What is time to hire?
Time to hire is the number of days between a candidate entering the process and accepting the offer. Workable defines it as the period from the moment a candidate enters the pipeline to job offer acceptance.
It is a measure of the candidate's experience of your process, not of the role as a whole. The clock starts when the person appears, not when the need appears.
Why does time to hire matter in IT recruitment?
Because the candidates you want are rarely in only one process. A developer or a data engineer who applies on Monday is often interviewing elsewhere by Friday. Every week between first contact and offer is a week in which another company can move first.
A long time to hire rarely loses candidates loudly. It loses them through a polite withdrawal or an offer accepted elsewhere, which is why it tends to be underestimated.
How is time to hire different from time to fill?
By the start of the clock. Time to fill starts when the role is opened and includes everything before the right candidate shows up: approval, advertising, sourcing. Time to hire starts with the candidate.
The distinction tells you where the delay sits. A long time to fill with a short time to hire means finding people is hard. A short time to fill with a long time to hire means your own process is slow.
What does time to hire reward, and what can go wrong?
It rewards speed, and speed is good until it replaces judgement. A team measured only on time to hire can skip the reference check, compress interviews into one rushed day or push an offer before the hiring manager is convinced.
The useful reading is together with offer acceptance rate and early attrition. A fast process that produces departures in the first year has only moved the cost. Sparagus tracks how fast feedback comes back on each search, because that is usually where the days go.
