Time-to-Fill Benchmarks for Executive Search 2026

Industry Median vs What Is Actually Achievable

The industry median time-to-fill for VP and C-suite executive searches is 65–90 days at growth-stage technology companies. This median is computed across all search models — contingency, retained, and internal — and all levels of search quality. It represents what average looks like. It does not represent what is achievable with a rigorous retained search process conducted with adequate market preparation and profile alignment.

Majhi Group's average time-to-fill across placements is 41 days. The difference between 41 days and 85 days is not primarily a function of sourcing speed — it is a function of how much work is done before the search begins. Searches that start without profile alignment, without a compensation benchmark, and without a sourcing strategy routinely run 100–120 days as each of these gaps is discovered and closed during the search rather than before it.

Time-to-Fill by Role

Role	Industry Median TTF	Extended Search Risk
VP Sales	60–80 days	GTM motion mismatch in profile definition
VP Engineering / CTO	70–100 days	AI fluency requirement narrows pool
CFO	75–100 days	Stage-fit specificity reduces available candidates
CRO	80–110 days	Full revenue scope requirement is scarce at growth stage
CPO / Chief People Officer	70–95 days	Strategic vs operational CPO definition varies widely
VP Product	60–85 days	PLG vs enterprise product leadership mismatch
VP Marketing / CMO	65–90 days	Demand gen vs brand vs product marketing type mismatch
VP Customer Success	50–70 days	NRR ownership scope definition

What Drives the Variance

Profile alignment quality: The single biggest predictor of search duration is whether the company achieved genuine internal alignment on the candidate profile before beginning sourcing. Companies that begin sourcing with a vague or internally-contested profile add 30–60 days to their search as they discover the disagreement through the candidate evaluation process rather than before it. The profile alignment session that adds 1–2 weeks to the front end of a search consistently saves 4–8 weeks in the middle.

Compensation competitiveness: The second biggest driver of search duration is compensation that does not reflect the market. Searches where the company's compensation budget is below market for the profile they are searching for fail at the offer stage — after investing 60–80 days in a search process. The solution is to benchmark compensation before the search begins, not after a preferred candidate has been identified.

Search model: Retained searches consistently outperform contingency searches on time-to-fill for passive candidate roles. The structural reason is straightforward: retained search firms invest in proactive outreach to non-publicly-available candidates from day one, while contingency search firms optimise for speed to candidate submission (which biases toward actively-seeking candidates who are visible on LinkedIn and job boards). For roles where the strongest candidates are not actively seeking — which describes most VP and C-suite searches — the retained model's passive candidate access advantage drives meaningful time-to-fill improvement.

The Cost of an Extended Search

A VP Sales search that runs 90 days instead of 45 costs the company 45 additional days of vacant seat impact. At a Series B company doing $20M ARR with a $5M quarterly sales target, the daily vacant seat cost for a VP Sales role is approximately $5,000–$8,000 in foregone revenue influence. The 45-day extension costs $225K–$360K in vacant seat impact — multiples of the retained search fee that would have accelerated the outcome. This is the ROI calculation that makes a well-executed retained search straightforwardly cost-effective for revenue-generating leadership roles.