Cost Per Hire: What It Costs to Hire an Employee in Boise (and How to Calculate It)

Hiring someone in Boise costs more than their salary, and most business owners find that out the hard way. When you add up recruitment advertising, onboarding, lost productivity, and employer taxes, the true cost per hire typically runs between $4,000 and $20,000 depending on the role, and that is before you account for what happens if the hire does not work out. Here is what every Boise employer needs to know about cost per hire before they post that next job.

What Cost Per Hire Actually Means

Cost per hire is the total amount a company spends to fill one open position. It is not just the salary — it is the sum of the costs associated with hiring a new employee, covering the full cost of recruiting from the moment you decide you need someone to the day that person is fully productive in the role. This cost per hire definition is simple: cost-per-hire is the total cost of recruiting, so a lower cost per hire means a more efficient hiring process, and it helps you calculate the cost of every new role. Often shortened to CPH, it is one of the most important recruiting metrics in HR — a key human resource metric and a performance indicator for the efficiency of your entire recruitment process.

Most business owners think about the obvious line items: a job board posting, maybe a background check. What they miss is the internal cost of all the hours their team spends sourcing, screening, interviewing, and onboarding. When you factor in a hiring manager spending 10 to 15 hours on a single hire, HR time, and the productivity gap while the seat sits empty, the number climbs fast. Understanding why cost per hire is important helps you spend on recruitment more deliberately and improve your hiring — which is why it is tracked as a core HR metric rather than a single invoice.

The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) puts the average cost per hire at around $5,475 across all company sizes. For specialized or senior roles, that number regularly exceeds $20,000 to $35,000. In a market like Boise, where competition for quality talent is tighter than people expect, those costs skew even higher.

How to Calculate Cost Per Hire

Learn how to calculate cost per hire and you have the fastest way to see where your recruitment budget goes, which hiring costs are climbing, and where you can reduce costs. SHRM and the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) publish a standard cost per hire formula. The CPH formula adds your internal and external recruitment costs together and divides that total by the number of hires over a set period:

Cost per hire = (Internal recruiting costs + External recruiting costs) ÷ Total number of hires

External costs are the money that leaves your business — advertising costs, job board fees, background checks, and external recruitment agency fees. Internal costs, or internal recruitment expenses, are what you spend in-house: mainly HR and hiring manager time. Calculating the total cost simply means adding the internal and external recruiting costs, then dividing those costs by the number of hires — the same steps used to calculate the average cost of recruitment.

For example, if your total recruiting costs for a quarter were $30,000 and you made six hires, your average cost per hire is $5,000. To calculate the average cost per hire, divide those total recruiting costs by the number of hires in a specific period; the costs include advertising, agency fees, screening, and onboarding. To calculate CPH for one role, factor in the cost of advertising, screening, and onboarding for that specific hire. For a full worked example, see our guide on how to calculate cost per hire.

The 7 Things That Make Up Your Cost Per Hire

Every hiring budget is made up of seven distinct cost categories — a mix of internal and external costs. Understanding each one is the first step to controlling the total cost to hire a new employee, and it shows exactly where your recruitment efforts are spending money.

1. Internal staff time. Your hiring manager, HR lead, and any other team members involved in the recruitment process are spending paid hours on recruiting. Those internal costs have a dollar value most companies never track.

2. Job advertising and posting fees. Indeed, LinkedIn, Glassdoor, niche job boards. These external recruiting costs range from free to several thousand dollars per post, and many employers run multiple listings simultaneously.

3. Screening and assessments. Phone screens, skills tests, and structured interviews all take time. An applicant tracking system and similar technology speed up screening, and third-party assessments add another line to the invoice.

4. Background checks and drug screening. Standard for most professional roles and often required for any position involving finances, client access, or safety. Budget $50 to $200 per candidate screened.

5. Onboarding and training. The first 30 to 90 days are expensive. Between training costs, manager time, and the ramp-up period where the new hire is not yet fully productive, onboarding costs are one of the most underestimated buckets and a real part of the cost of hiring.

6. Employer taxes and benefits. You are not just paying a salary. Employer payroll taxes (Social Security, Medicare, FUTA, SUTA) add roughly 10 to 15 percent on top of base wages. Add health insurance, retirement contributions, and paid time off, and your true cost of employment is typically 1.25 to 1.4 times the salary.

7. Equipment and setup. Laptops, phones, software licenses, workspace setup, and any travel costs for final interviews. For remote or hybrid roles, this category is easy to overlook until the invoices arrive.

For the full breakdown and the formula to calculate your own number, see our deep dive on how to calculate cost per hire.

What It Costs to Hire in Boise

Boise is not the low-cost market it used to be. The city has grown fast, the talent pool has tightened, and salaries have risen to reflect it — which pushes local costs per hire above the national industry benchmark. Expect a higher cost per hire here than the national average amount, so treat any benchmark as a floor rather than a target.

Here is a general look at current market ranges for common roles in the Treasure Valley:

• Administrative and operations roles typically land between $50,000 and $70,000.
• Customer service and inside sales roles run $50,000 to $70,000.
• Marketing and creative positions range from $50,000 to $85,000.Mid-level tech and software roles start around $75,000 and climb well above $130,000 for experienced talent.
• Skilled trades, a category where Boise has seen significant demand growth, often command $45,000 to $90,000 depending on certifications and specialty.

