Req-to-recruiter ratio is a workload metric calculated by dividing the number of open requisitions by the number of recruiters carrying them. It describes how hiring demand is distributed at a point in time. It says nothing about how difficult those requisitions are, how far along they have travelled, or how well they are being worked.
Divide open requisitions by recruiters, then spend most of your effort on the definitions, because they move the number more than the underlying workload does. On the top line, decide whether requisitions on hold count, whether drafts awaiting approval count, whether an evergreen requisition counts once or as many times as the hires it covers, and whether one requisition for five identical positions counts as one or five. On the bottom line, decide whether recruiting managers carrying a partial desk count, whether sourcers and coordinators are included, and how part-time or shared allocations are handled. Taking a snapshot on a fixed day rather than an average across a period changes it again. Publish the definition alongside the figure every time and never change the rules quietly, since a number that moves because the counting moved is worse than no number.
Almost everything that determines whether the load is reasonable. Difficulty is absent, so a portfolio of scarce specialist searches reads identically to the same count of high-volume roles. Stage is absent, so a requisition at offer weighs the same as one that opened yesterday. External support is invisible, so a recruiter whose overflow sits with a supplier panel or an outsourced provider appears fully loaded while part of the work happens elsewhere. Geography, language coverage, the number of hiring managers involved, and whether the roles are near-duplicates or all different are equally missing. This is not a defect to be fixed by bolting on factors. It is what the metric is: a fast, cheap reading of distribution, useful precisely because it takes seconds to produce. Judgment has to arrive from somewhere else.
Because you are almost never comparing the same quantity. The other organization may exclude on-hold requisitions, count sourcers as recruiters, run a different mix of role types, hire in different markets, or route a large share of volume through suppliers. Published figures rarely state which rules produced them, and many of the numbers circulating in conference decks and vendor material have no stated basis whatsoever. Adopting an external figure as a target then drives the wrong behavior, because a team either decides it is under-resourced when it is not, or accepts a load its own results say is unsustainable. The defensible comparison is internal and longitudinal: this team this quarter against the same team last quarter, counting rules unchanged. Pair it with the [recruiting metrics](/recruitment-metrics) that capture outcomes, and treat cross-company figures as anecdote.
As a trigger. Set an internal level at which somebody investigates, then look at the things the ratio cannot see: requisition ageing, time in stage, candidate response times, and the spread across individual recruiters, since an average of comfortable and drowning reads as fine. What this number is genuinely good at is catching change quickly and exposing imbalance between people. Managing it as a target invites the obvious games: closing requisitions that are still needed, merging several roles into one, or reassigning load on paper only. It also confuses input with output. This ratio measures what arrives, while recruiter productivity measures what leaves, in hires, speed and quality. Reading load alongside outcome data from your [hiring software](/hiring-software) keeps both interpretations honest.
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