Enter your average days per hiring stage
Application review
Time from application received to recruiter decision
days
Phone screen scheduling + completion
Booking and conducting the initial screening call
days
First interview scheduling + completion
Coordinating and holding the first structured interview
days
Assessment / task turnaround
Time for candidate to complete and return a work sample or test
days
Final interview scheduling + completion
Booking and holding the final-round interview(s)
days
Reference check
Time to complete employment reference verification
days
Offer drafting and approval
Internal approval chain before the offer is extended
days
Candidate decision time
Time from offer extended to offer accepted or declined
days
Your results
44
Your total time to fill (days)
—
vs. SHRM benchmark (44 days)
31
Estimated days with Treegarden automation (−30%)
Biggest bottleneck: — — highlighted above in red
Why 30%? Treegarden's AI screening eliminates 5–7 days of manual application review. Automated interview scheduling (candidates book from your team's live calendar) removes 3–5 days of back-and-forth per interview stage. Offer workflow automation cuts approval time in half. These three mechanisms account for ~30% of average TTF on their own.
Where time is lost in your hiring pipeline
Most recruiting leaders focus on sourcing and screening improvements, yet the majority of time loss sits in coordination and approval steps — not candidate quality. Here is where your TTF is actually going:
60%
Scheduling delays
Candidates and interviewers playing calendar tag — finding mutual availability across 2–4 interview stages is the single largest time drain in most pipelines.
25%
Application review backlog
Without AI screening, applications accumulate in batches. Recruiters review 200 CVs on Day 7 instead of surfacing the top 10 on Day 1.
15%
Offer approval & negotiation
Offer letters stuck in manager inboxes, comp adjustments requiring finance sign-off, legal review on non-standard terms. Define SLAs and automate routing.
Industry benchmarks: average time to fill by role type
Source: SHRM, LinkedIn Global Talent Trends, Glassdoor Economic Research. Use these as directional targets, not hard ceilings — your employer brand, market, and process maturity all affect actual performance.
| Role type | Average TTF | What drives the range |
|---|---|---|
| Technical / Engineering | 49 days | Scarce talent pool, multi-stage technical assessments, multiple decision-makers |
| Sales | 38 days | High candidate volume, but reference checks and comp negotiation add time |
| Marketing | 42 days | Portfolio reviews and trial projects extend mid-pipeline stages |
| Operations | 35 days | Clearer job criteria, faster screening; internal promotions are common |
| Executive | 68 days | Board involvement, executive search firm timelines, extended notice periods |
| Hourly / Frontline | 24 days | Simpler requirements; speed is a competitive advantage as candidates accept fast |
Cut your time to fill by 30% with automated scheduling
Treegarden's automated interview scheduling eliminates calendar coordination entirely. Candidates pick from your team's live availability — no back-and-forth, no dropped balls, no lost candidates to faster-moving competitors.
Request a demoFrequently asked questions
What is time to fill in recruiting?
Time to fill measures the number of days from when a job requisition is opened (approved headcount) to when an offer is accepted. It differs from time to hire, which measures from first contact with the eventual hire. Time to fill is a team/process metric; time to hire is a candidate-specific metric. Use both: time to fill measures pipeline efficiency, time to hire measures sourcing quality.
What is a good time to fill benchmark?
SHRM data shows the average time to fill across all roles is 41–44 days. Top-quartile recruiting teams fill in 25–30 days. Under 20 days is exceptional and typically indicates strong employer brand, an active talent pipeline, or simpler roles. Over 60 days suggests process bottlenecks in scheduling or approval steps. Technical roles naturally take longer — 45–55 days is normal for senior engineering roles.
What causes long time to fill?
Four root causes account for 80% of long TTF: (1) Application pile-up — applications accumulate over days without review, then batch-reviewed inefficiently. AI screening solves this. (2) Interview scheduling friction — back-and-forth emails to find mutual availability adds 5–8 days per stage. Self-scheduling links solve this. (3) Slow internal approvals — offer approvals stuck in manager inboxes. Defined SLAs solve this. (4) Too many interview rounds — each additional round adds 5–7 days and reduces candidate conversion.
How does ATS software reduce time to fill?
An ATS reduces TTF through three mechanisms: AI-powered screening that surfaces qualified candidates within hours of application (eliminating 5–7 days of manual review), automated interview scheduling that replaces back-and-forth email (saving 3–5 days per stage), and automated offer workflows that route for approval and track candidate response. Combined, these typically reduce TTF by 30–40% in the first 60 days of implementation.