CareerPlug’s sixth annual Recruiting Metrics Report, based on hiring data from over 60,000 small businesses, provides essential insights into the recruiting trends shaping the hiring landscape in 2024. This comprehensive report helps employers understand which sourcing strategies are most effective — and where improvements are needed.
Key Metrics and Performance Indicators
In 2024, several critical recruiting metrics experienced modest declines:
- The click-to-apply conversion rate across industries averaged just 6%, suggesting that many job seekers may lose interest during the application process.
- Only 3% of applicants moved forward to the interview stage. This low ratio may be due to a growing number of unqualified candidates or interview “ghosting” — when candidates disappear after initial contact.
- The interview-to-hire ratio decreased slightly to 27%, indicating potential inefficiencies in screening or candidate engagement.
- On average, it took 180 applicants to make one hire, with this number varying depending on the industry.
Which Hiring Sources Are Most Effective?
Job boards still dominate application volume, contributing 61% of all applications, but they only accounted for 42% of hires. This suggests lower candidate quality or fit.
In contrast, company career pages generated just 13% of applicants but accounted for 26% of hires, making them four times more effective at converting candidates into employees.
Even more powerful were employee referrals: while they only made up 2% of applicants, they led to 11% of hires. Referred candidates were 10 times more likely to be hired than those from job boards.
Custom and industry-specific job boards also showed strong performance in candidate quality.
Actionable Recruiting Strategies for 2024
To stay competitive, businesses should:
- Invest in career page optimization to showcase workplace culture, benefits, and growth opportunities.
- Develop or enhance employee referral programs to tap into trusted networks.
- Utilize passive recruitment pipelines to engage future talent.
- Accelerate the hiring process with automated interview scheduling and SMS-based communication to avoid losing top candidates.
These recruiting trends demonstrate that quality beats quantity. Companies that prioritize targeted sourcing and fast, thoughtful candidate experiences are more likely to win the talent they need in 2024 and beyond.