How to reduce the time to hire: 7 ways to recruit candidates quicker

Hiring the right talent is crucial for any organization. However, the longer it takes to hire, the more it can cost your company in terms of productivity, morale, and missed opportunities. Reducing the time to hire not only helps in filling positions faster but also improves the overall efficiency of the recruitment process.

According to a study by LinkedIn, organizations that streamline their recruitment process and leverage advanced hiring technologies see a 70% reduction in time-to-hire and a 50% increase in the quality of hires, ultimately improving their overall recruitment efficiency.

This blog will explore seven effective strategies to streamline your hiring process and recruit candidates more quickly.

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What is time to hire?

Time to hire is a crucial recruitment metric that measures the number of days from when a candidate first applies or is sourced for a job until they accept the job offer. This metric provides insight into the efficiency of your recruitment process and highlights how quickly you can secure top talent from the initial point of contact. By reducing the time to hire, organizations can minimize productivity gaps, improve candidate experience, and stay competitive in attracting high-quality candidates.

What is time to fill?

Time to fill is another essential metric in the recruitment process. It measures the total number of days it takes to fill a vacant position from the day the job requisition is approved until the day a candidate accepts the job offer. Time-to-fill provides a broader view of the recruitment timeline, encompassing all stages from the initial approval of the job opening to the final acceptance of the offer. Understanding this metric helps organizations identify bottlenecks and inefficiencies in their hiring process, allowing for targeted improvements.

Time to fill vs. time to hire

While time-to-fill and time to hire are often used interchangeably, they measure different aspects of the recruitment process:

Understanding the difference between these two metrics is crucial for identifying specific areas for improvement. Time-to-fill gives insight into the overall recruitment timeline, while time to hire helps assess the speed and effectiveness of candidate engagement and selection.

How to calculate time to fill

Calculating time-to-fill involves a straightforward formula:

Time-to-Fill=Date of Job Offer Acceptance−Date of Job Requisition ApprovalTime-to-Fill=Date of Job Offer Acceptance−Date of Job Requisition Approval

1. Date of job requisition approval: The date when the hiring manager or HR department formally approves the need to fill a position.
2. Date of job offer acceptance: The date when the selected candidate formally accepts the job offer.

For example, if a job requisition is approved on March 1 and the candidate accepts the job offer on March 21, the time-to-fill is 20 days.

How to calculate time to hire

Calculating time to hire is similar to calculating time-to-fill but focuses on the period from candidate application to offer acceptance:

Time to Hire=Date of Job Offer Acceptance−Date of Candidate’s ApplicationTime to Hire=Date of Job Offer Acceptance−Date of Candidate’s Application

1. Date of candidate’s application: The date when the candidate first applied for the job or was sourced by the recruiter.
2. Date of job offer acceptance: The date when the selected candidate formally accepts the job offer.

For instance, if a candidate applies on April 1 and accepts the job offer on April 15, the time to hire is 14 days.

The importance of reducing the time to hire

Your employees are the people that hold a major responsibility for the success or failure of the growth of your organization. A positive time to hire means continuing to move the business forward by bringing the right talent on board at the right time.

In contrast, a long time to hire puts a business at risk for several reasons. The main ones being that:

• You lose the best people in your talent pool to your competitors
• The skills gap results in slowing down the growth of your company
• Productivity decreases and this causes delays in the work output
• It can negatively affect employer branding

When there are clear skills gaps in the workplace, it becomes difficult to keep up with the demand, stay ahead of the competition, and maintain a positive quality of service. 

If the time to hire is too long, it also has a direct impact on the candidate’s experience, which is what affects the company’s reputation. The result of a negative experience is having less engaged applicants. Or worse, the dropout rates begin to rise. 

The challenges of reducing the time to hire

There are different challenges associated with reducing the time to hire, especially for growing startups whose priority is to scale. Those that are bootstrapped with limited resources will have a different recruiting approach compared to those operating at an enterprise level. 

That being said, here are a few examples of some of the challenges faced when focusing on reducing the time to hire:

• Not having the right resources for automating the time-consuming tasks
• Difficulty in reaching enough job seekers to make an application
• Building a talent pool of qualified candidates
• Optimizing the candidate journey to provide a great experience
• Unable to gather all the necessary data to make an informed hiring decision

7 ways to optimize your process for faster recruitment

Use these 7 strategies to reduce the time to hire as well as improve the quality of hire to make sure you’re building a talent pipeline of high-performing candidates. These are also a good form of practice for working smarter rather than harder. In other words, increasing recruiting efficiency. 

1. Start with internal recruitment

Internal recruitment means filling open job positions by employing those who are already working for the organization.

These people include your current staff members. This happens by either promoting certain individuals or by transferring people from different departments. 

It’s a surefire way of increasing the speed you fill the vacant job positions because you won’t have to go through the entire recruitment process. For instance, you won’t need to conduct a resume background check or get them up to date with the company workflow as they’ll already be familiar with the way you operate. 

