Time to Hire Calculator
Enter your average time to hire, compare it against your industry benchmark, and see what every extra day costs.
Last reviewed 2026-09-02Reviewed by the Skillora teamBenchmarks: LinkedIn, SHRM, Workable
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Time to hire is the number of days between a candidate entering your pipeline and accepting your offer. This time to hire calculator compares your average to industry and role medians, then prices the delay. Enter your number, pick an industry, and add a salary to see what each day past the benchmark costs.
The benchmarks are ranges, not single figures, because medians move with the labor market and with how each company starts the clock. A 36-day overall median hides a spread from 21 days in retail to 53 in government. Roles spread further: a customer support hire can close in three weeks while an executive search runs a quarter.
The second calculator on this page prices an open role. A $100,000 role costs $769 a day at a 2x revenue multiple. Thirty-six days open is $27,692. That figure, not the benchmark, is what gets a hiring manager to return interview feedback in 24 hours.
What is time to hire?
Time to hire counts the days from a candidate's first contact with your pipeline to the day they accept the offer. It measures the recruiting process, not the approval process before it.
Time to hire vs time to fill
Time to hire
From the day a candidate applies or is sourced to the day they accept the offer.
Measures: recruiting process speed
Time to fill
From the day the requisition is approved to the day the offer is accepted. Includes posting and sourcing delay.
Measures: the whole hiring cycle, including internal delays
This calculator measures time to hire, the number your recruiting team controls through sourcing speed, interview scheduling, feedback SLAs, and offer approval. Time to fill adds requisition approval and posting delay in front of it, so it usually runs 1 to 2 weeks longer for the same hire.
Start point
Application received or candidate sourced
Day 0
End point
Offer accepted by candidate
Day X
Formula
Offer accepted date minus application or source date
= time to hire
Average time to hire by industry
Medians for professional roles. Use them as a target range; seniority, location, and the number of interview rounds move a company well inside or outside its industry band.
| Industry | Median time to hire |
|---|---|
| Technology / Software | 35 days |
| Healthcare & Life Sciences | 49 days |
| Financial Services | 40 days |
| Retail & Consumer | 21 days |
| Manufacturing | 32 days |
| Education | 45 days |
| Government / Public Sector | 53 days |
| Nonprofit | 30 days |
| Professional Services | 33 days |
| Construction & Real Estate | 28 days |
| Media & Entertainment | 25 days |
| All Industries (Overall) | 36 days |
Sources: LinkedIn Global Talent Trends; SHRM Talent Access and Benchmarking data; Workable benchmark data. Median estimates for 2025-2026; ranges reflect the spread across published figures. Treat a 5-day gap as noise and a 15-day gap as a problem.
Time to hire by role family
Industry sets the baseline. The role sets the spread. Technical screens, licensing, and executive committees each add days that no industry median captures.
| Role | Typical range |
|---|---|
| Software engineer | 40 to 55 days |
| Sales (AE, SDR) | 30 to 42 days |
| Customer support | 20 to 32 days |
| Registered nurse | 55 to 90 days |
| Accountant | 35 to 50 days |
| Executive (VP and above) | 75 to 120 days |
Estimated ranges, 2025-2026. Compiled from LinkedIn function-level hiring data; Workable benchmark data; NSI Nursing Solutions RN staffing reports.
Cost of vacancy calculator
The benchmark tells you that you are slow. The cost of vacancy tells you what slow costs. Price an open role here, then take the number to the hiring manager.
Value the role produces relative to its pay. Common range 1x to 3x; default 2x.
Median time to hire: 36 days
Sourcing, screening, scheduling, and hiring manager follow-up.
Salary plus burden divided by hours worked.
$769.23
Daily cost of vacancy
role output only
$34,615
Cost to date
45 days open
$27,692
Projected at 36-day median
All Industries (Overall)
This role is 9 days past the all industries (overall) median. Every further day costs about $769.
Daily cost = annual salary / 260 working days x revenue multiple. Recruiter cost = hours per week / 7 x loaded rate x days open. Estimates for planning, not accounting.
How the formula works
Daily salary is annual salary divided by 260 working days. Daily cost of vacancy is daily salary times a revenue multiple. Cost to date is daily cost times the days the role has been open. Projected cost is daily cost times your industry's median time to hire: what the role would cost if you closed it at benchmark speed.
