Recruiting systems guide · 7 min read
If you can't say — off the top of your head — how many recruiting conversations your team booked last week, you don't have a recruiting system. You have a recruiting hobby. Here are the seven numbers we put on the wall in every brokerage we work with, plus the benchmark for each.
A "conversation" is a live meeting — Zoom, coffee, phone. Not a DM reply. Good teams book 8-20 per week per recruiter. Below 5, your outreach volume or offer is the problem. Above 20 with no hires, your qualification is broken.
Booked conversations that actually happen. Should be above 70%. Below that, you're either booking too far out or your confirmation cadence (text 24 hours out, text 1 hour out) doesn't exist.
Of the conversations with a producing agent who's actually a fit, how many say yes within 30 days? Anything above 20% is healthy. Anything above 30% means your offer is doing the selling, not you.
Median days from the first outreach to a signed agreement. Under 45 days is elite. Over 90 days means your follow-up cadence is dropping people between touchpoints — usually the "let me think about it" gap.
Recruiter salary + tools + events + ads, divided by hires in the same period. Every brokerage should know this to the dollar. The number varies by market, but if it's a mystery, you can't build a recruiting P&L.
Of the agents who signed in the last quarter, how many are still active and transacting at day 90? This is the leading indicator of onboarding quality. Below 80% and you're recruiting into a leaky bucket.
Active conversations in flight, divided by your monthly hire target. Healthy teams sit at 4-6x coverage — enough that a slow week doesn't kill the month. Under 2x means you're one bad week from missing your number.
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