How many candidates does it take to make one hire? A real funnel, start to finish

In one fully documented search, it took 706 candidates to make one hire. We sourced 706, scored 283, reached out to 100, engaged 24, qualified 4, ran 3 first interviews, and 1 accepted the offer. Kickoff to accepted offer: 23 days. Here's the whole funnel, stage by stage.

The search was a Director of Preconstruction for a growing Midwest general contractor. We're publishing the counts because almost nobody in recruiting does. Firms will tell you their process is thorough. Few will show you the numbers behind one real search, so here are ours, with the work behind each drop.

If you want the story of this search (the role, the candidate, why they moved), read the case study. This page is the math.

The full funnel

Each count is the number of candidates still in the search at that stage.

Overall conversion, sourced to hired: 0.14%. Total client time across all seven stages: five to six hours.

706 sourced to 283 scored: the market thins before anyone gets a message

Every search starts with a calibration call. The client tells us what the seat owns, which project types matter, where the person needs to sit, and what the company can put on the table. That becomes the sourcing criteria. Then we map the market: everyone whose background fits the profile on paper. In this search, 706 people.

Scoring is where paper matches fall apart. A precon title at the wrong project scale, a career that stalled a level below the seat, geography that can't work: scored down. In this search, 60% of the pool dropped at this stage.

Why source 706 to keep 283? Because you don't know which 283 until you've scored all 706. Cut the top of the funnel and you're betting the right person happens to sit inside the slice you kept.

283 scored to 24 engaged: outreach is where the hours go

We didn't message all 283. We worked the ranked list from the top, writing outreach one candidate at a time, and the search filled after the first 100. Each message was built off the candidate's own record: what they've run, what their next move probably looks like, and why this seat might be it. A job description means nothing to someone who isn't looking.

Of those 100, 24 engaged. Roughly one in four senior precon people, employed and not job hunting, agreed to a real conversation. In this search that rate came from specificity, not volume. Blasting all 283 with a template would've produced more sends and, in our experience, fewer conversations.

One note on channels. This search ran outbound-heavy because applicant flow for senior preconstruction roles is thin. Plenty of searches aren't like that. We run applicant pipelines alongside outbound, and an applicant who reaches this stage goes through the same screen as a sourced candidate.

24 engaged to 4 qualified: the screen that drops people on purpose

This is the drop that looks like failure and is the method. Twenty-four real conversations produced four candidates. We disqualified the other 20 ourselves.

Every engaged candidate gets the same question early: what's got you open to this conversation? If the honest answer is curiosity, a market check, or ammunition for a raise where they already work, the conversation ends there. Candidates without a real reason to move tend to stall at the offer stage or take the counteroffer, and we'd rather lose them in week one than watch the client lose them in week nine.

The four who cleared the screen could each name the thing their current seat couldn't give them, and each had compensation expectations confirmed in range before anything moved forward. That's what qualified means in this funnel: a verified reason to move, matched against what the client offers.

In this search the qualification rate was 17%, and we want it low. A taller stack at this stage means the screen isn't doing its job.

4 qualified to 1 hire: interviews and the offer

The client reviewed four write-ups and met three candidates. Three first interviews, one offer, one acceptance.

We don't tell clients how to run interviews. They know what good looks like on their teams better than any recruiter will. Our job is what happens before the interview: making sure everyone who walks in has a verified reason to be there. The interview settles fit. Interest got settled two stages earlier.

That's why the bottom of this funnel is short and quiet. One offer went out, and it was accepted, which is what the middle of the funnel was built to produce.

Where the client's six hours went

Total client time in this search: five to six hours.

• A kickoff calibration call to define the role, the criteria, and the pitch we'd make on the company's behalf. About an hour.
• Shortlist reviews as candidates qualified: short reads, fast go or no-go calls.
• Three first interviews.
• The offer decision and a debrief.

Everything else was ours: mapping 706 people, scoring and hand-reviewing the rankings, writing 100 messages, holding 24 conversations, scheduling, candidate prep, and offer support. Each stage of the funnel exists so the stage after it wastes less of the client's time.

What this funnel says about running a search yourself

Nothing in the table requires a recruiting firm. It requires hours. Run the arithmetic on this search's counts and decide whose hours they should be.

Reviewing 700 profiles at two minutes each is about 23 hours. Writing 100 messages worth answering, at ten minutes each, is 17 more. Twenty-four half-hour conversations add another 12. That's roughly 50 hours before the first interview, spread across weeks because candidates reply on their schedule, not yours. And it assumes you already know the market well enough to build the 706 list.

Owners do run this themselves and make good hires. If the seat comes open once every few years and someone on your team has the hours, the math can work. If those 50 hours would come out of running the company, price the alternative with the same honesty: here's how much a construction recruiter costs.

One search against our averages

Everything above is one search, documented start to finish, and a fast one. Across all our searches, kickoff to accepted offer averages 29 days. And counting every offer our clients extended from 2022 through 2026, 97% were accepted.

The counts move search to search. A thinner market pushes the sourced number up. Strong applicant flow shrinks the outbound share. A superintendent search doesn't score like a precon director search. What we typically see hold is the shape: a wide top, a hard cut at qualification, and a short, quiet bottom.

If you're comparing firms, ask each one for their version of this table. When we reviewed the best construction recruiting firms in July 2026, we found published fees at two firms and a published funnel at none. A firm running a real process has these numbers. Ask to see them.

FAQ

How many candidates does it take to make one hire? In our one fully documented search, 706: sourced 706, scored 283, outreached 100, engaged 24, qualified 4, interviewed 3, hired 1. That's an overall conversion of 0.14%. Your counts will move with the role and the market, but for a senior construction seat, plan on hundreds at the top of the funnel, not dozens.

What are typical recruiting funnel conversion rates? We'll only speak for our own documented search: 40% of sourced candidates cleared scoring, 35% of those got personalized outreach, 24% of outreach became conversations, 17% of conversations produced a qualified candidate, 75% of qualified candidates reached a first interview, and one of three interviews became the hire. Treat those as one verified data point from a senior construction search, not an industry norm.

Why did only 4 of 24 engaged candidates qualify? Because the Career Gap screen disqualifies on purpose. Twenty of the 24 were happy to talk but had no specific reason to move, and candidates like that tend to stall at the offer or take a counteroffer. Qualified here means a verified reason to move plus compensation expectations confirmed in range.

How long does it take a recruiter to fill a position? This search ran 23 days from kickoff to accepted offer. Across all our searches the average is 29 days, and 97% of the offers our clients extended from 2022 through 2026 were accepted.

Do these numbers include job-board applicants? This search ran outbound-heavy because applicant flow for senior preconstruction roles is thin. We run applicant pipelines alongside outbound, and applicants go through the same scoring and the same Career Gap screen. In roles with strong applicant flow, the top of the funnel shifts toward inbound and the bottom half behaves much the same.

If you'd rather point this funnel at your open seat than run it yourself, book 30 minutes with Alex. Bring the role you can't fill. You'll leave knowing what your version of this table would take.