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Recruitment

Time to Hire

Time to hire is the number of days between the moment a candidate enters your recruitment process and the moment they accept your job offer.

Definition

Time to hire measures how fast your recruitment process moves a candidate from first contact to signed offer. The clock usually starts when the candidate applies or is sourced, and stops when they accept the offer. It is calculated per candidate, then averaged across all the hires of a period or of a role.

It is often confused with time to fill, which starts earlier: time to fill counts the days from the opening of the job requisition until an offer is accepted. Time to hire isolates the part of the process you control once a candidate is in your pipeline: screening, interviews, decisions and offer.

A long time to hire has a direct cost. The best candidates are usually in several processes at once and accept the first serious offer. Each extra week of screening calls, scheduling and waiting for feedback increases the risk of losing them and keeps the position empty longer.

Key points

  • Formula: date of offer acceptance minus date the candidate entered the process, averaged across hires.
  • It measures the speed of your own process, unlike time to fill which also includes the time spent finding candidates.
  • Track it by stage (screening, interviews, decision, offer) to see where candidates wait.
  • Shortening the first screening step usually has the biggest effect, because it is where most candidates wait.
  • Speed should never replace a fair evaluation: the goal is to remove waiting time, not steps.

Example

A candidate applies on March 3, completes a first interview on March 10, meets the manager on March 18 and accepts the offer on March 24. Their time to hire is 21 days. If the 12 hires of the quarter average 32 days, the team can look at which stage holds candidates the longest, often the wait between application and the first interview.

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between time to hire and time to fill?

Time to fill starts when the job is opened and ends when an offer is accepted. Time to hire starts later, when a given candidate enters the process. Time to fill shows how long a position stays empty; time to hire shows how efficient your selection process is.

How can I reduce time to hire?

Remove waiting time between steps: screen applicants as soon as they apply, avoid back-and-forth to schedule first interviews, give hiring managers a clear summary of each candidate, and set a deadline for feedback after each interview.

Does a short time to hire mean better recruitment?

Not on its own. A fast process that hires the wrong people costs more than a slower one. Track time to hire together with quality of hire and candidate experience.

Related terms

Time to FillTime to fill is the number of days between the opening of a job requisition and the day a candidate accepts the offer, showing how long a position stays vacant.Cost per HireCost per hire is the average total amount a company spends to recruit one new employee, adding internal and external recruitment costs and dividing them by the number of hires in the period.Candidate ExperienceCandidate experience is the sum of all the impressions a candidate has of your company during the recruitment process, from the job posting to the final answer, including communication, interviews and feedback.Candidate ScreeningCandidate screening is the first stage of recruitment, in which applicants are reviewed against the requirements of the job to decide who moves on to interviews and who does not.

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What is Time to Hire? Definition and examples | Passisto