Time to hire and time to fill sound interchangeable, but they measure different windows. Time to fill counts every day a role is open, starting when the requisition is approved and ending when a candidate accepts the offer. Time to hire counts a shorter window inside that: the days between a candidate applying and accepting the offer.
The practical difference is the pre-application stretch. Time to fill includes the time you spend sourcing, advertising, and waiting for the right person to apply. Time to hire ignores that and focuses on how fast you move a candidate through your process once they are in it. Knowing which one a number refers to changes what it tells you and what you should fix.
Key takeaways
- Time to fill measures the whole vacancy, from requisition approval to offer acceptance. Time to hire measures the candidate window, from application to acceptance.
- The gap between the two metrics is your sourcing and pipeline-building window. A wide gap points to slow sourcing, not a slow interview process.
- Both are averaged the same way: total days across filled roles divided by the number of roles filled.
- Benchmarks vary widely by role and industry, so treat any single number as directional, not a target.
- Use time to fill for workforce planning and time to hire to judge how efficient your hiring process is.
Why the difference matters
These two metrics answer different questions, so confusing them leads to the wrong fix. If your time to fill is high but time to hire is low, your interview process is fast and the delay sits upstream in sourcing. If both are high, the bottleneck is likely inside the pipeline itself. Mislabeling the metric sends you optimizing the wrong stage.
The stakes are real for hiring teams. SHRM has warned that a slow time to fill can cost an organization its shot at top talent, because strong candidates do not wait around. Measuring both numbers, and knowing exactly where each window starts and ends, lets you see whether you are losing people before they apply or after.
The definitions and the difference
Time to fill: the full vacancy window
AIHR defines time to fill as the number of calendar days it takes to find and hire a new candidate, typically measured from the approval of a job requisition to the candidate accepting the offer. SHRM frames it the same way: the days from when the requisition was opened until the offer was accepted, counted in calendar days, including weekends and holidays. This is your broadest hiring clock. It captures sourcing, advertising, screening, interviewing, and the final decision in one number.
Time to hire: the candidate's journey
AIHR defines time to hire as the days between the candidate applying and accepting the job offer. It starts the moment a specific person enters your pipeline and ends when they say yes. It does not include the time the role sat open before they applied. Because it tracks one candidate's path, it is a cleaner read on how efficient your screening, interviewing, and decision steps actually are.
The timeline difference: the pre-application window
The two metrics share an end point, offer acceptance, but start at different moments. Time to fill starts at requisition approval. Time to hire starts at application. The gap between them is the pre-application window, meaning how long the role was open before the eventual hire applied. AIHR's worked example makes it concrete. A requisition is approved on January 1st. The candidate, Bill, applies on January 21st and accepts on January 31st. That gives a time to fill of 30 days and a time to hire of 10 days. The 20-day difference is sourcing and waiting time.
How to calculate and average each
For a single hire, both are day counts between their start and end points. To average across many roles, use the same method for both: add up the days for every filled position, then divide by the number of positions filled. AIHR's worked example for average time to fill uses five administrators hired in 15, 60, 10, 30, and 40 days. Add those (155) and divide by five to get an average time to fill of 31 days. Average time to hire works the same way, using each candidate's application-to-acceptance span instead.
What each metric tells you
Time to fill tells you how long a vacancy stays open, which matters for workforce planning, team capacity, and the cost of an empty seat. It reflects everything, including how fast you source. Time to hire tells you how efficient your process is once a candidate is engaged. A short time to hire means your screening and interviewing move quickly. Read them together: a large gap between fill and hire points to slow sourcing, while a high time to hire points to internal pipeline drag.
The benchmark caveat
Workable cites an SHRM benchmark of roughly 42 days as an average time to fill, but stresses that benchmarks vary widely by role and industry. Engineering roles, for example, average closer to 62 days in Workable's data. Treat any single benchmark as directional, not universal. A number that looks slow for one role may be fast for another. The most useful comparison is against your own past performance and against roles of similar seniority and sector, not a one-size-fits-all figure.
Which to use when
Use time to fill when you are planning headcount, forecasting when a seat will be filled, or making the case for the cost of a long vacancy. It answers the business question. Use time to hire when you are auditing your recruiting process and want to know whether your stages move fast enough. It answers the operational question. Most teams track both, because each one isolates a different part of the same problem.
How to reduce time to hire and time to fill
Step 1: Build a candidate database so you don't start from scratch
Workable recommends keeping a database of past applicants and prospects. When a new role opens, you can reach out to people you already know instead of beginning sourcing from zero. This shrinks the pre-application window, which cuts time to fill without touching your interview stages.
Step 2: Source passive candidates ahead of need
Workable suggests sourcing passive candidates before a role is even open. If you have warm relationships in place, the gap between requisition approval and the first strong application drops. This is one of the few moves that lowers time to fill specifically, because it attacks the sourcing time that time to hire never counts.
Step 3: Break the process into stages and measure each one
Workable recommends splitting the hiring process into stages and measuring the time between each one. This shows you exactly where candidates stall, whether it is screening, scheduling, or the final decision. Measuring stage by stage turns a vague high number into a specific bottleneck you can fix.
Step 4: Run employee referral programs
Workable lists referral programs as a way to reduce both metrics. Referred candidates often arrive pre-vetted and engaged, which speeds up sourcing and shortens screening. They tend to move through the pipeline faster, helping time to hire as well as time to fill.
