Identify which recruiting channels - job boards, referrals, career sites, agencies, or social media - are generating your strongest hires at the lowest cost. Track source of hire across all channels, compare cost per hire by source, and benchmark against 2025 global averages. Free, no sign-up needed.
Add each active recruitment channel (job boards, referrals, career site, agencies, social media, etc.), enter the number of hires from each channel, and your total spend per channel for the selected period.
Toggle on advanced inputs to include quality scores, 12-month retention rates, and revenue or productivity value per channel for a comprehensive channel effectiveness analysis.
Instantly see your source of hire percentage breakdown, cost per hire by channel, your best-performing sourcing channel, and how your mix compares to global benchmarks. Download the PDF report to share with your TA leadership team.
Source of Hire measures the percentage contribution of each recruiting channel to your organisation's total successful hires over a defined period. It is the foundational metric for evaluating the effectiveness and efficiency of your sourcing strategy. Source of Hire (%) = (Hires from Channel / Total Hires) x 100 For example, if your organisation made 50 total hires in Q1 2025 and 18 came from employee referrals, the Source of Hire for referrals = (18 / 50) x 100 = 36%. To measure cost efficiency per channel: Cost Per Hire by Source = Total Channel Spend / Hires from that Channel
According to LinkedIn Talent Solutions Global Recruiting Trends (2025) and SHRM Talent Acquisition benchmarks, the global average source of hire distribution shows employee referrals contributing 30-35% of total hires, job boards at 25-30%, company career sites at 15-20%, and recruitment agencies at 10-15%. A balanced sourcing mix reduces dependency on any single channel, lowers overall cost per hire, and improves quality of hire.
Source of hire is an HR recruitment metric that identifies which recruiting channels - such as job boards, employee referrals, social media, recruitment agencies, company career websites, or campus programmes - are responsible for generating successful hires within an organisation. It is typically expressed as a percentage of total hires attributed to each channel and is a foundational metric for evaluating sourcing strategy effectiveness.