KPIs for recruiting are critical tools for helping your company assess where you are and where you want to be in your recruitment strategy. And for hires that make good business sense, your KPIs for recruiting should also incorporate your company’s diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEIB) efforts.
Seventy-five percent of Americans feel it’s very or somewhat important for companies to promote diversity in the workplace. Meanwhile, less than 60% of companies measure rates of hires, promotions, and exits by ethnicity, gender, and career levels. So how do hiring teams know if their efforts are actually working? And what should diversity recruiting KPIs measure? Below, we’ll cover everything you need to know about recruiting KPIs that’ll help foster diversity in your workplace.
How is diversity recruitment measured?
Diversity recruitment KPIs come with one big caveat: quotas do not remove the systemic barriers faced by underrepresented and marginalized groups in the workplace. To make true progress, it’s important to remember that KPIs are one tool within a larger DEIB strategy.
There is no one-size-fits-all recruiting metrics template that hiring teams can set and forget about. Diversity recruitment is an active process. It’s inextricably linked to a number of other DEIB aspects within a company.
That said, there are two basic approaches to creating KPIs for recruiting diverse teams:
- Demographic quotas
- Subjective perceptions
Demographic quotas focus on setting and reaching a specific number or percentage of a particular group. One method is matching the overall demographics of the local population in which you operate. However you chose your quotas, the goal of diversity recruitment is to increase the representation of diverse, marginalized groups within your company.
Measuring demographics and subjective perceptions involves surveying your candidate and employee population consistently. Classification of different marginalized groups can be challenging waters to navigate, especially if the folks tasked with monitoring and evaluating this classification aren’t from marginalized communities themselves. Take care not to offend candidates, new hires, or long-time employees with the demographic questions you ask. Follow guidelines on demographic questions from LGBTQIA+ organizations as well as the US census . Surveys should include questions to collect employees’ perceptions of diversity and inclusion within the company. In the case that employee perceptions fall short of reality, consider that your company may have a visibility problem.
How to set KPIs for recruiting diverse talent
To set your KPIs for recruiting from underrepresented groups, a company needs to go through a process of self-reflection, benchmarking, and goal-setting. Every company is different, so here are some tips for customizing this process.
Know where you’re at. Ask these questions to figure out your starting point:
- What are our current employee demographics?
- What are the leadership demographics?
- What are our current metrics for recruitment?
- What are the demographics of our current recruitment and hiring team?
- How do employees feel about diversity and inclusion right now?
Determine recruiting metric benchmarks for DEIB. Benchmarking is the process of comparing your organization externally to other organizations, or internally between departments, divisions, or regions.
Organizations like The Centre for Global Inclusion are working to build global standards for diversity recruiting metrics, but currently there are no hard-and-fast, industry-wide guidelines. And unfortunately, few companies publicly disclose their DEIB data. You’ll need to set your own goals and create your own benchmarks for measuring success. As an example, San Francisco-based tech company, Samsara, set a goal of 40% underrepresented groups at the phone screening step of the interview process in all roles and levels.
What are KPIs in diversity recruitment?
Recruiting metrics that matter will focus on the demographics of recruits, sources, and new hires. Here are six diversity recruitment metrics examples to get you started.
1. Diversity of hired candidates
The most important of all KPIs for recruiting diversity is, hands down, the diversity demographics of hired candidates. In the job application, ask candidates for demographic information. Keep track of the demographics for new hires based on this information. Obviously, to move the needle in the right direction, the new hire pool should be more diverse than your current employee population.
2. Diversity of candidate pool
To maintain diversity within your new hires, your pool of candidates needs to be more diverse, as well. Remember that, statistically, when there is only one candidate from a certain group — a practice referred to as “tokenism” — in a pool of applicants, they are never chosen for the position.
3. Diversity of recruiters/hiring panel
Those doing the recruiting, interviewing, and hiring need to be diverse as well. An all-white hiring team is likely to recruit their own likeness. Set a KPI for a majority women and minority white hiring team.
4. Diversity in the source of hire
A good diversity recruitment strategy will diversify its sources of recruitment. Keep track of the number of places you’re recruiting from and how many diverse candidates you’re getting from each source. Adjust your strategy accordingly.
5. Retention of diverse employees
All the recruitment analytics in the world won’t help if you’ve got a leaky pipeline. Once your diverse candidates are in the door, they need to stay. They need to want to stay. KPIs for recruiting diverse teams must connect to retention. Where are your hires’ satisfaction levels at 3, 6, or 12 months? Ask them.
6. Employee perceptions of diversity
Employee perceptions of diversity and inclusion within your company are critical. Survey your employees once or twice a year. Ask open-ended questions like:
- How well is HR doing to hire people from underrepresented groups?
- How well are diverse ideas and diverse people celebrated in the company?
- How fair do you feel the promotion and evaluation process to be, particularly for underrepresented groups?
Diversity recruiting KPIs drive self-reflection
Determining KPIs for recruiting is a process of self-reflection and goal-setting for a company. The six examples of KPIs for recruiting above are interconnected with sourcing, hiring, retention, and employee satisfaction. Few companies disclose DEIB data, so despite making external benchmarking difficult, internal goals can be as ambitious as you choose. At the end of the day, KPIs for recruiting should reflect your company’s DEIB goals and the fact that diverse teams perform better. Let PowerToFly help you build yours.
A 2025 guide to inclusive hiring practices
