TemplateBuilt 9 September 2026
Hiring Plan Template: Build It Here, Download the CSV
A hiring plan is four numbers per role, and everything else is presentation. How many people leave (headcount × turnover), how many you are adding, how long each hire takes (which sets the date you must start, not the date you want them), and what each hire costs to source (applicants per hire × cost per applicant). The builder below takes those four per role, does the arithmetic, and gives you a CSV to open in Excel or Sheets. No email, no form — the file is generated in your browser and never leaves it.
What a hiring plan is actually for
Most documents called a hiring plan are a list of open roles with a priority column. That is a requisition list. A plan answers a different question: given what we know about leaving, growing and how long hiring takes, what has to be true this month for the roles to be filled when we need them?
Three things fall out of doing it properly, and all three are usually surprises:
- The start-by date is earlier than anyone thinks. If a role takes nine weeks to fill and you need someone in post on 1 March, advertising begins in the first week of January. Most plans record the need-by date and then start recruiting on it.
- Replacement hiring dominates. A team of thirty at 25% turnover is hiring seven or eight people a year before it grows at all. That is the baseline the budget has to carry, whatever the growth plan says.
- The advertising budget is a division problem, not a guess. Hires × applicants per hire × cost per applicant. If you do not know your applicants-per-hire, that is the first number to go and measure, because everything downstream multiplies by it.
Build your plan
Add a row per role. Defaults are illustrative; replace them with your own numbers. The CSV includes every input and every derived figure, so the arithmetic travels with the file and whoever opens it can check it.
Hiring plan builder
| Role | Headcount | Turnover % | Adding | Weeks to fill | Applicants per hire | Cost per applicant |
|---|
How to fill in each column
| Column | Where the number comes from | What goes wrong |
|---|---|---|
| Headcount | Filled positions today, not budgeted positions | Counting the vacancies you already have, which double-counts them against the replacement figure |
| Turnover % | Leavers in the last twelve months divided by average headcount over the same period | Using a company-wide figure for a role family that leaves at a different rate |
| Adding | Net new positions approved for the plan period | Including replacements again |
| Weeks to fill | Advertising start to first day worked, not offer to start | Measuring to offer acceptance, which hides the notice period |
| Applicants per hire | Applicants divided by hires from your own last campaigns | Not knowing it, and using a number someone remembered from another company |
| Cost per applicant | Total spend including any management fee, divided by applicants | Quoting a media-only figure, which understates the budget by whatever the fee is |
Applicants per hire is the number to go and measure
It varies enormously by role and it multiplies straight through to the budget. In our benchmark, apply rates run from 31% for caregiver roles down to 5% for therapy roles, and the cost per applicant runs from $3.76 to $74.62 across the same range. A plan built on one blended assumption will be badly wrong at both ends.
Hiring plan, recruitment plan, recruiting plan: the same document
The three names get used interchangeably and describe one thing: a written statement of how many people you need to hire, by when, for which roles, and what it will take to get them. If you are looking for a recruitment plan template, the builder above is it — the columns are the same whichever word your organisation uses.
There is a soft distinction worth knowing. People who say “hiring plan” usually mean the headcount side: which roles, how many, when, and what they cost once employed. People who say “recruitment plan” usually mean the acquisition side: where the candidates come from, what each channel produces, and what the advertising costs. A plan that is worth writing covers both, because the headcount number is meaningless without the applicant number underneath it.
The one column most recruitment plans leave out is the conversion rate from applicant to hire. Without it, a plan states a goal rather than a method — “hire 14 drivers in Q2” is a wish; “hire 14 drivers in Q2, which at our 9% applicant-to-hire rate means 156 applicants, which at $22 each means $3,400 of advertising” is a plan.
What to do with the plan once you have it
- Put the start-by dates in a calendar, not a document. The column that matters is the one that says today is the day to start advertising for a role that begins in March.
- Review turnover quarterly, not annually. It is the input with the largest effect and the one most likely to move.
- Track applicants per hire per role after every campaign. One quarter of real data replaces the guess in the column that drives the budget.
- Treat the budget line as a floor. It covers sourcing, not referral bonuses, agency fees, assessment tools or the recruiter hours you spend.
- Re-run it when something structural changes. A new site, a shift pattern change or a pay adjustment all move turnover and apply rates, and the plan should move with them.
