Case Study: Measuring New Hire Quality

The challenges of recruiting metrics may be best examined by understanding the dynamics of New Hire Quality. New Hire Quality is the essence of recruiting and measuring; it is as daunting as climbing Mount Everest. And just like taking on Everest, the very people who encourage us to climb it, question whether it is really possible. This is the way of all great challenges. By gaining a clearer picture of New Hire Quality, it is quite possible to take away these lessons and apply these principles to other metrics.

Four years ago less than 2 percent of the companies in the United States were making any attempt to measure new hire quality. By 2002 that had edged up toward 10 percent, still a very small and inexcusable proportion for such a critical measure. And then by the spring of 2006 the total was approaching 40 percent. There is still more talk than measurement, but the talk is getting more serious and is coming from more senior levels. “Can you measure the quality of our hires?” is one of the top three questions the CFOs, COOs, and CEOs ask us every week. (The other two are how to measure HR performance and how to select HR vendors.)