Desk Capacity Calculator
Your desks are capped by something you are probably not measuring.
Concurrent providers on a desk equals new starts per month times how long assignments last. Two inputs, one ceiling. Most firms track the first one closely and guess at the second.
The ceiling, with your numbers
3.0
starts a month
8.0
months each
24.0
on the desk
Little's Law, applied to one recruiter's desk.
Three numbers
Per recruiter. Rough is fine. Answer the middle one from memory, that is the point.
New and reactivated placements one recruiter starts in a typical month.
How long does a typical placement last, start to finish?
How many is one of your best recruiters actively managing right now?
Used to scale the result to the whole firm.
The check
Your first two numbers predict the third. See whether they agree.
Your numbers say
24.0
You actually have
18.0
Concurrent providers per desk
Worth a look
Your estimate of assignment length is high by about 33 percent.
To hold 18.0 providers at 3.0 starts a month, assignments have to be averaging about 6.0 months, not 8.0. Almost everyone overstates this, because the book you picture is full of long assignments and the short ones have already left it.
6.0
months your book actually implies
5.1 to 6.9
reasonable range on that estimate
108
firm-wide concurrent capacity at these rates
Two levers, equal on paper
Capacity is a product, so a ten percent improvement in either input is worth exactly the same. They are not equally available.
What it takes to grow this desk by 20 percent
Start more
3.6 per month
Up from 3.0, holding duration where it is. Across 6 recruiters that is 3.6 additional placements started every month, sustained. Nobody has ever found this easy.
Make assignments last longer
Where the variance lives7.2 months
Up from about 6.0, holding starts where they are. That is roughly 1.2 more months on a typical assignment, which is one extension conversation started earlier, or one provider re-placed instead of lost.
Acquisition rate tends to be stubborn. It does not fall as a desk fills and it does not rise much when pushed. Duration is where the spread between your best and worst desks usually sits, and almost nobody manages it directly.
What this does not tell you
The check tells you the ceiling exists. It does not tell you why yours is where it is.
- 01Is duration consistent across recruiters, or is one desk carrying the average?
- 02Of the assignments that ended, how many were client-driven versus a provider leaving you?
- 03What share of providers whose assignments ended last quarter are working for you today?
- 04How many days before an end date does the extension conversation actually start?
- 05Is your start rate capped by the recruiter, or by something upstream in the pipeline?
Those five answers are the difference between knowing your ceiling and being able to move it.
How the math works
Uses Little's Law: average concurrent items equals arrival rate times average time in system. Assignment duration is genuinely hard to measure. A short data window undercounts it because unfinished assignments are excluded, and a point-in-time snapshot overcounts it because long assignments are over-represented. Treat the implied figure as a range, not a fact.
Want this run on your own numbers?
If your two numbers did not agree, that gap is usually the most interesting thing on the page. A Diagnostic applies the same thinking to your desks, your service lines, and your clients.
Prefer to talk first? Book a complimentary 30-minute review call.