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Recruitment pipeline & lead times

Deep-dive lesson · about 10 minutes · short quiz at the end

ccPlanning academy · capacity planning · deep dive

Recruitment pipeline & lead times

You can’t hire in arrears. Plan backwards from when you need them.

The big idea

The gap to act on isn’t this month — it’s the lead time away.

If it takes three months to advertise, hire, onboard and train someone to productivity, then a shortfall you spot in June had to be actioned in March. Capacity planning is as much about timing the hire as sizing it.

The pipeline stages

Every stage adds time — and loses people.

advertise screen offer onboard train productive (ramped)

The total of these stages is your lead time — often 8–16 weeks for voice.

Pipeline yield

Hire more than you need — people drop out.

Not every applicant becomes a productive agent. Some decline the offer, some no-show day one, some fail training. If you need 10 productive heads and your funnel yields 60%, you must start ~17 in the pipeline. Plan recruitment on yield, not on the target headcount.

The ramp curve

Productivity arrives gradually, not on day one.

A trained agent out of the classroom might handle contacts slower and need more support — maybe 50% effective, climbing to 100% over weeks. During the ramp they consume capacity (a coach, a buddy) as well as adding it. Counting them as full FTE on graduation day overstates real capacity.

Modelling the ramp

Count effective FTE, not bums on seats.

Apply a productivity curve to each starter cohort — e.g. 50% month one, 75% month two, 100% month three. Sum the effective contribution across all cohorts to get true available capacity. A plan that ignores ramp looks fine on headcount and falls short on the phones.

Training capacity is a constraint

You can’t onboard infinite people at once.

Trainers, classrooms and floor-walking buddies are finite. A plan that needs 40 new starters next month is worthless if you can only train 15 at a time. Capacity planning has to respect the throughput of your own onboarding machine — sometimes that, not demand, is the binding constraint.

Plan backwards

Start from the date you need them productive.

Take the month you need the heads, subtract the ramp, subtract training, subtract the hiring lead time, subtract for yield — and that’s when the requisition must open and how big it must be. Backwards planning from go-live is the core move of pipeline planning.

The peak-season trap

For Christmas, you hire in autumn.

The most common capacity failure: realising in November that you’re short for December. By then the pipeline can’t deliver trained people in time. Seasonal peaks must be back-planned months ahead — the lead time, not the peak, sets the deadline.

Back-plan it

Need 10 in December? Count back.

Ten productive heads for December. Allow ~8 weeks ramp → trained by early October. 3 weeks training → classroom in mid-September. 4 weeks hiring → advert in mid-August. And at 60% yield you must start ~17 in the funnel, not 10.

The deadline isn’t December — it’s mid-August. Miss it and no recruitment effort can catch up.

The takeaway

Size it for yield, time it for the lead.

Recruitment has stages, drop-out and a ramp, all of which take time. Hire to your funnel yield, model effective FTE through the ramp, respect training throughput, and always plan backwards from the date you need people productive — especially before a peak.

Now test yourself ↓

1 / 10

Slides done? Here’s the same idea in a bit more depth — the part worth keeping.

In depth: you can’t hire in arrears

The gap that matters in capacity planning isn’t the one you can see this month — it’s the one a full lead time away. If it takes three months to advertise, hire, onboard and train someone to productivity, a shortfall you spot in June had to be actioned in March. That single fact reframes the job: pipeline planning is as much about timing the hire as sizing it, and the whole discipline is built on planning backwards from the date you need people on the phones.

Two things inflate the number you recruit

First, yield: not every applicant becomes a productive agent. Some decline the offer, some no-show on day one, some don’t pass training — so if you need ten productive heads and your funnel yields 60%, you have to start around seventeen people in the pipeline. Plan recruitment on the yield, never on the target headcount. Second, the ramp: a trained agent out of the classroom might be 50% effective, climbing to 100% over weeks, and during that time they consume capacity (a coach, a buddy) as well as adding it. The honest way to model this is effective FTE — apply a productivity curve to each starter cohort and sum the real contribution — rather than counting bums on seats as full heads on graduation day.

Respect your own onboarding machine

Trainers, classrooms and floor-walking buddies are finite, so a plan that needs forty starters next month is worthless if you can only train fifteen at a time — sometimes training throughput, not demand, is the binding constraint. Put it all together by back-planning: take the month you need the heads, subtract the ramp, the training, the hiring lead time and the yield, and that tells you when the requisition opens and how big it must be. The classic failure is the seasonal one — realising in November you’re short for December, when the pipeline can no longer deliver trained people in time. For Christmas, you hire in autumn.

The principle to remember: size it for yield, time it for the lead. Hire to your funnel, model effective FTE through the ramp, respect training throughput, and always plan backwards from the date you need people productive — especially before a peak.

Quick quiz

Five questions. Pick an answer to each, then check your score.

1. When does a shortfall actually need to be actioned?

A June gap with a 3-month lead time had to be actioned in March.

2. Why must you start more people in the pipeline than you need?

Need 10 productive at 60% yield? Start ~17. Plan on yield, not the target headcount.

3. What is the ‘ramp curve’?

Count effective FTE through the ramp — a graduate isn’t a full head on day one.

4. Why can training be the binding constraint?

A plan needing 40 starters is worthless if you can only train 15 at a time.

5. How should you plan a hire?

Backwards planning from go-live tells you when to open the req and how big — vital before a peak.