Cost per Hire

Cost per Hire: Total recruiting cost divided by hires made.

Formula

Cost per Hire = (Internal recruiting costs + External recruiting costs) / Total hires

Computable definition

The canonical formula in the GASP formula grammar. The MCP server compiles it to SQL over the datasets listed below.

sum(field.cost where field.cost_function = 'recruiting') / count_distinct(field.employee_id where field.hire_date >= period_start and field.hire_date <= period_end)

Unit: currency

Data requirements

Grain: Per event · Frequency: Per hire · Aggregation: event · Staged: no · Main source: Finance / ERP.

Field	Dataset	Type
`cost`	cost_event	decimal
`cost_function`	cost_event	string
`employee_id`	employee	string
`event_date`	cost_event	date
`hire_date`	employee	date
`snapshot_date`	employee	date

Example SQL (Postgres)

SELECT (CAST((SELECT COALESCE(SUM(cost), 0) FROM cost_event WHERE event_date >= :period_start AND event_date <= :period_end AND cost_function = 'recruiting') AS DOUBLE PRECISION) / NULLIF((SELECT COUNT(DISTINCT employee_id) FROM employee WHERE snapshot_date = :period_end AND (hire_date >= :period_start AND hire_date <= :period_end)), 0)) AS cost_per_hire

From an agent: with the GASP MCP server, call lookup_metric({ "name": "Cost per Hire" }) or generate_query({ "metric": "Cost per Hire", "adapter": "<your adapter JSON>" }).

Benchmarks

IC roles: $3,000-$7,000
Technical roles: $7,000-$15,000
Executive roles: $20,000-$50,000+

← Back to People metrics