The revenue multiple is the number nobody agrees on. It says how much value the role produces relative to its pay. A 1x multiple treats the role as worth exactly its salary. Most published estimates put revenue-producing and technical roles between 2x and 3x and support roles nearer 1x, so the default is 2x. For a quota-carrying sales role, use quota divided by salary instead; it is often higher than 3x.
Recruiter time is real cost too. An open req consumes sourcing, screening, and scheduling hours every week it stays open. Enter hours per week and the calculator adds them at a loaded recruiter cost of $45 an hour, which you can change.
The calculator at the top of the page uses a conservative 1.5x multiple and counts only the days past benchmark, so its number is smaller. This one prices the whole vacancy.
Worked example
$100,000 salary, 2x multiple, 45 days open, 6 recruiter hours a week at $45.
- Daily cost of vacancy
- $769.23
- Role cost to date
- $34,615
- Recruiter time to date
- $1,736
- Projected at the 36-day median
- $27,692 + $1,389
- Each day past the median
- about $808
The role is 9 days past the overall median. Those 9 days cost about $7,270.
Why time to hire matters
Slow hiring has four costs, and only one of them shows up in a budget.
You lose the candidates worth hiring
Strong candidates run several processes at once and take the first good offer. A 35-day process competes for whoever is left after the 20-day processes finish.
Robert Half surveys find most candidates lose interest when they wait more than two weeks for a response.
Unfilled roles cost more than the salary
Every open day the work piles onto the team or does not get done. At a 2x multiple, a $100,000 role costs $769 a day.
36 days open on a $100K role: $27,692
A slow process tells candidates how you run everything else
Seven interviews across six weeks reads as indecision. Candidates price that into whether they accept.
83% of candidates say a negative interview experience can change their mind about a role they liked (Glassdoor survey).
Aging pipelines eat recruiter capacity
Long pipelines mean more follow-ups, more rescheduling, and more candidates going cold. The same recruiter closes fewer roles.
Enter recruiter hours in the cost of vacancy calculator and it adds them to the total.
How to reduce your time to hire
Most time to hire problems have the same four root causes. Here is where to look first.
Sourcing (days 1 to 5)
Build talent pipelines before roles open. Pre-screened candidates cut sourcing time by 1 to 2 weeks. Use saved searches, talent pools, and proactive outreach.
Screening (days 5 to 10)
Automate the first screen with structured AI interviews that run the moment a candidate applies. Remove scheduling from the first stage entirely.
Interviews (days 10 to 25)
Cap at 3 rounds for most roles. Run hiring manager and technical rounds in the same week. Require interviewer feedback within 24 hours, no exceptions.
Offer (days 25 to 35)
Pre-approve compensation bands before interviews begin. Remove offer approval chains. An offer that takes 5 days to send is an offer that gets renegotiated or declined.
Frequently Asked Questions
- What is a good time to hire?
- At or below your industry median. The overall median is about 36 days. Retail and media close in 21 to 25 days; technology about 35; healthcare and government 49 to 53. Roles matter more than industry: customer support in 20 to 32 days, software engineers in 40 to 55, executives in 75 to 120.
- How do I calculate time to hire?
- Offer accepted date minus the date the candidate entered the pipeline (applied or was sourced), in calendar days. For a team average, add the individual figures and divide by the number of hires. The median is a better summary than the mean when one search dragged on for months.
- What is the difference between time to hire and time to fill?
- Time to hire starts when the candidate enters the pipeline. Time to fill starts when the requisition is approved, so it adds posting delay, budget sign-off, and sourcing time in front of it. Time to hire measures the recruiting team; time to fill measures the company.
- How is the cost of vacancy calculated?
- Daily cost = annual salary ÷ 260 working days × a revenue multiple. Cost to date = daily cost × days open. A $100,000 role at 2x costs $769 a day, so 36 days open is $27,692. The delay estimate at the top of the page uses a conservative 1.5x and counts only days beyond the benchmark; the cost of vacancy calculator prices the whole vacancy at a multiple you choose.
- How accurate are the benchmarks?
- They are median estimates compiled from LinkedIn, SHRM, and Workable benchmark data for 2025-2026 and shown as ranges. Treat them as directional. Senior and specialized roles typically run 20% to 40% longer than the industry median, and companies that count from job posting rather than first contact will measure longer.
- What causes a high time to hire?
- In order of frequency: hiring manager feedback with no deadline, more interview rounds than the decision needs, scheduling by email, offer approval chains that were not agreed before the search started, and a first screen that waits for a recruiter's calendar instead of running when the candidate applies.