Time to Fill & Time to Hire Calculator
Average time to fill and time to hire from requisition, application, offer and start dates across your open roles — stage durations, the funnel from applicants to hire, vacancy cost per day and how many requisitions to open for a hiring plan.
How it works
Time to fill = start date − requisition date; time to hire = offer accepted − candidate applied; offer acceptance = hires ÷ offers; vacancy cost = time to fill × daily cost
Time to fill measures the whole gap the business feels — from the day a role is approved to the day someone starts — while time to hire isolates the part recruiters control most directly: how long the successful candidate spent in the process. The difference between them is sourcing time before that person applied and the notice period after acceptance, so a slow fill with a fast hire points at attraction or approvals, not interviewing. The funnel ratios turn one hire into a recruiting plan: knowing how many applicants, screens and interviews each hire consumes tells you how many requisitions to open and how much interviewer time to reserve. Costing the vacancy per day — lost output, overtime, contractors, manager time — makes the case for pre-approved roles, evergreen pipelines and faster decisions.
Worked example
Posted 1 June, the eventual hire applied on 18 June, accepted an offer on 20 July and started 17 August: time to fill 77 days, time to hire 32, with 17 days of sourcing and 28 of notice. Eighty-five applicants became 18 screens, 6 interviews and 2 offers; at $450 a day the vacancy cost about $34,650.
Frequently asked questions
Which date starts the clock?
Use a consistent trigger — requisition approval or job posting — and report which. Approval-to-posting delay is itself worth tracking.
Why is time to hire the better recruiter metric?
It excludes notice periods and pre-application sourcing, so it reflects process speed and candidate experience; long time to hire is where good candidates are lost.
Related calculators
Workforce planning estimate; local employment law, union agreements and your own historical data should govern actual schedules and targets.