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Time to fill is increasing. It takes an average of 66 days to make a hire, up from 52 days in 2021. This extended timeline may lead to lost productivity, increased workload on your team, and potential revenue loss. It also creates more stress for job seekers who are eager to find a new opportunity and increases the potential for your top-choice candidate to accept a competitor’s offer.

The good news is that there are many ways to reduce your time to fill without sacrificing your quality of hire. In fact, your quality of hire may actually increase as you make changes that better engage in-demand candidates. 

Take a look at your recruiting process to identify which stages are slowing you down, and make adjustments to improve them. Here are seven ideas to help you get started.

1. Build a culture of hiring

Organizations often struggle with time to fill when recruiting feels like a talent acquisition initiative rather than a company-wide endeavor. Recruiting is a team effort that works best when everyone understands their role in attracting and selecting skilled talent. 

Create an environment where everyone — from executives to individual contributors — works together to hire skilled talent. This collaborative approach can significantly accelerate your recruitment process by encouraging all team members to actively participate and align around a common goal.

You can get your team members more involved in the recruitment process by:

• Sharing hiring updates regularly. Regularly send internal communications to keep your entire team informed about open roles and hiring priorities.
• Implementing an employee referral program. Create incentives and make it easy for employees to refer candidates through your ATS or dedicated referral system.
• Encouraging employee-generated content. Encourage employees to share their experiences at your company through social media, employer review sites, and blog posts.

2. Invest in your employer brand

Three in four job seekers consider an employer’s brand before applying for a job. A negative employer brand or lack of information could dissuade candidates from applying or, worse, lead them to churn midway through your hiring process. This can increase your time to fill as you struggle to find enough qualified candidates or keep candidates engaged in your hiring process.

Develop and maintain an authentic employer brand that attracts qualified candidates who are enthusiastic about joining your team. This investment can reduce time spent convincing candidates of your company’s value later in the process or waiting for them to accept your offer.

You can showcase your employer brand by:

• Building out your careers site. Include employee testimonials and information about your benefits and growth opportunities. Make it easy for candidates to understand what it’s like to work at your organization — and why they should want to.
• Leveraging social media. Share posts about your company culture, team achievements, and workplace initiatives. You can also add Commitments and Workplace Policies to your LinkedIn Company Page to demonstrate your organizational values.
• Creating compelling content. Start an employer blog where you post company news, professional growth stories, and articles written by your employees or company leaders.

3. Maintain a strong talent pipeline

Starting your candidate search from scratch every time a position opens can add days — or weeks — to your recruitment process right from the start. A strong talent pipeline allows you to begin engaging with a pool of prequalified candidates who are already familiar with your organization.

You can consistently grow your talent pipeline by:

• Capturing information from candidates who don’t apply. Active job seekers may not find a suitable opportunity at your organization right away, though they may be qualified for a future opening. Use LinkedIn’s Interested Candidate Alerts and build a talent community through your ATS to add these candidates to your pipeline. 
• Re-engaging past candidates. Maintain relationships with skilled candidates from previous job requisitions who weren’t selected but showed potential to excel in another role on your team. This typically works best if you’ve provided a positive candidate experience that leaves job seekers open to the idea of joining your team.
• Staying in contact with company alumni. Keep in touch with high-performing former employees who left on good terms. These “boomerang” candidates already understand your culture and can often ramp up quickly if they return. They can also be a useful source of high-quality candidate referrals, further expanding your talent pool.

4. Manage applicant volume effectively

Job openings receive an average of 222 applications — almost 3x more than the applicant volume in 2021. High application volumes can significantly increase time to fill if not managed efficiently. Perhaps that’s why just 9% of candidates schedule their first interview within a day of applying, while 31% say it takes two to three weeks to schedule.

You can effectively manage and screen large candidate pools without creating bottlenecks in your hiring process by:

• Creating clear selection criteria. Make a checklist of required qualifications to help your team quickly and consistently evaluate applications.
• Implementing AI screening. Use AI-powered tools to quickly identify candidates who best match your requirements. A curated short list can help you begin screening candidates right away.
• Adding screening questions to your application. Consider including a few targeted questions in your application to help identify the most qualified candidates. Keep screening questions brief and track your application completion rates to make sure this change has a net positive impact.

