Time-to-fill is the number of days between opening a vacancy and the moment it is filled — the candidate has signed. It is one of the most widely used KPIs in recruitment, because it captures the speed of the entire process in a single figure.
Time-to-fill in practice
The figure is most valuable when broken down: per phase (request to first shortlist, shortlist to interview, interview to offer) you can see where the days are leaking away. Often the delay turns out not to be in the searching but in the waiting — on client feedback, on scheduling interviews.
Do not confuse time-to-fill with time-to-hire (from first contact with the candidate to signing); both have their place. Define the start and end points unambiguously in your ATS, otherwise any comparison is meaningless. Which recruitment KPIs matter beyond this is covered in Recruitment KPIs.
Related terms
- KPI — A KPI (key performance indicator) is a measurable figure that shows how an organisation or process is performing on something that genuinely matters — revenue per client, delivery time, time-to-fill, error rate.
- ATS — An ATS (Applicant Tracking System) is the candidate-tracking system of a recruitment organisation: vacancies, candidates, matches and the progress per procedure in one system.
- Multiposting — Multiposting is entering a vacancy once and automatically publishing it to multiple job boards, social channels and your own website at the same time — including taking it down as soon as the vacancy is filled.