Time to hire is the elapsed time from when a specific candidate first enters a company's recruiting process (typically first contact or first interview) to when they accept an offer. It is distinct from time to fill, which measures the total time from a role opening to an accepted offer. Time to hire measures the efficiency of the candidate evaluation and decision process; time to fill measures the total search and evaluation cycle.
Time to Hire vs Time to Fill
Time to fill begins when a role opens (or a requisition is approved) and ends when an offer is accepted. It captures the entire cycle, including the sourcing and pipeline-building phase. Time to hire begins when a specific candidate enters the process and ends when they accept an offer.
A search with 60-day time to fill and 30-day time to hire suggests the sourcing phase took 30 days to identify the right candidate, after which the evaluation and offer process ran efficiently in another 30 days. A search with 60-day time to fill and 45-day time to hire suggests the sourcing was fast but the evaluation and decision-making was slow.
Time to Hire Benchmarks — VP and C-Suite
What Drives Time to Hire at the Executive Level
At the VP and C-suite level, time to hire is primarily driven by: the number of interview stages and scheduling efficiency, the speed of hiring team feedback between stages, the time from final interview to offer extension, and the offer negotiation and decision period.
The most common causes of long time to hire at the executive level: multiple hiring committee members with conflicting calendars, slow post-interview feedback loops (candidates waiting 10+ days for a decision), and prolonged offer negotiations. Each of these adds days or weeks to the elapsed time.
Candidates at the senior level are typically in multiple processes simultaneously. A 3-week gap between a final interview and an offer letter is often enough time for a competing process to close — and lose the candidate.
“Candidates in executive processes are always in multiple conversations. Every week between a final interview and an offer letter is a week another company has to close. Speed after the decision is a competitive advantage, not a courtesy.”
Time to Hire Benchmarks in Executive Search
For VP and C-suite roles, a healthy time to hire from first candidate contact to offer acceptance is 3–6 weeks. Longer than 8 weeks typically indicates a process inefficiency rather than a candidate selection challenge. Majhi Group's average time to hire across placements is 28 days from first candidate introduction to offer acceptance.
Improving time to hire at the executive level requires process discipline: pre-scheduling interview blocks before candidates are identified, establishing a 48-hour feedback SLA after each stage, and empowering the hiring manager to extend an offer within 5 business days of a final interview decision.