Fill rate in recruitment: the in-house requisition fill rate, with rules for canceled and on-hold reqs

In in-house recruitment, fill rate is the share of approved requisitions that were filled: requisitions filled ÷ requisitions opened in the period × 100, counted on a cohort and after removing requisitions the business canceled. Two stricter versions are the on-time fill rate (filled within the target number of days) and hiring plan attainment (hires made ÷ hires planned). For staffing agencies, "fill rate" means something different: positions or shifts staffed ÷ positions or shifts the client ordered.

The fill rate for staffing agencies page covers the agency meaning (job order, headcount and shift fill rates). This page is the in-house meaning: requisitions, canceled and on-hold rules, and a worked quarter.

What does "fill rate" mean in each setting?

What are the formulas?

Requisition fill rate = requisitions filled
                        ÷ (requisitions opened − canceled for business reasons) × 100

On-time fill rate     = requisitions filled within target days
                        ÷ (requisitions opened − canceled for business reasons) × 100

Hiring plan attainment = offers accepted in the period ÷ hires planned for the period

Openings fill rate    = openings filled ÷ openings approved
                        (for requisitions with several openings)

"Filled" should mean the same moment your time-to-fill clock stops. On the time to hire vs time to fill page, that is the day a candidate accepts the offer. If the candidate later backs out before starting, the requisition reopens and stops counting as filled.

How should canceled and on-hold requisitions be counted?

• Canceled for a business reason (budget cut, reorganization, work moved): remove from the denominator and report the count and reasons on their own line. Recruiting did not fail.
• Canceled because nobody suitable was found: keep in the denominator as unfilled. Use separate cancellation reason codes so the two cannot be mixed; otherwise closing hard requisitions as "business" quietly raises the rate.
• On hold: keep in the denominator, report separately, and stop the time-to-fill clock while on hold. Set a rule that a requisition on hold for more than, for example, 60 days is closed as a business cancellation and reopened later as a new requisition, so the cohort can close.
• Filled internally: filled. The backfill it creates is a new requisition; see internal hire rate for the chain this starts.
• Filled by an agency or a converted contractor: filled, with the source recorded.
• Several openings on one requisition: count openings, not the requisition.
• Reposted or duplicated requisitions: merge them so one need is counted once.

Worked example: one quarter's requisitions

Invented data, to show the counting. 60 requisitions were opened in Q1. The cohort was measured on June 30.

The three numbers tell one story from three sides. Three in four requisitions were filled, but only about half on time, and the quarter's hires ran a quarter behind plan. The eight still open and four on hold are where to look first.

Note that plan attainment is counted by period, not cohort: offers accepted in Q1 include requisitions opened in Q4. It answers a finance question ("are we on plan?"), while the cohort fill rate answers a recruiting question ("did we fill what was approved?"). Keep both, and label which is which. The headcount planning template is where the planned figure comes from.

How should you segment it?

• Role family and level. Specialist, senior and volume requisitions rarely behave alike, and one blended rate hides the difference.
• New role or backfill. New roles may have less settled requirements and more business cancellations than backfills; your own data will show whether they do.
• Location and work arrangement. Onsite roles in a tight local market behave differently from remote ones.
• Priority tier. If you rank requisitions, the top tier should fill at a higher rate; if it does not, the ranking is not changing behavior. See how to prioritize open requisitions.
• Hiring manager and recruiter. Useful for spotting a stuck desk, but read it next to each recruiter's workload.

What should you do when fill rate is low?

1. Review aged requisitions on a schedule. At 45, 60 and 90 days open, ask the same questions: is the role still needed, is the pay competitive, are the requirements realistic, is the hiring manager available to interview? A requisition retrospective turns the answers into changes.
2. Fix the brief early. For each stuck requisition, check whether must-haves and the pay range were agreed before posting; if not, agree them now, using the intake meeting questions.
3. Match workload to capacity. A recruiter carrying more open requisitions than they can work fills fewer of them; rebalance or get help on the hardest roles.
4. Cancel honestly. A requisition nobody intends to fill should be closed as a business cancellation, not left open; and a requisition recruiting cannot fill should be recorded as such, so the next plan prices the difficulty in.

A high fill rate is not automatically good either. If the on-time rate is low, the team fills roles eventually but late; the cost of vacancy shows what those extra weeks cost. If first-year attrition is high for the same hires, roles are being filled with the first available person.

Is there a benchmark?

We found no original publisher's benchmark for in-house requisition fill rate as of October 2026 that states its counting rules. Because the result depends so much on how cancellations, holds and the measurement date are handled, the comparison that holds up is your own rate, counted the same way, quarter after quarter.

How does it relate to the neighboring metrics?

• Time to fill measures how long filled requisitions took; fill rate measures how many were filled at all.
• Offer acceptance rate drives fill rate directly: every declined offer sends the requisition back to the pipeline.
• Internal hire rate shows how many fills came from inside, and how many new requisitions those moves created.
• Staffing fill rate is the agency's measure; if you use agencies, ask for theirs on your orders.

How should you report it?

REQUISITION FILL RATE, Q1 COHORT (measured June 30) (example)
Filled = offer accepted, not reneged. Business cancellations excluded.

Opened 60 · Filled 41 · Business-canceled 5 · Could-not-fill 2
On hold 4 · Still open 8
Fill rate 74.5% (41/55) · On-time 52.7% (29/55) · Raw 68.3%
Sources of fill: direct 31 · internal 6 · agency 4
Plan attainment Q1: 33 of 45 planned (73.3%)

Aged over 90 days: 6 of the 8 open, all senior engineering.
Action: pay range review with comp by July 15; agency support on 2.

As with every recruiting rate, the action line is what earns the report its place in the meeting.