abandonment rate.

what is abandonment rate?

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Abandonment rate refers to the percentage of applicants who start your application process but don’t complete it. It typically refers to the online application process as abandonment of paper based applications would be almost impossible to measure. 

How is abandonment rate calculated? If 100 applicants read your job advert and click “apply” to go through to your application form, but only 90 answer all the questions and submit their application, then your abandonment rate is 10%.

Getting this percentage as low as possible is critical for your recruitment success. It exposes you to a broader range of talent, giving you the best chance of a successful hiring project.

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how to measure abandonment rate.

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However, your applicant tracking system (ATS) should take care of everything. With hireful’s ATS, you can track and manage candidates who enter your recruitment process and know exactly where they drop off. Once you've noticed a pattern, you can work with our recruitment success team to improve any potential issues and streamline your application process. 

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what is a good abandonment rate?

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The average abandonment rate for organisations that use hireful’s ATS is around 9–11%. This is considered a "good" abandonment rate because although other ATS vendors rarely talk about their abandonment rate, some reports have highlighted that up to 60% of applicants in the UK don’t complete the application process. 

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why is abandonment rate important?

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Here's why you should focus on knowing your abandonment rate and keeping it as low as possible:

• The best applicants are busy and expect to be able to apply easily
• Lost applicants reduces your chances of a successful recruitment project
• An overly long or cumbersome application process delivers a poor candidate experience 

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you attract the best candidates

The first reason abandonment rates are essential to business’s success is that they give you access to the best and most talented candidates. If your application process is long and only a select few people apply, you're limiting your options.

For example, if you're looking for a software engineer to head up research and development but your abandonment rate is 50%, you're cutting your talent pool in half. And this can affect you after a few months if your hire isn't performing according to your expectations and you have to replace them.

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it costs time and money to replace existing employees

Replacing bad hires caused by a high abandonment rate is expensive. A recent Glassdoor study showed that it can cost you over £3,000.

Fortunately, when your abandonment rate is only 9–11%, you give yourself the best possible chance of reaching top-quality prospects.

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you don’t want to provide a poor candidate experience

A poor candidate experience can damage your reputation and reduce the chances of candidates wanting to apply to work at your organisation in the future. 

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how does hireful’s ATS achieve such a low abandonment rate?

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At hireful, our recruitment software is designed with a “candidate first” focus. This is especially true with regards to the application process. Here’s how this approach has shaped our online application process: 

• No candidate registration process. Candidates want to apply to your job, not register. Asking candidates to create a username and password is a guaranteed way of dramatically increasing your abandonment rate.
• Easy mobile application process. Applying on a mobile is not easy - a responsive design and specific mobile friendly features help mobile jobseekers to complete their application. 
• Integrations with all the major UK job boards. (e.g. Indeed, TotalJobs, Reed, CV Library etc). This allows the candidate to complete their application form using the data (including CV) that they might’ve already provided to the job board when they registered with them. 
• Using CV parsing technology. It can be frustrating if you have a CV but the employer requires you to complete an application form. Candidates can upload their CV and our technology will parse (clever word for reading and breaking down the CV into it’s component parts) the CV and populate the key areas of the application form (education, work history) for you. 
• Provide a “save and return” option. This is especially relevant for longer multi-page application forms. Not every applicant will be able to complete the application form in one setting, so an option to “save and return” later to the application form is essential. 
• Send a follow up email. Applicants who start but don’t complete their application can be encouraged to return and complete the process with a simple automated email. 

Here’s a checklist you can follow which covers the basic principles. 

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use hireful to lower your abandonment rate.

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Although attracting your industry’s best talent seems intimidating, you can stand out by implementing a few basic strategies. This includes making the application process easy.

But if you’re looking to reduce your abandonment rate even further, consider using hireful’s ATS.  Sign up for a free hireful demo.