Hi, this bite is all about time to fill,
one of the most important recruiting metrics in HR.
Stay tuned while you learn what it is,
how to calculate it,
what a good benchmark for time to fill is,
and how you can optimize it in your own organization.
Time to fill is the time it takes
to find and hire a new candidate,
which is measured by the number of days
between publishing a job opening and hiring the candidate.
Time to fill is a great metric for business planning
and offers you a realistic view
to assess the time it will take to find a replacement
for a departed employee.
It helps you plan your hiring better
and serves as a warning
when your hiring process takes too long.
A short time to fill position
usually has a positive effect on the rest of the team,
as it means less overtime and instability.
How do you calculate time to fill?
Time to fill represents the number of calendar days
until your organization fills a position.
To count these days, you first need to define
the time period you will be measuring.
The exact starting period differs between organizations.
The International Standard for Human Resource Management
defines time to fill as the total number of days
between the delivery of an approved requisition to staffing
and the date on which an applicant accepts the job offer.
The end of your time to fill is, thus,
the day a candidate accepts your job offer.
How do you calculate the average time to fill?
You calculate your organization's average time to fill
by averaging all time to fill values
for each position you filled in a given period.
This means that if, in the first quarter of the year,
you've hired three candidates,
you add the individual time to fill values
and divide them by three.
If a position has not been filled yet,
it is not added to the average.
These vacant positions are included
in other recruiting metrics,
such as the positions filled internally,
which is a ratio of the positions filled
in the organization.
What's a good benchmark for time to fill?
The Society of Human Resource Management
reports an average time to fill of 42 work days.
Similarly, Workable found benchmarks
on time to fill per industry.
For example, the average global time to fill
in engineering is 62 days.
Keep in mind that there are still discrepancies
when it comes to defining metrics.
Other organizations may calculate time to fill
in a different way.
Also, having a higher time to fill than other companies
doesn't necessarily mean
that their recruiting process is more effective,
as they may be hiring for different functions
or operate in different industries.
It's best to track these metrics internally
and compare its values across time.
How can we reduce time to fill?
If you want to reduce time to fill,
think of using more efficient recruiting strategies.
Here are a few ideas.
Build a candidate database,
then build a talent pipeline ahead of time.
This is one of the most powerful ways
to reduce time to fill.
When you have a number of qualified candidates
on your speed dial, you don't have to advertise your job,
wait for the applications to roll in,
or spend time vetting them.
All you need to do is to reach out to these people
about the vacancy.
To do so, you could also create a referral system
by offering incentives for referring candidates
and sending reminders of job openings to your colleagues.
You could, for instance, send them an e-mail
with the job description
and ask them to recommend qualified candidates.
This process will reduce time and budget spent
on job advertising and resume screening.
Last but not least,
thoroughly and repeatedly scrutinize your time to fill
by finding which stage in the recruitment process
takes too long, and think about how you can optimize it.
That's it for today's bite,
in which you've learned what time to fill is,
how to calculate it,
what a good benchmark for time to fill is,
and finally, how you can improve it in your organization.
If you're interested in even more recruiting metrics,
click on the link in the description,
in which you can find 18 additional ones.
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