Seven Numbers Every Site Director Should See Weekly

Sites collect enormous amounts of data and often report almost none of it internally. A weekly recruitment dashboard doesn't need to be fancy — it needs to be consistent. Seven numbers cover most of what matters:

The seven

1. New leads by source. Volume tells you whether the top of the funnel is healthy; the source split tells you which channels deserve budget.

1. Median time to first contact. The strongest operational predictor of conversion. If it's drifting past a few hours, find out why before conversion drops confirm it.

1. Contact rate. Of leads at least a week old, what share was actually reached? Low contact rates usually mean bad calling times or too few attempts, not bad leads.

1. Pre-screen pass rate by source. A channel sending volumes of unqualified leads is a targeting problem you can fix — or a channel to cut.

1. Screening show rate. No-shows at screening visits are expensive. Below ~80%, reminder sequences and scheduling friction deserve attention.

1. Screen-fail rate by reason. Covered in depth elsewhere, but the headline number belongs on the weekly dashboard.

1. Enrollments vs. target, per study. The bottom line — displayed against the timeline commitment, not in isolation. "Six enrolled" means nothing without "of ten, with four weeks left."

Making it stick

The dashboard works when it's automatic and discussed. If assembling it takes a coordinator half a day of spreadsheet surgery, it will quietly die within a quarter. And a dashboard nobody reviews in a standing meeting is decoration. Fifteen minutes every Monday, same seven numbers, decisions recorded — that cadence has turned around more under-enrolling sites than any single recruitment tactic.