This blog article answers the question: On average how long does it take your organization to fill open positions? Are you currently collecting data to estimate the average length of time that it takes for a job applicant to become an employee? Is your process manageable? Affordable?
In order to calculate time to hire metrics, we recommend that you begin by recording the date on which the job seeker’s application was completed, and the date on which your organization made a job offer. Then, you calculate the number of days between these two dates and you have your time to hire for one new employee.
Let’s say you hired a cohort of 10 people for the open position. Calculate the average time to hire, as the arithmetic mean of the “days to hire” all the successful applicants. In the example shown below, add the number of days it took to hire each person and divide by 10.
| Job Applicant Number | Date Application Received | Date Job Offer Made | Days to Hire |
| 15 | Jan 2, 2020 | Jan 27, 2020 | 25 |
| 29 | Jan 2, 2020 | Feb 19, 2020 | 48 |
| 32 | Jan 2, 2020 | Jan 18, 2020 | 16 |
| 41 | Jan 2, 2020 | Jan 20, 2020 | 18 |
| 58 | Jan 2, 2020 | Jan 24, 2020 | 22 |
| 65 | Jan 2, 2020 | Feb 7, 2020 | 36 |
| 74 | Jan 2, 2020 | Feb 8, 2020 | 37 |
| 80 | Jan 2, 2020 | Feb 16, 2020 | 45 |
| 91 | Jan 2, 2020 | Feb 21, 2020 | 50 |
| 99 | Jan 2, 2020 | Jan 23, 2020 | 21 |
| AVERAGE | 31.8 |
Summary
The time to hire metric is among the easiest to calculate. Simply, begin by recording the date on which the job seeker’s completed application was received, and the date on which your organization made a job offer. Then, calculate the number of days between these two dates. If several people were hired for the same open position, then find the simple average (arithmetic mean) of the “days to hire” for the group of successful applicants.
We hope you found this blog article helpful. For more information or assistance, please contact us at info@psychometric-solutions.com
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About the Author
Dr. Dennison Bhola has more than 25 years of experience working in the field of psychometrics creating validated instruments such as assessments, structured interviews, and inventories. With his teammates, he has developed more than 1000 assessments for use by organizations around the globe. His expertise includes evaluating new hire quality, assessment effectiveness, source channel efficiency, time to hire, cost per hire, and other such metrics that are of critical importance to Human Resource Professionals. He also specializes in fairness analyses and auditing compliance with Equal Employment Opportunity guidelines, such as the 4/5ths rule.