Time to hire
Time to hire is the number of days between the moment a candidate applies and the moment they accept the job offer. It measures how fast a hiring process moves one candidate from application to yes. A short time to hire means fewer candidates take another job while they wait.
Time to hire is one of the most common recruiting metrics. It looks at the process from the candidate's side: how long did this person wait between applying and saying yes? Every day in that window is a day another employer or staffing agency can make an offer first.
How does time to hire differ from time to fill?
| Time to hire | Time to fill | |
|---|---|---|
| Starts | The candidate applies | The vacancy opens |
| Ends | The candidate accepts the offer | The vacancy is filled |
| What it shows | How fast your process moves a candidate | How long a role stays empty |
| Includes sourcing time | No | Yes |
| Who uses it most | Recruiters improving the process | Hiring managers and planners |
A role can have a short time to hire and a long time to fill. That happens when the process is fast but few suitable candidates apply. Time to fill explains that side.
How do you measure time to hire?
- Take the application date from your applicant tracking system (ATS).
- Take the date the candidate accepted the offer.
- Count the days between the two for each hire.
- Report the median per role or per team. A few slow hires distort an average.
Time to hire = date of accepted offer − date of application
For staffing agencies the end point is often the first placement or the signed contract, not an offer letter. Pick one end point and keep it the same across teams.
Where does frontline hiring lose the most days?
Most of the delay sits at the start of the process, not at the offer.
- Before the first contact. A candidate who applies in the evening often waits until the next working day. Time to first contact measures that wait.
- Between screening and interview. Agreeing a slot by phone or email takes several messages. See interview scheduling.
- Between interview and offer. Feedback waits for a manager who is on the floor or on leave.
- Missed appointments. Each no-show sends the process back a step. See no-show rate.
Split your time to hire into these steps. The longest step is usually the cheapest one to fix.
What is a good time to hire?
There is no single benchmark that fits every role. A specialist role can take weeks. A warehouse or cleaning role with many applicants should move much faster, because the candidate's other options move fast too. Compare your own roles over time and against your competitors for the same candidates, not against an industry average for office jobs.
How does Ringtime shorten time to hire?
Ringtime's AI agents take the waiting out of the first steps, by phone and WhatsApp, on top of the ATS you already use.
- The assistant contacts every applicant within 5 minutes of applying, inside the calling hours you set.
- It screens the candidate in the same conversation.
- A candidate who passes picks an interview time in that conversation. The agent books it straight into the recruiter's calendar.
- The result lands in your ATS, so the recruiter can take the next step at once.
- On Carerix and Connexys, Ringtime reads back what your recruiters did next, so you can follow candidates past the interview.
To move candidates from application to yes faster, see how Ringtime screens candidates.
