3 Ways to Improve the Time to Hire Metric
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What is Time to Hire, and How Can It Be Improved?
Let’s start with definitions, since these terms are not standardized across the industry.
Time to hire: From when a job is published in the ATS to the date a candidate accepts an offer.
Time to fill: From when a job is published in the ATS to the candidate’s official start date.
The difference between time to hire and time to fill: time to hire is a subset of time to fill, focused only on the candidate’s journey through the interview process and their decision to accept. Each candidate has their own individual time to hire, and the process itself has an overall (average) time to hire.
What time-to-hire metrics should you track?
Variance across candidates within the same requisition – are candidates moving consistently through the same funnel?
High time-to-hire variance between individual candidates in the same pipeline could be a function of recruiting blockers like individual interviewer availability, offer declines, or accepted but not started.
SLA variance between stages – how much lag exists between steps in the process?
Long wait periods between stages are generally related to interviewer availability, but in some cases can be related to indecision.
Source of delays – whether bottlenecks come from candidates, coordinators, or hiring managers.
One of the best benefits headcount365 adds to this analysis is our auto-tagging of roles that are net-new to the business. If a role has never existed before, we can help forecast the additional time needed to predict a hire on time
How do you set time to hire expectations?
Start with historical data, then adjust using variables that are known drivers:
Interview process length – the more steps, the longer the hire.
Interviewers per process – more calendars to align, more delays.
Interview difficulty – take-home assignments, exams, or presentations extend timelines.
Interviewer capacity – limited interviewer availability slows things down.
Coordinator efficiency – speed and volume of scheduling impacts throughput.
Reschedule rate – frequent reschedules add unnecessary days.
Headcount context – seniority, job level, and whether the role is new to the business all affect the outcome.
Headcount365 forecasts accurate time-to-hire data by tying recruiter workload and historical performance together. We capture variables like job level and the number of requisitions each recruiter is already managing to understand their true capacity. We also factor in historic time-to-fill for similar roles to create realistic benchmarks. And when roles are brand new to the business, Headcount365 accounts for the added calibration time required to align on expectations—ensuring forecasts reflect the additional effort needed for positions that have never been hired before
3 Ways to Improve Time to Hire
1) Standardize the start and end period for time to hire
Why standardize? To ensure consistent measurement that isn’t subject to interpretation.
The problem: ATS time data has flaws, as systems allow recruiters to manipulate open dates. In other cases, roles are repeatedly published and unpublished to manage applicant flow, which distorts metrics. Evergreen jobs, or jobs with many openings under one job posting, further skew data, as it’s difficult to track the time metrics of every individual opening.
How to fix it:
Headcount365 independently tracks the true initial publish date and all posting activity, so every time-to-hire calculation uses a unified start point. We can track every change to the requisitions’ status, and consistently measure time to hire from the same point for every requisition.
While you could track this manually in spreadsheets, it’s error-prone and requires constant upkeep.
2) Track the actions (and their source) that impact time to hire
Why track actions? Time to hire isn’t just a recruiting metric — it’s a signal of how the entire hiring process is operating. Tracking delays by source creates accountability, improves forecasting accuracy, and prevents recruiting from carrying all the blame.
Common actions to track:
Rescheduled interviews – volume and source (candidate, coordinator, or hiring manager).
Requisition changes – shifting scope mid-search (e.g., IC to manager) adds time.
Brand new roles – fresh positions require calibration and are often outliers.
How to track:
Headcount365 automatically tags new roles using HRIS data, tracks requisition changes, and measures the timing of those changes. This makes it clear where hiring managers impact time to hire. While this seems like a lot to track, our seamless AI summaries help every user understand what happened to each role.
3) Incorporate recruiter workload into time to hire calculations
Why workload matters: Recruiter bandwidth is one of the strongest predictors of hiring speed. Managing multiple pipelines, managers, or job types creates drag. The rise of AI has flooded top-of-funnel pipelines, making recruiter and coordinator capacity even more critical.
Workload metrics to consider:
Funnel conversion rates (poor conversion = extended timelines).
Average job level (senior roles take longer).
Candidate supply (scarce talent slows progress).
Inbound quality (low quality adds screening overhead).
Number of hiring managers per recruiter.
Number of unique job titles (context switching).
Priority weighting of requisitions (P0 vs. lower priority).
Administrative support (coordinators, sourcers, onboarding).
How to incorporate workload:
Headcount365’s workload balancing tool distributes requisitions evenly across recruiters using these variables. Its predictive time-to-hire algorithm adjusts based on workload, historic reporting, and AI-driven summaries — feeding finance and workforce planning with more accurate forecasts.
Headcount365 Improves Time-to-Hire
Time to hire is one of the most important recruiting metrics, but also one of the easiest to misinterpret. Standardizing measurement, tracking actions that create variance, and incorporating recruiter workload into calculations shifts time to hire from a blunt outcome metric into a predictive, actionable planning tool.
Headcount365 makes this possible by unifying data across HRIS, ATS, and recruiting workflows, ensuring teams can measure and manage time to hire with accuracy and consistency.