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Time to Hire

A recruiting metric that measures how long it takes to move a candidate from application or contact to hire.

businessPublished 2026/06/06Last verified 2026/06/06

FAQs

Is time to hire the same as time to fill?
Not always. Time to hire often tracks candidate movement, while time to fill usually starts when a role opens and ends when it is filled.

Related Terms

  • Cost per Hire

    A recruiting metric that estimates hiring cost by dividing recruiting spend by the number of hires.

  • Quality of Hire

    A recruiting outcome metric for how well a hire performs, stays, and fits the role after joining.

  • Candidate Experience

    The quality of a candidate's interactions with an employer during sourcing, application, interviews, and offers.

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  • SmartRecruiters

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  • Ashby

    Recruiting platform for ATS, CRM, scheduling, analytics, and hiring team collaboration workflows.

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What it means

Time to hire is a recruiting speed metric. Teams may calculate it from first candidate contact, application date, or another defined starting point to accepted offer or hire date.

Buyer checks

  • Confirm how the software defines start and end dates.
  • Review stage-level reporting to find bottlenecks.
  • Compare time to hire with quality and candidate experience, not in isolation.

A shorter time to hire is useful only when hiring quality and fairness are protected.