How Long Should It Take To Fill An Open Role?
You’ve had a role open for a while, and you’re starting to wonder: is this normal? Should it really take this long? Are we doing something wrong? The honest answer is: it depends. A receptionist role and a senior attorney role are not going to take the same amount of time. But there are reasonable benchmarks, and if you’ve blown past them, there’s usually a reason. Here’s what to expect and how to tell if your search is stuck. The national averages, roughly Most hiring data puts the average time-to-fill at about six to eight weeks for a white-collar role. That’s across industries, across role types, across company sizes. It’s a rough average. Higher-complexity roles take longer. Senior positions, specialized technical roles, and leadership hires typically run 10 to 16 weeks. Executive searches can take six months. Lower-complexity roles move faster. An entry-level sales role or a support position should close in three to five weeks if you’re running an active search. If your search is significantly outside those ranges, something’s off. What should happen in each phase Most hiring processes break down into four phases, and knowing where the time goes helps you spot the bottleneck. The signs your search is stuck Here’s what usually goes wrong: The fixes that actually work When 90 days is too long If a role’s been open 90 days, the cost is no longer just the open position. It’s the burnout on the team picking up the slack. It’s the projects that aren’t getting done. It’s the revenue that isn’t coming in. At some point the cost of the vacancy exceeds the cost of making a decision, and what a bad hire actually costs your business is a useful lens for running that math. We see this constantly with clients who come to us after running their own search for four months. The role hasn’t changed. The pool hasn’t changed. What’s changed is that they’re now willing to move faster than they were. If your search has stalled and you want to talk through what’s actually blocking it, we’re happy to have that conversation. Sometimes you need a new approach. Sometimes you just need someone to tell you honestly why it’s been stuck.