Time-to-Hire | Meaning and Definition

What is Time-to-hire?

Time-to-hire is an important HR metric that implies the amount of time that elapses between when a job candidate is contacted by the company for the first time and when the person accepts the job offer. Although, on the surface, time-to-hire seems a simple and unsophisticated concept, it does present certain challenges when representing complicated efficiency measures of the HR team responsible for recruiting people. 

The more time lag between these two crucial timeline aspects, the less efficient are the team’s tactics. Nonetheless, backtracking time-to-hire metrics consistently allows HR managers to stay alert to the incompetencies within the recruiting process. Hence, they can execute the necessary measures to eradicate barriers and enhance the department’s productivity.

On top of this, a deft time-to-hire firm makes the hiring process faster and more efficient by deconstructing the process into more manageable phases. This helps the team to get their hands on the top talent and weed out others without wasting much time.

Time-to-hire formula

The first day when the job’s vacancy was posted by the company is time-to-hire’s first variable and is deemed Day 1. When a job candidate accepts the employment offer, it is the second variable of the time-to-hire equation. Suppose this happened on day 30.

The day when the finalized hire actually applied for the role is deemed as the third and last variable. Let’s take it that this happened 10 days after the initial job posting. Now, to estimate the time-to-hire metric, deduct the third variable from the second one, 30- 10 = 20.

Now, the average time-to-hire metric can be calculated by adding various independent result times and then dividing it by the instances you pulled.