What Is Application Completion Rate & Why It Is Important

What Is Application Completion Rate & Why It Is Important

6-8 minutes 

Application Completion Rate

Application completion rate is the metric used to compute the number of people who have completed the online job application process. It helps to ascertain whether the company''s application completion procedure is effective or not.

One would calculate Completion Rate from the application, and it would let us know regarding a successful job application process. It measures the percentage of applicants who initiated the application procedure and filled out all the necessary steps. It assesses the progress of applicants'' applications from when they applied to when they submitted a completed application.

Formula to Calculate the Completion Rate:

The application completion rate is quite a simple formula.

Application Completion Rate = Number of Submitted Applications / Total Number of Applications

Where submitted applications are those applications actually submitted by applicants after completion, and the total number of applications are the applications started by the applicants.

In case one has to calculate the percentage of application completion rate, the product from the above formula is multiplied by hundred for the same.

Importance of Application Completion Rate

Application completion rate is an important metric for both the employee and the organization. It plays a vital role in various ways.

• The application completion rate is important to organizations because it reflects how smooth the organization''s online recruitment process is. A low application completion rate thus reflects badly on the organization''s recruitment process.
• It shows the importance of a job to the applicant if he/she completes the whole application process.
• Application completion rate helps the organization know the loopholes within the recruitment cell.
• It can turn unnecessary drop-offs into a real challenge for recruiters if the entire process is conducted offline. This helps the recruiters solve them through an online process.
• This application completion rate helps calculate how efficient and effective the organization is.

Reasons for Low Application Rate of Completion

While viewing an application online, the individual may skip it; or even if they start to fill it in, they leave it in between. These kinds of scenarios lead to the lower application rate. There are several reasons for the low application rate:

• Lengthy Application: As we all know, time is money. Two or three page-long applications, with lengthy questions in them, can normally make the applying person lose his interest in moving forward.
• Type of Questions: The type of questions that an application contains also generally govern the application completion rate. Applicants tend to skip those questions that require them to fill out details, for example, in a short answer type question, they generally skip if those are not supposed to be filled. On the other hand, the applicant serves their interest in objective type questions, where options are given.
• Poorly Framed Questions: The structure of the questions is important. When the question is not framed properly, the applicant finds it difficult to continue with the process.
• Technical Issues: In case there is some technical issue with the application, the applicant will not continue to stick themselves over the application forever. They will simply jump to another option.
• Easy and Interactive User Interface: The User Interface of the application page helps the applicant to navigate with the application. When the applicant gets an interest in the application, then they find it easy to continue with the procedure. Otherwise, they take a lot of time in understanding the interface and thus lose their attention to fill up the application.

A good app can help the HR in a possible manner to ease their workload.

Improving Application Completion Rate

According to a report by SHRM, 92 percent of the applicants never complete their applications. But why does this happen? It is because the application is not user-friendly. But how to make one?

• Is short and crisp.
• Has relevant questions.
• Does not have glitches.
• Has a user-friendly UI.
• Supports applications on mobile devices.
• Shows the progress of the application via display bars.
• Contains personalized features like supporting the automatic filling of the various forms from the resume.

An application completion rate is as important for the employee as for the employer. It shows the employee''s interest in having the job and the functioning of an organization''s HR department. It is important for the organization to keep a higher application completion rate.

We''ll keep bringing more in for you! Till then keep reading, keep thinking and keep HRing!

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