Recruiter Capacity
Are my recruiters over or under capacity?
Demand exceeds sustainable capacity.
Why this comes up
A recruiter who looks underproductive on a GP-per-head basis might actually be capacity-constrained by too many open reqs, not underperforming on the ones they're working. Conversely, a recruiter well under capacity has room to take on more before a new hire is justified. This engine checks current demand against your own sustainable capacity figure directly.
How we calculated this
Capacity Utilization = Current Demand / Sustainable Capacity
Worked example: 45 current open reqs (or whatever unit you track demand in), a sustainable capacity of 36.
Capacity Utilization = 45 / 36 = 125% (over capacity)
What this means
- Utilization above 100% means current demand exceeds what your recruiters can sustainably handle; expect fill rates, time to fill, or candidate quality to suffer if this persists.
- There's no fabricated industry-standard "reqs per recruiter" default here deliberately; sustainable capacity varies enormously by role complexity and req difficulty, so it has to come from your own historical data.
- Chronic over-capacity is one of the clearest signals worth feeding into Next Recruiter Hire Trigger.
Common mistakes
- Using a generic industry figure for sustainable capacity instead of deriving it from your own team's actual historical throughput.
- Checking capacity once and treating it as static, rather than tracking it as demand and team size both change.
- Attributing underperformance to a recruiter without first checking whether they're simply over capacity.
Frequently asked questions
How do I determine my own sustainable capacity figure?
Look at periods where your team was hitting fill-rate and time-to-fill targets consistently without burnout or turnover; the req load they were carrying then is a reasonable starting point for sustainable capacity.
Does this account for req difficulty?
No, it treats demand as a single number; if your reqs vary widely in difficulty, weight demand accordingly before entering it, or track capacity separately by req type.
What should I do if utilization is chronically above 100%?
Either add recruiting capacity (see Next Recruiter Hire Trigger) or reduce demand by being more selective about which reqs you accept.
Limitations
Requires an honest sustainable-capacity figure from your own data; this engine will not fabricate a default, since the right number varies too much by role complexity and req difficulty to generalize.
Next decision
Learn more
Staffing Recruiter Economics — what a recruiter needs to produce, when to hire the next one, and how ramp payback fits in.