Where the plan meets the advertising
The applicant column is the one we can affect. Across the 891 campaigns in our 2026 benchmark the median cost per applicant was $13.88, the volume-weighted blended figure was $8.02, and healthcare and senior living sat at a $15.42 median with a 16% apply rate across 553 campaigns. Those are the numbers to sanity-check your own against: if your cost per applicant is far above them, the usual causes are a narrow audience, a long application form, or a requirement list that is doing unpriced screening.
Related reading: hiring process steps for what happens between application and start date, what makes a good job ad for the apply-rate half of the arithmetic, and skills-based hiring for the requirement list that sets your audience size.
Once the plan says how many people you need, the recruitment tracker template is where you work the candidates through, and the interview scorecard template is how you decide each one.
Frequently asked questions
Workforce planning and hiring plans: the same template, two horizons
A workforce plan and a hiring plan are usually the same spreadsheet read at two zoom levels. The workforce plan asks how many people the operation needs by role over the next year and where they will come from. The hiring plan turns that into requisitions with dates, owners and budgets. If you are being asked for a workforce planning template and you have the hiring plan above, you already have most of it — what it needs is three more columns.
- Current headcount by role, taken from payroll rather than from the org chart, which is always optimistic.
- Expected separations, from last year's actual leavers for that role. This is the number that produces most of the hiring, and it is the one people leave out.
- Planned change, the growth or reduction you actually intend, separated from replacement so the two are never confused.
Add those to the plan and the hiring number falls out: headcount times separation rate, plus or minus planned change. Spread it across the year using your own monthly hires rather than dividing by twelve — in the national data, December is the low month in nine of ten industries and transportation runs the calendar backwards with a November peak.
The annual document that sits above this, with the channel mix and the owners, is on talent acquisition strategy.
What should a hiring plan include?
Per role: current headcount, turnover rate, net new positions, weeks from advertising to start date, applicants needed per hire, and cost per applicant. From those you derive replacement hires, total hires, the date you must start advertising, the applicants required and the sourcing budget. Anything else is commentary.
How do I calculate how many people I need to hire?
Multiply headcount by your turnover rate to get replacement hires, then add net new positions. A team of 30 at 25% turnover adding 4 roles needs about 11.5 hires in the year - 7.5 to stand still and 4 to grow.
How far ahead should I start recruiting?
Count backwards from the day you need someone working, using the full time from advertising start to first day worked rather than the time from offer to start. If a role takes nine weeks, a 1 March start date means advertising begins in the first week of January.
How do I budget for recruitment advertising?
Hires multiplied by applicants per hire multiplied by cost per applicant. Use your own applicants-per-hire from recent campaigns, and use a cost per applicant that includes any management fee rather than media spend alone. For reference, the median across 891 Boostpoint-managed Meta campaigns in 2026 was $13.88 per applicant.
Is this hiring plan template free, and do I have to give you my email?
It is free and there is no form. The builder runs entirely in your browser and the CSV is generated on your device, so the numbers you type are never sent to us.
Can I open the CSV in Excel or Google Sheets?
Yes. It is a plain comma-separated file with a header row, one row per role and a totals row, and it opens directly in Excel, Google Sheets, Numbers or any spreadsheet tool. Every derived figure is included as a column so the arithmetic is visible rather than hidden in a formula.
What is a recruitment plan?
A recruitment plan is a written statement of how many people you need to hire, for which roles, by when, and what it will take to reach them — the channels, the expected applicants, and the cost. It is the same document as a hiring plan; the difference in usage is that “hiring plan” tends to emphasise headcount and budget while “recruitment plan” emphasises where the candidates come from.
How do you write a recruitment plan?
Start from the number of hires each role needs and the date they are needed. Work backwards through your own conversion rates — applicants per hire, and time from application to start — to get the number of applicants required and the week the advertising has to begin. Then attach a cost per applicant to each role. If you do not have your own conversion rates yet, use a placeholder, write it down, and replace it after one quarter of real data.
What is a workforce planning template?
The same sheet as a hiring plan with three extra columns: current headcount by role from payroll, expected separations from last year's actual leavers, and planned growth or reduction kept separate from replacement.
What is the difference between workforce planning and a hiring plan?
Workforce planning asks how many people the operation needs by role over the year and where they come from. The hiring plan turns that into requisitions with dates, owners and budgets. Same spreadsheet, two zoom levels.
The applicant column is the one we can move.
Median cost per applicant across 891 managed campaigns was $13.88, with the management fee inside it. Bring us the plan and we will tell you what the sourcing line should actually be.
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