Open Job Requisitions

What is Open Job Requisitions?

Open Job Requisitions is the total count of approved positions that have been authorized for hiring but remain unfilled at a given point in time.

Tracking this number tells HR leaders and recruiters exactly how much hiring work is in front of them, and where the pipeline may be stalling.

Why Open Job Requisitions matters

Every unfilled role has a cost. Work goes undone, existing team members absorb the load, and the longer a position stays open, the harder it becomes to hit business targets.

Monitoring Open Job Requisitions keeps that pressure visible. When the number climbs unexpectedly, you know to investigate: Is the sourcing pipeline thin? Are offers being declined? Is one department driving most of the backlog? You get answers before the problem compounds.

For leaders managing lean teams, this metric removes the guesswork. Instead of waiting for a recruiter to report back, you can see the state of your hiring pipeline at a glance, and make resourcing decisions with confidence.

How to calculate Open Job Requisitions

The formula is straightforward:

Open Job Requisitions = Total number of open job requisitions

Count every position that has been approved for hiring and has not yet been filled. This includes roles actively being sourced, roles where interviews are in progress, and roles that are approved but not yet posted.

Reporting frequency

Monthly is the standard reporting cadence for Open Job Requisitions. Some teams with high hiring volume track this weekly to stay ahead of recruiter workload.

What a good target looks like

Targets vary by company size and hiring stage. A team with five recruiters managing 30 open requisitions is in a different position than one managing five. A useful starting point: set a per-recruiter capacity threshold (for example, no more than eight to ten active requisitions per recruiter) and flag when the total pushes past that ceiling.

An example target for a small HR team might be five open requisitions, keeping workload manageable and time-to-fill predictable.

Variations of this metric

Related metrics you may track alongside Open Job Requisitions:

• Approved open job requisitions: Filters the total to include only requisitions that have received formal budget and headcount approval, excluding informal or pending requests.
• Job vacancy: A broader term sometimes used interchangeably, though it can include positions not yet formally requisitioned. Clarify the definition with your team before mixing the two in a report.

Who tracks Open Job Requisitions

This metric is most useful for:

• HR managers monitoring recruiter workload and hiring pipeline health
• Recruiters prioritizing which roles to focus on
• C-level and VP/Director leaders assessing whether the company can execute on its growth plan

Track Open Job Requisitions in a dashboard

Tracking Open Job Requisitions in a spreadsheet works until it doesn't. When hiring ramps up across multiple departments, a manual count gets stale fast and gives you a picture of yesterday, not today.

A real-time HR dashboard pulls your requisition data automatically, keeps the number current, and puts it alongside related metrics like Time to Hire and Cost per Hire. You stop chasing the number and start acting on it.

Klips connects to your HR systems and surfaces Open Job Requisitions alongside the metrics that give it context, so your team always knows where things stand without having to ask.