5. Create a positive candidate experience

Half of candidates (52%) would refuse an otherwise attractive job offer if they had a negative experience during the recruitment process. Candidate churn at this stage can disrupt your hiring timeline and increase your time to fill, so it’s important to provide all candidates with a positive experience.

Create an engaging and transparent hiring process that keeps candidates informed and invested throughout the process. This reduces the risk of losing your most qualified candidates.

You can improve your candidate experience by:

• Communicating clearly and often. Set expectations about your anticipated timeline and process up front and provide regular updates so candidates know what to expect and when. It’s particularly important to provide timely updates after each stage, even if it’s just to say your team needs more time to make a decision.
• Providing detailed interview preparation. Send candidates detailed information about your interview format, time and duration of the interview, interviewers’ names and roles, and logistical information.
• Reserving time for candidate questions. Set aside some time in every interview for candidates to ask questions about your role, team, and company. This helps candidates evaluate your opportunity and make informed decisions faster.

6. Optimize your interview process

Half of companies report interview processes that take over four weeks, with 42% requiring candidates to undergo five or more interviews before making a decision. This extended process directly impacts time to fill. A long process also increases the risk of losing top candidates to competitors, which may further extend your time to fill.

Optimize your interview process so that you can properly evaluate candidates in a shorter time frame. The most effective way to do this may be different for every role.

Some ways you may be able to optimize your interview process include:

• Eliminating a stage. This is particularly effective if you have a redundant step in your interview process or one that rarely offers a meaningful contribution to your hiring decisions. You can always schedule a panel or lunch interview instead of multiple interviews if several of your team members need to meet each candidate. 
• Combining multiple interview rounds into a single day. Schedule back-to-back interviews rather than asking your candidates to interview over the course of several days when you don’t need a decision point between each interview. This works well when you have multiple interviewers each assessing a different technical or soft skill.
• Training more interviewers. Reduce bottlenecks in your interview process by training more team members to assess candidates. This can help eliminate delays due to travel schedules, vacations, and other responsibilities.
• Gathering immediate feedback. Have interviewers complete their evaluation forms within 24 hours while impressions are fresh, and schedule quick debrief meetings to align on next steps. This will help you move faster between interview stages.
• Using technology to your advantage. Strategically incorporating technology can enable a more efficient interview process. For example, replace a technical skill interview with an online assessment that candidates can complete when it’s convenient for them. You could also use a video interview format for late-stage interviews that would otherwise get held up by a team member’s travel schedule.

7. Build a smooth offer process

The job offer is your final opportunity to engage your top choice candidate and encourage them to join your team. Most candidates (61%) receive an offer within one week of their final interview, which is a great way to build on the momentum of the hiring process.

Create an efficient offer process that allows you to move quickly once you’ve identified the right candidate by:

• Developing standardized templates. Create offer-letter templates that can be quickly customized for each candidate. It’s common to build different templates by job level (entry, mid, and executive), employment type (full-time, part-time, and temporary), and location (by office or country). Include key information such as the job title, compensation package, start date, and who to contact with questions.
• Preapproving salary ranges. Have competitive compensation bands approved in advance to avoid delays. Ideally, the offer isn’t the first time you’ve discussed compensation with your candidates. 
• Including an offer expiration date. Your offer should include a date by which the offer letter should be signed and returned. This encourages your candidate to make a timely decision so you can either close your job requisition or move on to another candidate.
• Preclosing your candidates. Call your candidates with a verbal offer before sending your written offer letter. Discuss the full compensation package, answer any questions, and outline next steps. This personal touch helps prevent delays and increase acceptance rates.

Final thoughts: Track your progress

Only 12% of companies actively track time to fill, but that’s a mistake. Reducing time to fill starts with understanding your current metrics and identifying where delays occur in your hiring process. 

Track your time to fill, as well as other KPIs like time in each recruitment stage, candidate satisfaction scores, and offer acceptance rates. Measuring your progress will help you understand how improvements are making an impact and where you have further opportunities for improvement.

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