Cost Per Hire Calculator

How it is calculated

All recruiting spend for the period is added up and shared equally across the hires made in that period: total cost = internal_costs + external_costs and cost per hire = total cost ÷ hires. Internal costs are what your own staff cost for hiring, such as recruiter pay and HR time. External costs are paid to outside parties, such as job-board postings, agency fees, advertising, background checks and events. Use the same period for costs and hires. Hires must be a whole number of at least 1: zero hires or a fractional count such as 7.5 gives no result, because people cannot be split and zero cannot be divided into. Costs may be zero, while negative or empty fields give no result. The cost is spread equally, with no weighting by role seniority.

Common mistakes

• Counting costs from a whole year but hires from one quarter, or the reverse. Both numbers must cover the same period.
• Leaving out internal costs such as recruiter salaries and interviewer time because they are not invoices. Then the figure covers only external spend.
• Including candidates who were interviewed or offered a job but did not join. Hires are people who actually started, and the count must be a whole number.
• Averaging junior and senior hires together and using the result as a budget for one role. The average hides large differences between roles.
• Entering zero hires after an unsuccessful period. The tool returns no result, because the cost per hire is undefined when nobody was hired.