What is time-to-fill and how is it measured?

• A. The elapsed days from job requisition to job acceptance; used to diagnose recruiting efficiency.
• B. Time from posting to candidate acceptance; used to measure onboarding duration.
• C. Time from vacancy to hire; used for budgeting.
• D. Time from job offer to candidate start date.

Answer: (A)

Time-to-fill captures how quickly a vacancy is moved through the recruiting process until the candidate commits to join. It is measured as the number of days from when a job requisition is opened to the moment a candidate accepts the offer. This focus on the period before onboarding makes it a direct gauge of recruiting efficiency, helping to spot bottlenecks, set expectations, and benchmark performance.

The other ways people describe time-to-fill either shift the starting point or the purpose: starting at posting or vacancy misses the internal steps from requisition to screening and interviewing; stopping at hire rather than acceptance can blur when the vacancy is actually considered filled; and focusing on onboarding or start date moves beyond recruiting speed into integration and scheduling.