Time to hire VS time to fill 

Before we start looking at the metrics themselves, let’s clarify what time to hire actually is. There’s quite a lot of confusion out there, with people often using terms like “time to hire” and “time to fill” interchangeably.  

But the two terms are actually quite different.

Time to fill is the time it takes for you to hire a new employee, starting from the moment you publish your job vacancy.  

Time to hire is the time it takes for you to hire a new employee, starting from the moment that vacancy appears. In other words, it includes the time it takes for you to fill out a job specification and put out job ads. 

In terms of first mover’s advantage, time to fill is certainly the most important HR metric here. But as there are other factors at play, such as the cost of lost productivity, or even just lost opportunity while your job remains unfilled. For this article, we’re going to focus on the full “time to hire” metric. 

What’s a good time to hire metric? 

The best time to hire metric, is naturally, as short as possible, without compromising on quality of process. But if we’re thinking specifically about trying to gain first mover’s advantage, then it can help to look at a few industry benchmarks. That way, we know what we’re up against, if we want to aim to move faster than our competitors. 

Workable actually has some statistics to help us here – their system has processed millions of candidates, and Workable has published anonymised data off the back of that.  

According to Workable, if we split the average time to hire by the type of vacancy, we get the following results: 

• Accounting/finance: 29 days 
• Construction: 28 days 
• Consulting: 25 days 
• Creative: 19 days 
• Education: 24 days 
• Healthcare: 28 days 
• Hospitality: 22 days 
• IT: 30 days 
• Legal: 32 days 
• Logistics: 12 days 
• Manufacturing: 30 days 
• Retail: 21 days 
• Recruiting: 18 days
• Travel: 33 days 

Anything that didn’t fit into one of these categories, was lumped together and averaged out at 25 days. 

Of course, you should bear in mind that these are global averages, and certainly not hard or fast rules. You may find that you live in a country where the average is higher or lower, due to the legislation surrounding a particular type of role. Or you may find that the role you’re hiring for is particularly technical, and extra challenging. 

But some information to keep in your back pocket could be this: if you’re taking more than 30 days to hire for a vacancy then you might be a little on the slow side. 

Ways to improve your time to hire average 

There’s plenty you can do to improve your time to hire score. Here are a few tips to get you going: 

• Create an attractive job advert – it will take you longer to find the perfect match if they’re not interested in applying to begin with 
• Use an – this makes your recruitment process smoother, and decision-making clearer 
• Remove unnecessary barriers to entry – if you have too many forms to click through, and pages to navigate, candidates may become demotivated to complete their application quickly, or even just give up altogether 

Important note: Removing unnecessary barriers to entry does NOT mean removing ALL barriers to entry. Some screening processes are essential for qualifying out candidates who might not be right for the role – and if your application process allows a total free for all, you may end up with more mess to sort out than you bargained for. And that in itself can massively slow down your time to hire.