Time To Hire vs Time to Fill
Time to Hire and Time to Fill measure different aspects of the recruitment process, though they're often confused or used interchangeably. Time to Fill tracks the entire recruitment lifecycle from job requisition approval until the position is filled, reflecting the total calendar days a position remains open. It encompasses all recruitment activities, including job posting, sourcing, and administrative processes. Time to Hire, however, measures a narrower timeframe—typically from when a candidate enters your recruitment process (applies or is sourced) until they accept your offer. This metric focuses specifically on how efficiently your team converts identified candidates into employees, excluding the initial job posting and sourcing phase.
When evaluating your overall recruitment strategy and planning capabilities, Time to Fill provides more comprehensive insights. For example, if your organization consistently shows a 90-day Time to Fill for senior engineering roles while the industry average is 60 days, you might need to improve your requisition approval process, job description development, or candidate sourcing strategies. Conversely, use Time to Hire when assessing your recruitment team's efficiency in moving candidates through the pipeline. If candidates typically spend 45 days from application to offer acceptance, you might identify bottlenecks in specific stages, such as lengthy interview scheduling or slow decision-making from hiring managers. While Time to Fill helps with workforce planning and recruitment forecasting, Time to Hire better pinpoints process inefficiencies that directly impact candidate experience and can lead to losing top talent to competitors with faster hiring processes.
Time to Hire
Time to Fill
What is it?
Time to Hire measures the duration between when a selected candidate first enters your hiring pipeline and when they accept your job offer. This metric evaluates your organisation's speed and efficiency in moving preferred candidates through the hiring process, serving as a critical indicator of HR execution capability, competitive market positioning, and talent acquisition effectiveness. Unlike Time to Fill, which measures the complete recruitment cycle from job posting to offer acceptance, Time to Hire specifically focuses on how quickly you can secure top talent once they've been identified.
Time to Fill measures the complete duration from when a position becomes available until it is successfully filled with an accepted candidate. This comprehensive metric captures the entire talent acquisition lifecycle, including job approval processes, posting periods, candidate sourcing, screening, interviewing, decision-making, and offer acceptance. As a foundational HR metric, Time to Fill serves as a barometer of organisational hiring efficiency, market competitiveness, and recruitment process effectiveness. It provides critical insights into resource allocation needs, process bottlenecks, and market conditions that directly impact business operations and strategic planning.
Who is it for?
Categories
Formula
Example
Sarah applies for a Customer Success Manager position on March 1st. After progressing through multiple interview rounds alongside other candidates, she's identified as the preferred candidate and receives an offer on March 8th, which she accepts on March 10th. Time to Hire = March 10th - March 1st = 9 days For aggregate reporting: If your organisation hired 12 people with individual hiring times of 9, 15, 7, 12, 18, 6, 14, 11, 8, 20, 13, and 16 days respectively, your average Time to Hire would be: Time to Hire = (9+15+7+12+18+6+14+11+8+20+13+16) / 12 = 12.4 days
A Software Engineering position was approved on January 15th, posted on January 22nd, and filled with accepted offer on March 8th. Time to Fill = March 8th - January 15th = 52 days (from approval) or March 8th - January 22nd = 45 days (from posting) Aggregate Example: Role 1: 28 days (Marketing Coordinator) Role 2: 65 days (Senior Data Scientist) Role 3: 41 days (Operations Manager) Role 4: 19 days (Administrative Assistant) Average Time to Fill = (28 + 65 + 41 + 19) / 4 = 38.25 days
Published and updated dates
Date created: Oct 12, 2022
Latest update: Sep 2, 2025
Date created: Oct 12, 2022
Latest update: Sep 2, 2025