# Time to Hire Benchmark: What the Numbers Say > A time to hire benchmark from SHRM's 2025 survey of 2,371 members: 44 days median, how it is defined, and what a benchmark must state to be usable. - URL: https://tracyinterview.ai/blog/time-to-hire-benchmark - Published: 2026-11-11 - Author: Tracy team > **In short** **Tracy AI Interviewer** takes out the scheduling days: each applicant starts an interview on click, at any hour, so screening runs while you sleep. > > One customer cut its average time to hire from 44 days to 7, and Tracy did the work of 53 full-time recruiters in one month. A customer's own figure uses its own definition and is not a benchmark. > > The time to hire benchmark to cite: SHRM's 2025 median of 44 days to fill a nonexecutive role, from 2,371 US members. > > Next: measure your own stages, then run one role in Tracy. We make Tracy AI Interviewer. Picture a board asking whether 38 days to hire is good. Someone pastes a number from a vendor blog, and nobody asks what it measured. Is the clock running from the day the requisition opens or the day the candidate applies? Is it a median or a mean? Whose roles? A time to hire benchmark is only useful if it answers those questions. The one we can cite in full comes from SHRM's 2025 benchmarking survey, and it is below. Tracy AI Interviewer works on the part of the clock a team controls most directly, the days between a person applying and a first interview happening. ## The time to hire benchmark we can cite: SHRM, 2025 SHRM, the Society for Human Resource Management, fielded the survey to a random sample of its active US members from 9 January to 3 March 2025, and 2,371 members responded (members at VP level or above were deliberately oversampled). Respondents span industries, sectors and organisation sizes. The data is not weighted, not every respondent answered every question, and SHRM reports medians. SHRM calls the metric time to fill: the days from the requisition being opened to the offer being accepted, counted in calendar days including weekends and holidays. | Median days to fill | 2017 | 2022 | 2025 | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Nonexecutive roles | 30 | 44 | 44 | | Executive roles | 47 | 60 | 45 | Median days to fill, by role type, from SHRM's 2017, 2022 and 2025 data. Source: SHRM, 2025 Recruiting Executives Benchmarking data brief, US, medians. Two more points from the same brief. Extra-large organisations, those with 5,000 or more employees, reported a median of 61 days for nonexecutive roles and 60 for executive roles, and spent nearly twice as long on approval, posting and interviewing. Executive roles got faster between 2022 and 2025, but executive cost per hire rose 21 percent over the same period and is up 113 percent from 2017. SHRM reads that as organisations possibly paying more to go faster. ![Bar chart of SHRM median days to fill: nonexecutive 30, 44 and 44; executive 47, 60 and 45, for 2017, 2022, 2025.](/blog/images/time-to-hire-benchmark-1.png) *Median days to fill from requisition opened to offer accepted, as SHRM reported them in 2017, 2022 and 2025. Source: SHRM, 2025 Recruiting Executives Benchmarking data brief.* Nonexecutive time to fill has held at a median of 44 days since 2022; executive time fell from 60 to 45. ## Time to hire, time to fill and time to offer are different clocks The three words get used as if they were one. They are not. - **Time to fill** (SHRM's measure): requisition opened to offer accepted. It includes the days a role sits waiting for approval, before a single applicant exists. - **Time to hire:** most often counted from when a candidate enters the process, whether by applying or being found, to offer accepted. It leaves out the approval days. - **Time to offer:** the same start, stopped when the offer goes out. It leaves out the candidate's decision. SHRM's own brief splits time to fill into seven stages, from requisition approval through screening, interviews, the final decision and offer acceptance. That is why a single number hides so much. Two teams with the same 44 days can have different problems. We would not set a target on the total before looking at the stages. ## What a time to hire benchmark must state Before you put a figure in a board paper, check that it states each of these. If a number misses one, treat it as colour, not a benchmark. 1. **The start and stop events.** Requisition opened, application received, first contact. Offer sent, offer accepted. 2. **Calendar or business days.** SHRM counts calendar days. 3. **Median or mean.** A few slow executive searches drag a mean up. SHRM reports medians. 4. **Who answered.** SHRM's sample is US members of a professional body, answering for themselves. 5. **When.** SHRM fielded in early 2025. Labour markets move, and a figure from 2021 describes another market. 