Once a month, someone in management asks how recruitment is going. In many teams the answer is assembled at the last moment: a few numbers from the Applicant Tracking System, a spreadsheet from a colleague and a recruiter’s impression of the market. The result is slow to produce, differs from month to month and is hard to compare with earlier reports. A fixed monthly report drawn directly from the recruitment records answers the same questions every time, on the same definitions, so management sees trends instead of anecdotes. This article describes what such a report contains and how to keep it reliable.
The audience differs per segment. In recruitment agencies the report goes to the owner or directors and focuses on assignments, submissions and placements per client. Staffing and secondment organisations add availability of their pool and assignments ending soon. Executive search firms report per mandate rather than per volume. In-house recruitment teams report to HR and department heads on open roles and hiring progress. The structure below fits all of them.
Agree on the questions before the numbers
Start by writing down the handful of questions management actually wants answered each month, for example: how many vacancies are open and how old are they, how many were filled, where are candidates getting stuck and which sources lead to placements. Each question gets one figure or one short table, with a written definition of what is counted. A report with five well-defined figures is more useful than one with thirty that nobody can explain. Keep the definitions on the report itself, so a reader knows exactly what a number means.
Use figures that come from the records
A monthly report is only as good as the data behind it. Figures such as time-to-fill, conversion between pipeline stages and sources compared by placements depend on consistent recording: a source captured at the first application, a target fill date from day one, recorded rejection reasons and withdrawal reasons, and a documented close reason for every closed vacancy. Where a field is often empty, report how complete it is instead of presenting a figure that looks more precise than it is.
Show movement, not only totals
A total of open vacancies says little on its own. Show what happened during the month: vacancies opened, filled, put on hold and closed without a hire, and candidates who moved forward compared with those who stalled. Highlight vacancies that are past their target date and candidates who have been stuck in a stage for too long, so the report points to concrete follow-up. Compare each figure with the previous months on the same definition, and mention it when a definition has changed.
Add a short explanation per figure
Numbers without context invite the wrong conclusions. Add one or two sentences per figure explaining what is behind a change: a large client that paused hiring, a hard-to-fill role that drives the average up, or a new job board that is still too new to judge. Keep this explanation factual and based on the records, and separate it clearly from opinions about the market. Where the explanation leads to an action, name an owner and a date, and check that action in the next month’s report.
Keep the report light to produce
A monthly report should take minutes to prepare, not a day. Build it from saved views and filters in the Applicant Tracking System, so the same selection is used each month, and reuse the conventions of the weekly pipeline review and any client progress reports so figures match across reports. Producing the report is one of the repeated steps worth automating; the explanation per figure remains the work of a recruiter or team lead. Share the report with named recipients only, and leave out personal candidate details that management does not need.
A practical start
- Write down the five to seven questions management wants answered every month
- Give every figure a written definition and keep it on the report
- Check how complete the underlying fields are before relying on a figure
- Show movement during the month and compare with earlier months on the same definition
- Add a short, factual explanation per figure, with an owner and date for actions
- Use saved views so the report can be produced the same way in minutes
From impression to insight
A monthly recruitment report from an Applicant Tracking System replaces impressions with figures that mean the same thing every month. With agreed questions, written definitions, reliable recording and a short explanation per figure, management can see where recruitment is improving and where it needs attention, and recruiters spend less time assembling numbers. Explore the product or book a demo — we will show how reporting on vacancies, stages and sources works in BoldATS for your segment.