In Eclipse Recruitment Software, the real time and historical fill rate data is shown to allow recruiters to analyse data to assess performance. This, along with other metrics, allows recruitment agencies to optimise recruitment strategies and ensure that resources are allocated effectively.