# Time-to-fill

Time-to-fill is the number of days between a job requisition opening and a candidate accepting the offer, covering the entire recruiting cycle from the moment the role is approved.

It's the broader of the two clocks recruiting teams track, since it includes however long it took to attract the eventual hire in the first place.

**Time-to-fill** — Time-to-fill is the number of days between a job requisition being approved and a candidate accepting the offer for that position. Unlike time-to-hire, which starts once a specific person enters the process, time-to-fill starts before any candidate exists, at the moment a company decides to open the role. That earlier start point is what makes it the metric recruiting leadership usually reports on, since it captures sourcing time along with everything that happens after someone applies. A role that's easy to source for, with a large qualified applicant pool, can have a short time-to-fill even with a fairly involved interview process. A niche or senior role can have a long time-to-fill purely because it takes weeks to find a handful of qualified applicants, independent of how fast the interview stages move once someone is in them.

Time-to-fill is what companies use to plan around, since an open seat has a real cost in lost output or overworked teammates covering the gap. What typically drives it: how many channels a job posting reaches, whether the role is niche enough that the qualified applicant pool is naturally small, and how competitive the market is for that specific skill set at that moment. Internal approval speed matters too; a requisition that sits unapproved for a week adds directly to the total before recruiting work even starts.

## Frequently asked questions

### Does time-to-fill include the interview process?

Yes. It covers the entire span from requisition approval to offer acceptance, which includes sourcing, screening, every interview round, and the decision itself, not just the sourcing portion.

### Why is time-to-fill usually longer than time-to-hire?

Because it starts earlier. Time-to-fill includes however long it took to attract and reach a qualified candidate in the first place, a period time-to-hire doesn't count at all.

### What roles tend to have the longest time-to-fill?

Niche or senior roles with a small qualified candidate pool tend to take the longest, since most of the delay comes from sourcing rather than the interview stages themselves.

## Related pages

- [Time-to-hire](/glossary/time-to-hire)
- [Cost-per-hire](/glossary/cost-per-hire)
- [Browse open roles](/jobs)

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