6. **How many.** 2,371 respondents overall, with fewer per metric. 7. **Which roles.** Executive and nonexecutive differ, and so do organisation sizes. If a vendor has data from its own customers, it is a fair guide to those customers and no more. ## Measure your own stages before you chase a benchmark Pick one role family and pull the last 20 hires. For each, write down five dates: requisition opened, job posted, first applicant screened, last interview done and offer accepted. Take the median of each gap, not the average. That gives you your own stage table to set against SHRM's definitions. One measure to set aside is the total on its own. A fast hire who leaves in four months is not a good result. SHRM's brief notes that few organisations measure quality of hire in 2025, so pair the days with something you can check, such as whether the hire passed probation or the hiring manager's score a quarter later. ## Where Tracy takes scheduling out of the clock In SHRM's stages, the days a recruiter can change fastest are screening and interviews. Both wait on calendars: a person has to read the CV, book a slot and be free to talk. Tracy removes the booking. Each applicant starts on click, at any hour, with no scheduling and no recruiter present, and is ready in under 10 seconds. A reminder goes out after a day, and failed interviews are chased automatically. Tracy follows up on what each applicant says, and a person reads the recording, transcript and assessment per question, then decides. ![Four steps: job posted, screening starts with a link, interview done, report ready for a person to decide.](/blog/images/time-to-hire-benchmark-2.png) *Tracy covers the screening and first-interview stages of the clock without scheduling. Illustration with sample data* Screening and first interviews stop waiting on calendars: every applicant gets a link, and a person reads the report. ## Pilot it on one role and measure the stage Pilot Tracy on one role and compare the same role's stages before and after. 1. Record the baseline: median days from first applicant screened to last interview done, for the last 20 hires. 2. Run the next requisition with Tracy as the first round. Load your questions or let her draft them from the job description. 3. Stop if the median does not fall, or if reviewers say the reports do not help them decide. 4. Read the results against quality, not only days. Tracy costs $1 per credit, one credit per started 20 minutes, and the first 3 results are free with no seats. Try a role on the [Connect page](/connect), and see [pricing](/pricing). Which path fits you: - Many applicants per role: [volume hiring](/use-cases/volume-hiring). - Staffing teams racing to submit: [AI interview tools for staffing agencies](/blog/ai-interview-tools-for-staffing-agencies). Good looks like this: you can state your own median per stage, how it is defined, and which stage moved. ## Common questions ### What is a good time to hire benchmark? SHRM's 2025 survey of 2,371 US members found a median of 44 days to fill nonexecutive roles and 45 days for executive roles, measured from requisition opened to offer accepted. Treat it as a reference for your own definition, not a target. ### What is the average time to hire? It depends on the definition. SHRM reports medians, not averages, and measures time to fill. A figure that does not say where the clock starts and stops cannot be compared with yours. ### What is the difference between time to hire and time to fill? Time to fill starts when the requisition opens and ends when the offer is accepted. Time to hire usually starts when the candidate enters the process, so it leaves out approval days. ### Is there a cost per hire benchmark? SHRM's 2025 brief reports a median cost per hire of $1,200 for nonexecutive roles and $10,625 for executive roles. Executive cost per hire is up 113 percent from 2017 and 21 percent from 2022. --- See the method applied in one real interview. Send us one role and we will build the interview plan in days, with a recording and report you can check. [Try it free](https://tracyinterview.ai/connect?utm_source=blog&utm_medium=seo&utm_campaign=time-to-hire-benchmark&utm_content=try-free) ยท [Book a demo](https://cal.com/tracy-ai/tracy-demo-web?utm_source=blog&utm_medium=seo&utm_campaign=time-to-hire-benchmark&utm_content=demo) ## Sources - [SHRM (2025), 2025 Recruiting Executives Benchmarking: Insights to Maximize Recruitment, data brief](https://www.shrm.org/content/dam/en/shrm/research/2025-recruiting-benchmarking-report.pdf), retrieved 9 Nov 2026. - [Tracy AI Interviewer home page, customer quotes](https://tracyinterview.ai/), retrieved 9 Nov 2026. - [Tracy AI Interviewer pricing](https://tracyinterview.ai/pricing), retrieved 5 Nov 2026.