Beyond salaries, Boise employers compete with remote-first companies offering national pay scales to Idaho-based workers. That means your local compensation strategy needs to account for candidates who can say yes to a San Francisco salary from a Meridian address. Our Staffing Agency Boise page covers what this means for your hiring approach in more detail.

The Cost of Getting It Wrong

A bad hire does not just cost you the salary you paid while it did not work out. The U.S. Department of Labor estimates the cost of a bad hire at up to 30 percent of the employee’s first-year earnings. For a $60,000 role, that is $18,000 out the door before you start the search over — which is why quality of hire belongs right next to cost per hire on any HR scorecard.

Beyond the hard dollar figure, there is team morale, client relationships, and the opportunity cost of a manager spending months managing a performance problem instead of leading their team. The true cost of a bad hire is almost always higher than employers’ estimate. We go deeper on all of it in our article on the cost of a bad hire.

Doing It Yourself vs. Using a Recruiter

There is a real and honest trade-off here. Running a search yourself keeps the recruiter fee off the invoice, but it puts the full weight of sourcing, screening, and selling the role on your internal team. For most small to mid-sized Boise businesses, that means a hiring manager who is already at capacity taking on a second job — and internal recruiting costs that rarely show up on a spreadsheet.

Recruiters and external recruitment agencies typically charge a placement fee of 15 to 25 percent of the hired candidate’s first-year salary for direct hire searches. On a $70,000 role, that is $10,500 to $17,500. That external recruitment cost sounds significant until you weigh it against weeks of internal time, a longer time to hire, and the risk of settling for a candidate who was available rather than the one who was right.

The math changes further when you consider that recruiters have direct access to candidates who are not actively searching. That is the talent your job posting will never reach. If you want to talk through what that looks like for your next search, we are here.

5 Ways to Lower Your Cost Per Hire

Reducing your cost per hire does not mean cutting corners on quality. There are several proven ways to reduce cost per hire, and they all start with building a smarter recruitment process and better recruitment methods.

1. Define the role before you post it. A vague job description attracts a high volume of poor-fit applicants, which eats screening time. Know exactly what you need before you go to market.

2. Build an employee referral program. Referred candidates are faster to hire, less expensive to source, and statistically more likely to stay. Even a modest referral bonus lowers your average cost per hire quickly.

3. Keep your pipeline warm. The most expensive searches start from zero. Staying in contact with strong candidates who were not right timing-wise means your next hire has a head start and a shorter time to hire.

4. Shorten your interview process. Every unnecessary round adds days to your time to hire and risks losing your top candidate to a faster-moving competitor. Audit your process and cut what does not add information.

5. Use the Cost-of-Vacancy Calculator. Before you decide how much of your recruitment budget to invest in a search, know what the open seat is costing you every week it sits empty. Used well, it helps you optimize your recruitment budget and improve your average cost per hire over time. The number is almost always a strong argument for moving faster and spending smarter.

FAQ

How do I calculate cost per hire?

Use the SHRM formula: add your internal recruiting costs and external recruiting costs together, then divide by the total number of hires in the same period. If you spent $30,000 filling six roles, your cost per hire is $5,000. These simple steps to calculate the metric are the same standardized method SHRM and ANSI use to calculate cost per hire as a cost-per-hire metric, and they make it easy to reduce the cost per hire once you can see where the money goes.

What is a good cost per hire?

SHRM benchmarks average cost per hire at around $4,700, but the right number for your business depends on the role, your industry, and your location. For specialized positions in competitive markets like Boise, anything under $10,000 is generally solid. What matters most is tracking this metric consistently and benchmarking it against a sensible industry benchmark so you can improve over time.

How much should a company budget for hiring?

A reasonable planning estimate is 15 to 30 percent of the role’s first-year salary when you account for all direct and indirect costs. For a $60,000 role, that puts your realistic hiring budget between $9,000 and $18,000. Many companies budget too low and end up absorbing hidden costs they did not plan for.

How long does it take to hire someone in Boise?

For most professional roles in the Treasure Valley, expect 30 to 60 days from the time you post to the day someone starts. Specialized technical and leadership roles often run longer. Every day that role sits open has a cost, which is why time to hire is as important a metric as cost per hire.

Does the cost per hire include salary?

No. Cost per hire measures what you spend to find and onboard the person, not what you pay them once they are working. Salary, benefits, and payroll taxes are part of your total cost of employment but are tracked separately.

Is it cheaper to promote from within or hire externally?

Internal promotions are generally faster and less expensive when the right person is already in your organization. External hires bring new skills and perspectives but carry higher upfront costs and a longer ramp time. The best approach is to evaluate both options deliberately rather than defaulting to one or the other.

See What an Unfilled Role Is Costing You

You now have the full picture of what hiring costs. The next question is what it costs to wait. An open seat is not free: it has a dollar value for every week it goes unfilled.

Try the Cost Per Hire Calculator →