Calculator Inputs
Large screens show three columns, smaller screens show two, and mobile displays one column.
Example Data Table
These examples show how different staffing mixes change monthly requisition capacity.
| Scenario | Recruiters | Recruiting Hours | Hours per Req | Req Capacity | Planned Reqs | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lean startup | 1 | 89.60 | 22.00 | 4.07 | 5.00 | -0.93 |
| Balanced operations | 3 | 295.20 | 26.00 | 11.35 | 10.00 | 1.35 |
| Growth sprint | 5 | 530.40 | 30.00 | 17.68 | 18.00 | -0.32 |
| Executive search mix | 2 | 179.71 | 40.00 | 4.49 | 4.00 | 0.49 |
Formula Used
1. Gross Team Hours
Gross Team Hours = Recruiters × Workdays per Month × Hours per Day
2. Productive Hours
Productive Hours = Gross Team Hours × Utilization %
3. Available Recruiting Hours
Available Recruiting Hours = Productive Hours × (1 − Administrative % − Meetings % − Projects %)
4. Hours per Requisition
Hours per Requisition = Sourcing + Screening + Interview Coordination + Stakeholder Alignment + Offer and Onboarding
5. Requisition Capacity
Requisition Capacity = Available Recruiting Hours ÷ Hours per Requisition
6. Capacity Gap
Capacity Gap = Requisition Capacity − Planned Monthly Requisitions
7. Candidate Funnel Support
Candidates Managed = Requisition Capacity × Candidates per Requisition
Interviews Supported = Candidates Managed × Interview Rate
Offers Supported = Interviews Supported × Offer Rate
Expected Hires = minimum(Requisition Capacity, Offers Supported × Offer Acceptance Rate)
Practical note: Expected hires are capped by requisition capacity because a team cannot fill more roles than it can actively support.
How to Use This Calculator
- Enter your recruiter headcount, average workdays, and daily working hours.
- Estimate utilization and subtract non-recruiting time such as admin work, meetings, and projects.
- Set realistic effort hours for each requisition stage based on your hiring process.
- Add funnel assumptions like candidate volume, interview rate, offer rate, and acceptance rate.
- Enter the number of planned monthly requisitions, then calculate to compare demand with team capacity.
- Use the results to rebalance workloads, justify hiring, redesign process steps, or reset hiring plans.
Frequently Asked Questions
1. What does recruiter capacity actually measure?
It estimates how many requisitions a recruiting team can realistically support in a month after adjusting for productive time, non-recruiting work, and process effort per opening.
2. Why should utilization be included?
Scheduled hours are never fully available. Utilization accounts for time lost to breaks, leave, context switching, and unavoidable interruptions, making the model more realistic.
3. Should sourcers and coordinators be counted as recruiters?
Only include them if they directly carry meaningful recruiting workload. Otherwise, convert their contribution into hours and add those hours to the relevant requisition stages.
4. How do I estimate hours per requisition?
Review recent requisitions, total the hours spent on sourcing, screening, scheduling, stakeholder meetings, and offers, then use an average by role family or hiring tier.
5. Does more candidate volume always improve hiring output?
No. Higher volume increases workload and may reduce recruiter quality time. Strong hiring output depends on better conversion rates, process speed, and role calibration too.
6. Can this model work for agency and in-house recruiting teams?
Yes. Agency teams can use client-facing requisition effort. In-house teams can use internal hiring stages and overhead assumptions that reflect their operating model.
7. How often should I refresh the assumptions?
Update them monthly or after major changes in hiring demand, recruiter headcount, process design, market difficulty, or interview scheduling complexity.
8. What are signs my team is overloaded?
Watch for aging requisitions, late hiring manager updates, slower candidate response times, missed SLAs, weaker sourcing quality, and declining offer acceptance rates.