Fix the fill rate by becoming a funnel detective
Recruitment agency leadership is reporting a sharp decline in fill rates.
And in today's challenging market, poor fill rates are an existential threat. Activity levels in sourcing, interviews and shortlists look the same as previous years, yet fewer positions are being filled. Some point to market conditions or client indecision but the real culprit lies in fundamental funnel inefficiencies. The best agencies know how to find and fix the bottlenecks that others miss.
Fill rates can mislead
Most agencies track fill rates as a single percentage. They can’t identify where in the funnel those conversions are breaking down. This hides crucial insights: where candidates drop out, why clients reject offers, which consultant behaviours link to success.
A simple stage-by-stage analysis can give you a better understanding and expose bottlenecks.
Step 1: Draw the real funnel
The typical contingent funnel looks like this:
Candidates Sourced → Candidates Screened → Shortlisted → CV Sent → Interview → Offer → Placement
Precise definitions matter. For example, if the client runs a three-stage interview process, count each stage. Otherwise, ratios mislead. A 6:3 (or 2:1) CV-to-interview ratio may disguise the fact that it’s actually a 6:1 CV-to-first-interview ratio. That’s a far more accurate measure of candidate quality.
Step 2: Get clean data
Delayed data distorts reality. Fill times are often inflated by weeks simply because consultants don’t log placements until the end of the billing period. Log activity on the same day it happens.
Step 3: Two clocks, two stories
Time to Fill: Job open → accepted offer (role-centred)
Time to Hire: Candidate enters process → accepted offer (candidate-centred)
Both are valuable, but tell different stories. In a candidate-short market, Time to Hire is critical.
Step 4: Consider volume and capacity
Context matters. A recruiter working on just two roles per month with a 100% fill rate is not outperforming one who manages ten roles per month with a 60% fill rate.
Step 5: Watch for delayed impact
Today’s poor candidate qualification might not show up in placement statistics for six to eight weeks. Systematic funnel analysis helps you link cause and effect before the numbers are affected.
Where funnels fail
Fill rate problems tend to follow predictable patterns.
Early-stage breakdowns: Too few qualified candidates.
Causes: Poor candidate sourcing, inadequate role qualification, or misaligned client expectations. A common challenge is too much time spent on sourcing and screening with few CVs sent. This can be due to lack of confidence in suitability or over-investment in candidate conversations.
Fixes: Clear targets for CVs sent, structured candidate scoring, better time management, weekly pipeline reviews and AI screening tools for more efficient matching.
2. Mid-stage breakdowns: When interviews collapse.
Causes: Qualification failures, insufficient interview preparation, or communication gaps between consultants, candidates, and clients.
One mid-sized recruitment agency saw fill rates slide from 72% to 58% over 6 months. The interview-to-offer conversion rate had fallen by 20%. The cause was revealed to be candidates rejected for poor cultural fit. Consultants had been rushing through briefings and failed to capture nuanced requirements.
Fixes: a structured role-qualification template, targeted pre-interview coaching, weekly client–consultant feedback loops to refine candidate profiles.
The impact was immediate. Within 90 days, interview-to-offer conversion improved by 18 percentage points and fill rate recovered to 75 percent. The average time-to-fill was reduced by 12 days. These changes resulted in a 15 percent uplift in revenue.
3. Late-stage breakdowns: When offers unravel.
Causes: Counteroffers, competing offers and candidate dropouts.
Fixes: Track these two critical ratios: offer-to-acceptance and acceptance-to-placement. This will help you to flag risk early and put mitigation strategies in place.
Each stage of the funnel requires its own diagnostics and interventions to accurately connect cause and effect.
Be a funnel detective
Poor fill rates are a drain on productivity, revenue and morale. Consultants spend more time chasing dead ends and burn out. Cost per placement ratios increase. Client relationships deteriorate and trust is lost. I’ve seen businesses where consultants worked 25% longer hours just to hit old placement levels. Without funnel diagnosis, the recruiter takes the blame.
High-performing agencies treat funnel analysis like detective work:
Systematically searching data for patterns that reveal funnel breakdowns.
Tracking stage conversions, time-in-stage, and reasons for candidate dropout.
Employing AI analytics to flag unusual patterns before they impact monthly results.
Segmenting analysis by consultant, client type, role category, and time period to pinpoint where fill rate challenges are concentrated, for example, in a particular consultant’s workflow.
Running “placement autopsies” - structured reviews that identify the failure modes and separate systemic issues from isolated one-off problems. This helps leaders avoid complacency. Four placements in a month looks impressive, but the picture changes if five roles are closed without being filled.
Target fixes for greater impact
A healthcare staffing firm I worked with analysed their funnel and discovered that its biggest leak occurred at the offer stage. This firm went on to make systematic fill rate improvement a competitive differentiator.
By introducing offer-negotiation playbooks, candidate sentiment tracking, and tighter decision-window communication protocols, it lifted offer acceptance from 60% to 80% in six months, cut vacancy fill times by 20%, and secured preferred supplier status with several major clients.
For the most enduring impact, stage-specific fixes are critical:
Early: better sourcing strategies, clearer client briefs
Mid-stage: candidate coaching, tighter communication protocols.
Late: stronger negotiation skills and reference checking, client expectation management.
Top performers build continuous optimisation into the culture to create a sustained edge.
Funnel mastery sets market leaders apart
Strong funnels drive higher consultant productivity, more predictable revenues and stronger client loyalty.
Investors and acquirers prize businesses with rigorous funnel discipline because it signals repeatable performance. Leaders who embed forensic funnel analysis aren’t just solving today’s fill-rate challenge, they’re building an asset with long-term enterprise value.
