Time to hire is one of the most critical hiring metrics to track. It covers the entire candidate’s journey from application to job offer acceptance. It’s also a great benchmark to compare against industry averages. However, it is always best to treat these comparisons cautiously. Different roles and industries may have an additional average hiring time.
The right time to advertise
Recruiting new employees is expensive, and hiring the wrong people can cost your business even more. To mitigate costs, start recruiting several months before you need the job. This will help you prepare for the price and logistical challenges, write a more effective job advertisement, and speed up the process. One of the most common reasons businesses hire is to handle a spike in business. However, this can lead to overworked staff and less focus on high-value tasks. To avoid this, it’s essential to have a plan that includes how you will get additional support when needed. This plan should include how you will find new employees and the best time to advertise the position. This will ensure that you are taking your time with a hire out of desperation, which often leads to a mismatch between the job description and the skillset. This can be avoided using pre-selection tools, like assessments, to identify and rank candidates.
The right time to post the job
You can calculate your time to hire by taking the day a candidate applies for the position and subtracting the day they accept the job offer. This will give you time to engage in days. You can also break down your hiring process into different stages to see how long a candidate can move from one step to the next, such as CV selection, phone screening, and interviewing. However, it’s important to remember that time to hire differs from the quality of hire. While improving your time to hire is important, focusing on hiring the best talent for your company is also critical.
The right time to interview
Recruiting metrics such as time to hire are crucial for HR managers. A high time to hire may indicate that your team needs to move candidates more efficiently through recruitment. For example, suppose you should take less time to select candidates for phone screenings or schedule in-person interviews. In that case, your candidate experience will suffer, and you could miss out on top talent. By tracking your time to hire and comparing it to industry benchmarks, you can identify where you need to catch up and find out how to improve your hiring processes. While there are many recruiting metrics to consider, time to hire is among the most popular and reveals important information about your hiring processes. A quick and efficient hiring process will save you money and ensure that your candidates have a positive experience throughout the recruitment process.
The right time to offer
Time to hire is often viewed as a standalone metric, but it’s essential to understand that it should be evaluated alongside the quality of hire. A long recruiting process can make it challenging to recruit top talent, and it also needs to reflect better on your company culture. Measuring time-to-hire as a benchmark allows you to identify inefficiencies in your hiring processes. For example, if your hiring team spends too much time in the resume review stage or rescheduling interviews, this could drive candidates away. It’s also helpful to compare your time-to-hire metrics to your competitors. However, be aware that different industries have different average times-to-hire, so you should be cautious about comparing apples and oranges.
