Quick answer: Time to fill counts days from when a job opens until an offer is accepted. Time to hire counts days from when the person you hired entered your pipeline until they accepted. Time to fill tells you how long the business waited. Time to hire tells you how fast your process moved for the right person. SHRM’s 2026 benchmarking puts the median time to fill at 39 calendar days for non-executive roles.
What is time to fill?
Time to fill is the number of days between opening a job and the offer being accepted.
Time to fill = Offer accepted date − Job opened date“Job opened” usually means the day the requisition was approved or the job was posted. Pick one and stick with it. If you switch definitions halfway through the year, your trend line is useless.
Time to fill includes everything: writing the job ad, waiting for applications, screening, interviews, offer. It’s a business metric. It answers “how long did this seat stay empty?”
What is time to hire?
Time to hire is the number of days between the hired person entering your pipeline and accepting the offer.
Time to hire = Offer accepted date − Date the hire applied (or was sourced)It only looks at the winning candidate’s path. It ignores the weeks you spent waiting for that person to show up. That makes it a process metric. It answers “once we found the right person, how fast did we move?”
Time to fill vs time to hire: side by side
| Time to fill | Time to hire | |
|---|---|---|
| Starts | Job opened or posted | Hired candidate applied or was sourced |
| Ends | Offer accepted | Offer accepted |
| Measures | How long the role was empty | How fast your process is |
| Affected by | Market, job ad, sourcing, process | Screening speed, interview scheduling, decision speed |
| Who should watch it | Leadership, workforce planning | Recruiters and hiring managers |
| Always shorter or longer? | Always equal or longer | Always equal or shorter |
A simple example. You post a role on 1 March. Your eventual hire applies on 20 March. They accept on 10 April.
- Time to fill = 40 days
- Time to hire = 21 days
The 19 day gap is the time it took the right person to find you. That’s a sourcing and job ad problem, not an interview process problem.
What is a normal time to fill?
SHRM’s 2026 recruiting benchmarking, based on data from over 4,600 organizations, reports a median time to fill of 39 calendar days for non-executive positions, down from the previous year. SHRM says executive time to fill stayed the same as the previous year.
That’s a median across very different roles and companies. Senior engineers and specialist roles take longer. High-volume hourly roles can take a week.
The more useful comparison is your own history, split by role type. If your support roles took 25 days last year and 45 this year, that’s a real signal regardless of what the national median says.
Why does the difference matter?
Because the fix depends on which number is long.
Long time to fill, short time to hire. Your process is fast once good people show up. They just don’t show up quickly. Look at:
- Where you post. See where to post jobs for free.
- Your job title. People search by title. See how to choose a job title.
- Your requirements list. Too many must-haves shrink the pool.
- Whether you have a pool of past candidates to call first.
Long time to hire. Good people are in your pipeline and you’re losing days. Look at:
- Days between application and first contact
- Days waiting for interview slots
- Days waiting for hiring manager feedback after interviews
- Days between final interview and offer
In most small teams the slowest step isn’t anything the candidate does. It’s waiting for a human on your side to give feedback or make a call.
How do you measure both without a spreadsheet?
You need three dates per hire: job opened, hire applied, offer accepted. Most teams lose the second one first because the application arrived by email.
In an applicant tracking system (ATS), the dates come from status history automatically. Canvider’s analytics dashboard shows average time to hire and average time to offer for 90 days, 6 months, 12 months or all time. Average days per stage shows which step is slowest, and the pipeline snapshot shows where candidates are sitting right now.
One caution that applies to every tool: these numbers are only right if statuses are updated when things actually happen. If someone moves five candidates to “Interviewed” a week late, your stage durations will be wrong.
Use 6 or 12 month periods for anything you present. A single month with two hires gives a volatile average.
How do you shorten time to hire?
Attack waiting time, not interview count.
- Reply within 48 hours of application for anyone you’ll move forward.
- Let candidates pick their own interview slot instead of emailing back and forth.
- Book the debrief before the interview happens. Feedback within 24 hours is the rule.
- Decide the scorecard before interviews start so the debrief is a comparison, not a debate. See our interview scorecard template.
- Prepare the offer range before the final interview, not after.
For more on the screening side, read 5 ways to reduce time to hire with AI.
Which one should you report?
Report both, to different people.
Give leadership time to fill, because that’s what affects revenue and team capacity. Give the hiring team time to hire and days per stage, because that’s what they can change this week.
And don’t optimize either one alone. A fast hire who leaves in four months cost more than a slower one who stayed. Pair speed with cost per hire and some measure of quality.
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Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between time to fill and time to hire?
Time to fill measures days from when a job is approved or posted until an offer is accepted. Time to hire measures days from when the person you eventually hired applied (or was sourced) until they accepted. Time to fill shows how long the business waited. Time to hire shows how fast your process moves once a good candidate is in it.
What is a good time to fill?
SHRM's 2026 recruiting benchmarking reports a median time to fill of 39 calendar days for non-executive positions. Specialist and senior roles usually take longer, and high-volume roles can be much faster. Compare against your own history by role type.
Which is more useful, time to fill or time to hire?
Both, for different people. Leadership cares about time to fill because it shows how long a seat stays empty. The hiring team should watch time to hire because it's the part they control, and a slow time to hire is how you lose candidates to faster offers.