What is hiring difficulty?

In Custom Roles, hiring difficulty is a score on a scale of 1-100 that represents how difficult we expect it will be to fill the role you’ve searched for. The higher the score, the harder we expect it to be to find candidates for the role.


The hiring difficulty score for Custom Roles takes five factors into account:

  • Supply

  • Demand (“jobs posted”)

  • Posting period

  • Location complexity

  • Role complexity



How can I use this data?

You can use hiring difficulty to get a sense of how difficult it will be to find candidates for different roles or in different locations.



Why does Custom Roles have its own AboutTheData documentation?

For certain metrics, our methodologies differ significantly between Custom Roles and our self-service platforms, Plan and Recruit.


Generally, Custom Roles reports provide labor market data on locations that aren’t available in Plan or Recruit, or on roles that are too niche to be represented by job posting data. Because of this, we sometimes rely on different sources and more manual processes to calculate labor market metrics. We therefore don’t recommend comparing data between Custom Roles and Recruit or Plan.



What is the methodology for hiring difficulty?

We subject our hiring difficulty data to rigorous quality checks to ensure the results are in line with overall industry and domain trends, as well as companies that employ similar talent. We also apply proprietary algorithms to account for the variations in profile availability across industries and locations.


In Custom Roles, we calculate hiring difficulty using five factors:


  • Supply: When the number of qualified candidates is low compared to the number of organizations trying to hire them, the supply is low, and employers find it harder to fill their positions. Conversely, when the number of candidates is high compared to the demand for them, the supply is high, and employers find it easier to find qualified applicants.

    Supply is based on a combination of government data and publicly available profile data, depending on the request.     Learn more about how we calculate supply in Custom Roles.


  • Demand (jobs posted): Demand refers to the number of similar jobs currently open in a given market. As the demand increases for a given role, it becomes difficult to fill the position. If the ratio of demand and supply is high, it will be hard to fill the position

    Demand is based on job posting data.     Learn more about how we calculate demand in Custom Roles.


  • Posting period: Typical post duration is the number of days that a job posting remains online before it is removed or expires. The typical post duration reflects the ease or difficulty with which other organizations have filled similar positions. The longer that a job has been online, the more difficult we assume it is for the organization to fill that position. All other things equal, a longer posting period corresponds with a higher hiring difficulty, and a shorter post duration corresponds with a lower hiring difficulty.

    Posting period is based on job posting data.     Learn more about how we calculate posting period in Custom Roles.
  • Location complexity: We assign a “location complexity” score to capture the difficulties of hiring in some locations compared to others. This score is based on a framework that categorizes all locations across the globe into one of two groups: Tier 1 or Tier 2. Tier 1 locations receive a lower complexity score and are easier to hire in. Tier 2 locations receive a higher complexity score and are more difficult to hire in.


  • Role complexity: We assign a “role complexity” score to capture the difficulties of hiring for more niche roles compared to more generic roles. The role complexity score is based primarily on the seniority of the position. The more senior the role, the higher the role complexity score.


We represent hiring difficulty as a whole number ranging from 1 (less difficult to hire) to 100 (very difficult to hire).