Time to Fill vs. Time to Start vs. Time to Hire

How long it takes to hire people is a critical recruiting metric.  JobScore calculates 3 different numbers to help you measure and improve the speed of your recruiting process:

1. Time to Fill

Measures how long it takes to get the job done.  The preferred metric of recruiters, time to fill is the number of days your team worked to hire someone.  In JobScore, time to fill is calculated based on the day an opening was created until the day a candidate accepts a job offer.  For time to fill JobScore only counts the days a job is in the OPEN or INTERNAL job status (because days that no one was working don't count). 

So, if you create a job opening on May 1, then put the job in the ON HOLD status on May 5, move the jobs back to the OPEN status on May 10, and then work on it until someone accepts an offer on May 30, the Job would have been in the OPEN status for 25 days... and that would be the time to fill.

Time to fill is shown for each job opening on the hire report and on the view job page for jobs with filled openings.

2. Time to Start

Measures how long it takes to put a butt in a seat.  The preferred metric of hiring managers, time to start is how long it took to get someone to start work.  In JobScore, time to start is calculated by using the same formula to calculate time to fill and then adding the absolute number of days between when the candidate accepted an offer and when they start work.

Time to start is commonly used in workforce planning in european countries where there is often a lag of one month or more between when a candidate accepts an offer and starts a new job. 

Time to start is shown for each job opening on the hire report and on the view job page for jobs with filled openings.

3. Time to Hire

Measures the duration of the interview process for a hired candidate. In JobScore, time to hire is calculated based on the absolute number of days between when a candidate was assigned to a job (either they apply or you assign them manually to consider them) and when they accepted a job offer. 

So, when you assign a candidate to a job they are in the NEW workflow stage.  If you hire the candidate and mark their offer as accepted for 10 days later, that's the time to hire.  Unlike time to fill and time to start, hiring speed does not account for job status changes, it's how long the process took for the candidate regardless of any other factors.

Time to hire is an important metric because while it might take 4 months to fill an opening, an individual candidate's recruiting process could last 3 months or just 1 week... and it's a much better candidate experience to make quick decisions. 

Time to hire is shown on the records of hired candidates and on the time to stage report, which shows how long it takes to reach each stage of the process, both on average and for individual candidates.

Editing Time to Fill, Time to Start & Time to Hire

JobScore dynamically calculates these "time to" values when you select offer extended, offer accepted and start dates, populating them in the hire candidate form: 

Sometimes JobScore's calculated values don't reflect reality.  This might be because a job opening was not added to JobScore at the time you started working on it, or jobs were not opened and closed on the right day.  As recruiting teams are often evaluated on these "time to" metrics, we've made it easy to edit them -- both when you hire candidates and retroactively after hires are logged:

Editing these "time to" # of days values won't change dates and timestamps in JobScore, only the # of days values shown in reports (you are effectively overriding JobScore's standard calculations).  If you choose to edit any "time to" values, JobScore captures a "hire information edited" event in the history ... so your can perform an audit if anything seems fishy.

Days open & multiple job openings

JobScore also includes a "days open" value that shows how long you've worked on a job.  This number represents the total number of days a job has been in the OPEN and INTERNAL status.  If you hire one person into a job with just one opening, the "days open" and "time to fill" calculations should be identical.  However, if you hire multiple people into the a job with multiple openings, these numbers will not be the same.  This is because the days open value is calculated per job, not per opening.

So, if a job is created on May 1 with 1 job opening and then you add a 2nd job opening to the job on May 30, there will be a 29 day difference between the "days open" value for the job and the "time to fill" value for the candidate you hire into the 2nd job opening.

Reports

The number of openings and days open for each job are shown on the Job Manager:

You can find information about time to fill and time to start on the hire report:

Once you hire a candidate, you'll find their hiring information, including time to hire, at the top of their candidate page:

If you hire one candidate for a job, it looks like this:

If you hire multiple candidates for a job, it looks like this:

If it's taking too long to hire people, the best way to understand what's happening is the velocity report, which provides more detail about how long it takes to complete each stage of the hiring process:

If a number in the velocity report seems too long, drill down with your team into individual candidates to see what's holding things up.

Another good way to troubleshoot if it is taking too long to hire is the Time to Stage Report, which provides details about how long it's taking to reach each stage in the process for candidates:

If a number in the time to stage report seems too long, make sure you manage candidate's expectations that it might take a while to complete each stage. You can also drill down with your team into individual candidates to see what's holding things up.

Have more questions? Please email [email protected].