A recruitment pipeline is described in words as a series of stages and understood in numbers as five counts and the four ratios between them. The counts are applicants, screens, interviews, offers and hires over some period. The ratios are what each stage passes on, and they are where the information is. On the worked example, 300 applicants become 60 screens, 24 interviews, 8 offers and 6 hires, which is 20% of applicants worth a screen, 40% of screens worth an interview, a third of interviews producing an offer, and three quarters of offers accepted. Those four percentages describe a desk more usefully than any adjective, and they compound into the number that plans everything else: 50 applicants per hire, so ten hires needs 500 applicants. Most small desks have the five counts sitting in an inbox and have never worked the four ratios. This page explains what each ratio is telling you and which of them is worth acting on first.
The first ratio is about targeting
Applicants to screens, 20% on the worked example, is mostly determined before anyone applies: where the advert ran, how the role was described and what the pay range said. It is the cheapest ratio to change and the one most often blamed on candidate quality when the cause is upstream of the candidate.
The middle ratios are about your process
Screens to interviews and interviews to offers describe how well your own filtering agrees with itself. A very high interview-to-offer rate can mean excellent screening or an interview that is not really a filter; a very low one means people are being interviewed who should not have been.
The last ratio is about the offer, not the pipeline
Offer acceptance, 75% here, is about pay, timing and how the process felt. It is the only ratio a candidate controls, and when it falls the cause is almost never the software. The pipeline sheet reports it separately for exactly that reason.
Questions people ask about recruitment pipeline
How long a period should I measure?
Long enough to contain several hires so one unusual role does not dominate the ratios. A quarter suits most small desks; a month is usually too short unless you are hiring at volume.
What if my stages are different?
Simplify to applicants, people you spoke to, people you interviewed properly, offers and hires. The applicants-per-hire figure barely moves and the ratios stay useful.
Which ratio should I fix first?
Usually the first one, because it is the cheapest to influence and it multiplies through everything after it. Doubling a 20% screen rate halves the applicants each hire needs.