Source of hire is the specific channel, job board, referral, LinkedIn, campus, agency, through which an eventually-hired candidate first learned about the opportunity, distinct from where they physically submitted their application.

Why it’s tracked separately from source of application

Source of application is simply where the resume entered the system, wherever the candidate clicked apply. Source of hire is about where their awareness actually originated, which can predate and differ from that. A candidate might first hear about a role through an employee referral or a branding campaign weeks earlier, then eventually apply through the careers page or a job board, in which case the job board would wrongly get application credit for a hire that referrals or branding actually drove. Crediting only source of application risks over-investing in high-volume, lower-quality channels like broad job boards and under-crediting higher-conversion channels like referrals or targeted branding that genuinely influence who ends up hired.

Frequently asked questions

Isn’t source of hire just where the resume came from?

Not quite, that’s source of application. Source of hire tries to capture original awareness, which sometimes differs from the literal application channel.

How is this different from sourcing channel ROI?

Source of hire is a headcount attribution metric with no cost dimension. Sourcing channel ROI adds cost and value on top of the same underlying data.

Why does this matter for budgeting?

Misattributing hires to the wrong channel leads to misallocated recruiting spend, more budget flowing to visible but low-converting channels.

See how channels compare with the Sourcing Channel ROI Calculator.