Alternatively, if this doesn’t work, then you could still start from the inside by developing a referral program. Compared to going out of your way to finding new applicants from scratch, you’ll be introduced to workers your employees trust. 

2. Video interviews

Video interviews make the recruitment process efficient by removing the need of having to commute. For both the interviewer and interviewee, it saves time and money without compromising the quality of the candidate’s experience. 

Compared to doing a phone interview, they’re more likely to connect with the company culture since the face-to-face interaction aspect is still there. 

Apart from helping organizations reduce the time to hire, it’s effective for evaluating all candidates in the pipeline because you’ll have a replay of each of their interviews. This can also be used for future reference.  

The bigger picture is that it can lead to more accurate recruiting through objective decision-making, as well as reducing the overall recruitment timeline.

3. Focus on improving candidate engagement

Good candidate engagement comes from a positive experience. 

This can be measured by how responsive they are and how they interact with you. For instance, take into consideration the following:

• Are they completing the application forms or are they clicking off halfway through?
• Do candidates stop replying at a certain point and ghost you out of nowhere?
• How many people are dropping out compared to the initial number of applicants?
• How long does it take for them to respond after sending a message or email? 

Is the data showing you positive or negative results? If negative, find what could be improved for better performance, e.g. providing a smoother form of communication and personalizing your approach. Or if it’s positive, see what’s working well and why it’s working well. 

If candidates are engaged, they’ll be more responsive to employers and recruiters. As a result, it’s a factor in decreasing the time to hire as they’re keen to get started sooner than later so you won’t have to wait a few more hours or days for their reply. 

4. Consider the passive job seekers

According to LinkedIn Talent Solutions, 70% of the workforce includes professionals who aren’t actively looking for a new position or company to work for but are open to new job opportunities. This group of people is also known as passive job seekers. 

The other 30% are the ones who are proactively searching for new career opportunities. Without targeting the larger population, you’re missing out on a significant portion of talent. 

Most of the strategies to reach these workers are heavily involved with your recruitment marketing approach such as:

• Building a website with an enticing career page 
• Improving the reputation of your employer brand
• Using social media platforms to improve your online presence and extend your network, e.g. LinkedIn
• Writing blog posts to showcase the company culture and stand out from your competitors

Using these strategies also helps with pre-qualifying them so that the people you’re attracting are those that are a good potential fit. These have an impact as well when it comes to the diversity and inclusion of your workplace. 

5. Get insight from your top employees

There are transferable qualities and skills from your best employees that you could assess for in your list of candidates. It’s useful for understanding what the high-performers of your organization would look like. 

Either get their input and feedback or assess your current workplace to identify their strengths and weaknesses. This can then be used to optimize your recruitment checklist to outline some of the expectations when it comes to finding qualified candidates. However, make sure that these are relevant to the job vacancy that you’re hiring for.

6. Use an applicant tracking system (ATS)

An applicant tracking system drastically reduces the time to hire by filtering out candidates based on whether or not their application matches your job description. 

Not everyone who applies for the vacant position is a good fit, and not everyone is qualified for taking up the job responsibilities. Instead of having to review each resume individually, you can skip this step since you have a system that automates this part of the hiring process. This helps to ensure you’re investing your time in those that are at the very least, qualified for the role.

Alternatively, you can use pre-employment assessment platforms to narrow down the list of candidates. 

7. Get data on the candidate’s competencies through job performance

How exactly do you go about gathering all the information you need about a candidate? Not only would it be valuable for pre-qualifying applicants. But, it’s useful for determining the most skilled workers. 

Here are a few ways to get data on the competence of each professional:

• Assess their cognitive abilities
• Test their job knowledge
• Evaluate situational judgment capabilities

Preparing the right questions for an interview is also essential for ascertaining their technical ability and cultural fit. 

With Testlify, you’ll have access to all the assessments you need to get the necessary data on candidates. They’ve made it simple to identify if those potential recruits can take on the job responsibilities to the level you expect. 

Including this in your recruitment process helps to ensure all qualified people are reaching the interview stage. 

Get access to a range of customizable skills tests now by signing up for a free account!

Final thoughts

Reducing the time to hire is essential for maintaining productivity and gaining a competitive edge in the talent market. Implementing these strategies not only helps in filling positions faster but also improves the overall quality of hires, contributing to the long-term success of your organization.

Reducing the time to hire requires a strategic approach and continuous improvement. By adopting these best practices, recruiters can enhance their efficiency and effectiveness, ensuring they attract and hire the best talent swiftly and successfully.

Sign up for free on Testlify, our comprehensive skills assessment platform designed to help you quickly identify top talent. With Testlify, you can streamline candidate screening, enhance the quality of your hires, and make data-driven decisions effortlessly while reducing your time to hire.

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Abhishek Shah

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Founder and CEO, Testlify

Abhishek Shah is the Founder and CEO of Testlify, a pre-employment assessment platform used by 1,500+ companies globally to hire fairly and at scale. He focuses on skills-based, bias-free hiring technology. Testlify is part of the SHRM Labs 2026 WorkplaceTech Accelerator.