Quality of hire
Quality of hire measures how much value a new employee actually contributes, judged by their performance, ramp speed, and retention rather than how quickly or cheaply they were hired. It is the metric that matters most, and the hardest to fake.
A great hire is the single biggest lever in most teams: the right person can resolve in months what the wrong one drags out for years. That is why quality of hire should outrank speed and cost as the goal of a search.
It is also why evaluation leans on real output, a test assignment, over interview impressions, and why an unfilled role’s cost of vacancy is usually a stronger argument than the salary saved by waiting.