Recruitment

Recruiter Capacity: How many live roles should a recruiter have?

How many live roles should a recruiter have?

It's a question that gets asked by Talent Acquisition Leaders almost daily across all platforms.

A recruiter only has 40 hours per week, how many roles can they manage before they're over capacity?

My personal breaking point was 92 live requisitions, which wasn't healthy and resulted in me working 12 hour days and still pretty much failing.

So what is the optimum number?

It depends.

It depends on...

The capability of the recruiter
The complexity of the roles
The availability and/or scarcity of talent for that role
The time investment required on each of the roles, think deep sourcing vs volume hiring and assessment centres
The number of touch points in the hiring process
The availability of admin support
The maturity of the tech stack and opportunities for automation
The number of hiring managers the recruiter is managing
The capability of the hiring managers and how much time they demand from the recruiter
The number of candidates the recruiter is managing
The stage each vacancy is at, 10 roles at sourcing stage is different than 2 at sourcing stage, 6 at interview and 2 at offer
The quality of service the recruiter is expected to give candidates
The quality of service the recruiter is expected to give hiring managers
Any additional side projects the recruiter needs to work on
The overall TA strategy and business objectives

So how many roles should a recruiter have? It depends.

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