Step 5: Train interviewers and use communication templates
Workable recommends training interviewers so they make faster, clearer decisions, and using communication templates to speed up scheduling. Both attack the delays that sit inside time to hire. Faster scheduling and quicker post-interview decisions remove the dead time between stages.
Do this
- Define the start and end point of each metric before you report a number, so everyone knows which window it covers.
- Average both metrics with the same method: total days divided by roles filled.
- Compare your numbers against your own past performance, not just a generic benchmark.
- Measure the time between each pipeline stage to find the real bottleneck.
- Track time to fill and time to hire together, since each isolates a different problem.
- Segment benchmarks by role, seniority, and industry before judging whether a number is slow.
- Source passive candidates and keep a candidate database to shorten the pre-application window.
Common mistakes to avoid
Treating the two metrics as the same number
Time to fill and time to hire share an end point but start at different moments. Using them interchangeably hides where your delay actually lives. Always state which window you mean.
Optimizing the wrong stage
If time to fill is high but time to hire is low, your interview process is already fast and the problem is sourcing. Speeding up interviews you have already made fast wastes effort. Read the gap between the two before you act.
Treating one benchmark as a universal target
Workable notes benchmarks vary widely by role and industry, with Engineering averaging longer than the roughly 42-day SHRM average. Holding every role to a single number sets unfair targets and triggers bad decisions.
Mixing calendar days and business days
SHRM measures time to fill in calendar days, including weekends and holidays. If some of your roles count business days and others count calendar days, your average is meaningless. Pick one convention and apply it everywhere.
Reporting an average without segmenting
A single average across very different roles can hide a serious problem. AIHR's example shows one 60-day hire sitting inside a set that averages 31 days. Segment by role type so outliers do not get buried.
Ignoring the pre-application window entirely
Teams that only watch time to hire miss the sourcing delay completely. The gap between requisition approval and the first strong application is often where the real time is lost. Measure time to fill too.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between time to hire and time to fill?
Time to fill counts every day a role is open, from when the job requisition is approved to when a candidate accepts the offer. Time to hire counts a shorter window inside that, from the day a candidate applies to the day they accept. They share an end point but start at different moments. The gap between them is the pre-application window, which is mostly sourcing time.
How do you calculate average time to fill?
Add the number of days needed to fill each position, then divide by the number of positions filled. AIHR's worked example uses five administrators hired in 15, 60, 10, 30, and 40 days. The total is 155, divided by five, giving an average time to fill of 31 days. Average time to hire uses the same method, with each candidate's application-to-acceptance span.
What is a good time to fill benchmark?
Workable cites an SHRM benchmark of roughly 42 days as an average time to fill, but warns that benchmarks vary widely by role and industry. Engineering roles, for example, average closer to 62 days. Treat any single number as directional, not a fixed target. The most useful comparison is against your own past results for similar roles.
Does time to fill include weekends and holidays?
Yes, in the SHRM definition. SHRM measures time to fill in calendar days, counting from when the requisition was opened until the offer was accepted, including weekends and holidays. The key is consistency. If you mix calendar days for some roles and business days for others, your average becomes unreliable, so pick one convention and apply it across every role.
Which metric should I focus on to speed up hiring?
It depends on where your delay sits. If time to fill is high but time to hire is low, your interviews are already fast and the bottleneck is sourcing, so build a candidate database and source passive candidates earlier. If time to hire is high, the drag is inside your pipeline, so train interviewers, use scheduling templates, and measure each stage.
The bottom line
Time to fill and time to hire are not rivals. They are two clocks on the same hire, started at different moments. Time to fill watches the whole vacancy from requisition approval to acceptance. Time to hire watches the candidate's path from application to acceptance. The gap between them tells you whether your delay is in sourcing or inside your pipeline, and that single insight points you to the right fix. Average both the same way, segment by role before judging any benchmark, and measure each stage to find where the days actually go.
These two metrics are part of a wider set of recruiting measures, alongside cost per hire, quality of hire, and offer acceptance rate, so read them in context rather than in isolation. One small lever on time to hire is the speed of the candidate-document step. A tool like RefineCV can format candidate CVs faster, which trims some of the manual work between application and offer. It is a minor input to the bigger picture, but every removed delay helps.
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Related reading: recruitment metrics that matter most and how much time your agency can save on CV formatting.
Sources
- SHRM, Staffing Metrics: Time to Fill Can Kill Prospects of Landing Top Talent (2012): SHRM defines time to fill as the number of days from when the job requisition was opened until the offer was accepted, in calendar days including weekends and holidays.
- AIHR, What is Time to Hire? (2024): AIHR defines time to hire as the days between a candidate applying and accepting the offer, while time to fill measures from requisition approval to acceptance; the worked example gives a 30-day time to fill but a 10-day time to hire.
- AIHR, What is Time to Fill? (2024): AIHR gives the average time to fill formula as the sum of days to fill each position divided by the number of positions; their example of five hires (15, 60, 10, 30, 40 days) averages 31 days.
- Workable, Time to fill and time to hire metrics FAQ (2024): Workable cites an SHRM benchmark of roughly 42 days as the average time to fill, notes Engineering averages around 62 days, and stresses benchmarks vary widely by role and industry.
- Workable, Time to fill and time to hire metrics FAQ (2024): To reduce time to fill and time to hire, Workable recommends a candidate database, sourcing passive candidates ahead of need, measuring time between pipeline stages, referral programs, training interviewers, and communication templates for scheduling.