What is the difference between time to hire and time to fill?

The two definitions

Both metrics end at the same moment: the candidate accepts your offer. The difference is when the clock starts. SHRM's HR glossary defines time to fill as the days it takes to fill a position, from job requisition to job acceptance, and time to hire as the time from when the eventual hire entered the talent pipeline to when they accepted the offer.

Put simply: time to fill measures the vacancy, time to hire measures your process. Time to fill includes everything before the right person shows up, such as approvals, writing the advert and waiting for applications. Time to hire starts only when that person is in front of you.

For a sense of scale, SHRM's 2025 recruiting benchmarking data put the median time to fill at roughly a month and a half, for both executive and non-executive positions. Your own figure will depend on the role, the location and notice periods, so your past hires are the best comparison.

A worked example

• 1 September: the role is approved. The time to fill clock starts.
• 8 September: the job post goes live.
• 15 September: Sam, who you will eventually hire, applies. The time to hire clock starts.
• 22 September: first interview.
• 2 October: final interview.
• 9 October: offer made.
• 13 October: Sam accepts. Both clocks stop.

Time to fill is 42 days (1 September to 13 October). Time to hire is 28 days (15 September to 13 October). The 14 days between them were spent before Sam arrived: one week to get the post live, one more waiting for the right applicant. Inside the 28 days, a week passed before the first interview, ten days before the final, a week before the offer and four days before the answer.

The two numbers point at different fixes. The first 14 days are a sourcing and approval problem. The 28 days are a process problem.

How to measure each

Time to fill

1. Record the date each role is approved or opened. Pick one of the two and always use it.
2. Record the date the offer is accepted.
3. Count calendar days between them. A vacancy is empty at weekends too.
4. Report the median across roles, split by role type and location. One hard senior role can drag an average a long way.

Time to hire

1. For applicants, start the clock on the date they applied. For people you approached, start it on the date of first contact.
2. Stop it when they accept the offer.
3. Record the date of every stage in between: first reply, first call, each interview, offer. That is where the useful detail sits.
4. Keep the definition fixed. If you change it, your trend line stops meaning anything.

Some teams also track the days from offer accepted to start date. That is useful for planning, but it is a separate number, so keep it out of both of these.

Why both matter

Time to fill is the vacancy cost. Every day the seat is empty, the work is covered by overtime, pushed onto colleagues or not done at all. For a clinic, a care home or a sales team, that is lost capacity you can count in appointments, shifts or deals.

Time to hire is the candidate drop-off risk. Good candidates rarely talk to one employer at a time. Each slow step, an unanswered reply, a week to book an interview, a decision held until the next panel meeting, gives them a reason to accept somewhere else.

Read together, they diagnose the problem. A big gap between the two means you lose time before candidates arrive. A long time to hire means your process is the bottleneck.

Where days are lost in a hiring run, and how to get them back

Outreach speed

Most of the gap between time to fill and time to hire is waiting. A post goes live and the team waits to see who applies. Go to candidates as well: on day one, list the people who already fit and message them.

Reply handling

A candidate who replies on Friday evening and hears back on Tuesday has had four days to say yes to someone else. Give replies one owner, answer within hours and follow up when people go quiet.

Scheduling

Finding a time for an interview often costs more days than the interview itself. Offer real slots from the interviewer's calendar in your first reply and let the candidate pick.

Decision speed

The slowest step is often after the final interview. Agree what good looks like before you meet anyone, score every candidate against the same questions, and set a 24 hour deadline for feedback. A shortlist of three with written evidence is quicker to decide on than ten sets of notes.

How MetaDay changes the numbers

MetaDay is the AI recruiter. It runs these four stages for you. You brief Ryan, the AI, once, on Slack or in the app, and approve the run. Scout ranks up to 1,000 candidates per open role with the reasoning for each match, so outreach starts on day one. Messages go out by email, WhatsApp and LinkedIn with follow-ups, the AI handles every reply and books meetings straight into your team's calendar. Interested candidates get an AI phone call at a time that suits them, then a structured AI interview with evidence, and the top three finalists go to your hiring manager. We run the hire. You decide.

The one number we publish: World Mobile went from open role to signed hire in one working day. That is one case, not an average, and we would rather show you a real run than quote a figure we cannot back. You can watch a real hiring run, or see how pricing per open role works: $299 per open role per month billed yearly, with no success fee.

Common questions

Is time to hire always shorter than time to fill?

Almost always. Time to hire usually starts after the role opens, so it is the same length or shorter. The exception is someone who was already in your pipeline before the role existed, so decide how you will date those cases and apply it every time.

Does time to fill end at offer acceptance or at the start date?

In SHRM's definition it ends when the candidate accepts the offer. Some teams measure to the first day at work instead, which adds the notice period. Either can work if you use it consistently, but say which one you use when you compare numbers.

What is a good time to fill?

There is no single right answer, because it depends on the role, the location and notice periods. SHRM's 2025 benchmarking put the median at roughly a month and a half. Your own past hires for the same role are the most honest comparison.

Should I count weekends?

Calendar days are the simplest choice and match how a vacancy feels, because the seat is empty at weekends too. Working days can suit time to hire if your team only moves on weekdays. Whatever you pick, use it every time.

How do I reduce time to hire without lowering the bar?

Cut waiting, not checking. Answer replies within hours, book interviews straight into calendars, agree the criteria before the first interview and set a short deadline for feedback. The bar stays the same, the gaps between steps get shorter.

Can AI reduce time to fill?

It can remove most of the waiting: finding candidates on day one, answering every reply, calling and booking without back and forth. With MetaDay, World Mobile went from open role to signed hire in one working day. Your team still makes the final decision.