Time to hire
Time to hire measures how long a candidate spends in a hiring process, between defined entry and end events. This entry uses candidate entry to offer acceptance as its convention.
Set the start and finish before counting
This entry measures time to hire from a candidate entering the process, through an application, sourcing contact or referral, to offer acceptance. Count calendar days between those two events consistently.
Tools may choose different boundaries. Greenhouse’s candidate report measures application date to offer date, while another calculation in the same product uses the hire date. An offer date, acceptance and first day at work describe different moments. They should not be swapped between reporting periods without saying so.
Follow one candidate through the process
Consider an illustrative candidate who enters on 2 September and accepts on 20 September. Their time to hire is 18 calendar days under this convention. If the opening was created earlier, that earlier period belongs to time to fill, not this measure.
For a team result, define the cohort: for example, every accepted offer in a calendar quarter, or every person marked hired in that period. Show the hire count next to the aggregate. Removing a long case merely because it worsens the average hides the question the data should prompt; explain the exception or show several views of the same cohort.
Find the waiting point before changing the process
A total duration cannot show whether an interview was hard to schedule, feedback was delayed, or an offer needed approval. Reconstruct the path and identify the action that was outstanding at each pause.
JOIN’s pipeline management groups applications into fixed and custom stages, and lets teams add automated actions such as reminders based on stage. That makes a stage a useful place to inspect a delay. It does not, by itself, establish why a particular candidate waited.
Keep speed in proportion
Agree responsibilities and availability before launching the search, then settle the next action while giving feedback on the current one. Those changes can remove avoidable waits without turning a useful evaluation into a target for deletion. Read time to hire alongside offer acceptance and evidence of outcomes after hiring.