Application Completion Rate

What application completion rate means

Application completion rate (معدل إتمام التقديم) is the share of people who began filling in an application for a job and then submitted it, out of everyone who began one in the same period.

In the definition of application completion rate, an application is a candidate’s application for an advertised vacancy: the form a person fills in to apply for a role that has been announced. The word carries that sense throughout what follows.

Two counts make up the figure, and both are taken over the same period. The numerator is the number of applications submitted. The denominator is the number of applications started. A person who never started an application appears in neither count, while a person who started one and submitted it appears in both.

How application completion rate is calculated

The number of applications submitted is divided by the number of applications started, and the result is multiplied by 100.

A worked example

A vacancy for which 400 people started filling in the application during one month, and 260 of them submitted it:

260 ÷ 400 × 100 = 65%

That means 140 people, the difference between the 400 who started and the 260 who submitted, entered the form and left it without their application reaching the organisation. Against the same 400 starts, those 140 people are 35% of everyone who began.

Both counts in the example belong to the same vacancy and the same month. The 260 are part of the 400, not a separate group, which is what allows one to be divided by the other.

Where the denominator of application completion rate starts

The whole figure changes as the definition of a start changes. Three possible starting points produce three different figures for a single vacancy:

• Opening the advertisement page. It gives the widest denominator, and it mixes the passing browser with the person who intended to apply.
• Pressing the apply button. It gives a narrower denominator, and it requires an event to be recorded rather than a visit simply to be counted.
• Entering the first field. It gives the narrowest denominator of the three, and the one closest to an intention to apply.

The numerator stays the same under all three definitions: in each case it is the number of applications submitted. What moves is the number it is divided by. For the same submissions, a wider starting point counts more starts and so gives a lower rate.

Whichever starting point is chosen, it is fixed and written next to the figure. A rate of 65% calculated from entry of the first field, set against a rate of 30% calculated from opening the page, is a comparison without meaning, because the two figures divide submissions by two different counts.

Fixing the starting point also covers time. A rate for one month and a rate for the next month can be compared only if both were calculated from the same start, and a figure presented without its starting point cannot be placed beside any other.

Application completion rate and the application abandonment rate

The two rates are two sides of one measurement. The application abandonment rate (معدل الطلبات المهجورة) is the share of people who started an application and did not submit it, the completion rate is the share who submitted it, and the denominator is the same in both definitions.

In the worked example, the 260 who submitted give a completion rate of 65%, and the 140 who did not give an abandonment rate of 35%. Both are calculated on the same 400 starts in the same month, and together they make 100%.

The two figures add up to 100% on two conditions: the starting point is the same, and the period is the same. If completion is calculated from entry of the first field while abandonment is calculated from opening the page, the two figures cannot be added together, and neither can be subtracted from 100% to give the other.

A third condition is a practical one, and it applies where an application can be saved and resumed later. The length of time after which a saved application is treated as abandoned has to be set. Without that limit, a pending application stays outside both numerators at once. It has not been submitted, so it is not counted as complete, and it has not been declared abandoned, so it is not counted as abandoned either. The sum of the two rates then stays below 100% with no visible reason.

What application completion rate does not measure

The rate describes the form, not the advertisement and not the job. A high rate says that those who started went on to finish. It does not say that those who finished are suitable for the role.

The rate can be raised by shortening the form until people who have not read the requirements of the job at all send in an application. The burden then moves to screening further along the candidate pipeline (خط إمداد المرشحين), at CV review or at a prescreening interview where one is held, and it does not disappear. Applications that do not meet the requirements still have to be set aside, only at a later stage.

That is why the completion rate is examined alongside the number of qualified candidates who arrive, the people who go on to selection, and, over a longer period, alongside the quality of hire (جودة التعيين). A completion rate that rises while the number of qualified candidates does not can have moved the work rather than reduced it.

What moves application completion rate in practice

• The number of fields. Each field is a step at which a candidate can stop.
• Retyping the CV by hand after uploading it. It is a friction that candidate experience counts among the points where the experience breaks.
• Applying from a mobile phone. A form that requires a file to be uploaded from a computer loses the candidate who opened it on their phone.
• Saving and returning. It allows the application to be completed later rather than started again from the beginning.
• Mandatory fields with no reason behind them. A question that is not used in screening stops the candidate who does not have the answer.

The effect of each item is found by changing that item alone and measuring the rate after the change, not by ranking the items on intuition. If two items are changed in the same period, any movement in the rate has two possible causes, and the figure cannot separate them.

The measurement after a change also uses the same starting point and the same length of period as the measurement before it. Otherwise the comparison between the two figures carries the same defect as comparing a rate counted from the first field with a rate counted from the page.

Application completion rate on a small number of applications

The rate is a ratio, and a ratio taken on a small number cannot bear a conclusion. A vacancy for which 12 people started an application is reviewed by reading the twelve cases, not by calculating a ratio from them.

On twelve starts, each person who stops moves the rate by one twelfth, about 8.3 percentage points.

This is an explanation of the concept, not legal advice.