Learning how to calculate time to hire completely changes the way companies approach recruitment.
When I'm speaking with founders or hiring managers who are struggling to scale their teams efficiently, the first thing I ask is whether they’re actually measuring how long it takes to fill a role.
You’d be surprised how many people just go by gut feeling, which isn’t good enough.
Not when the competition for top-tier developers is this fierce.
Only 68% of employers are confident in their ability to hire the talent they need.
I still remember one of our early clients who came to us completely overwhelmed.
They had an urgent need for backend engineers and were losing candidates left and right.
When we looked into it, their average time to hire was over 45 days.
No surprise they were losing people to faster offers!
That was a turning point for me.
I knew we had to build a system that not only tracked this metric but helped improve it, too.
What Time To Hire Is & Why It Matters So Much
Time to hire is the number of days between when you post a job and when a candidate accepts your offer.
It’s that simple on paper, but it reveals so much about the health of your recruiting process.
At Remote Crew, we treat time to hire like a heartbeat.
It tells us how fast we can react to the needs of our clients.
I don’t want you to think of hiring time as solely a recruitment issue.
It’s often a signal that a company might be losing money, delaying projects, or burning out current team members who are covering gaps.
For example, in the tech space, especially with remote roles, candidates are off the market fast.
I’ve seen developers accept offers within a few days of applying.
If you’re taking 30 days or more to choose the right candidate, you’re not even in the race.
That’s why tracking time to hire is essential if you want to win top talent.
How To Calculate Time To Hire In A Few Simple Steps
Here’s how we calculate time to hire at Remote Crew:
Time To Hire = Date candidate accepts offer - Date job is posted
So, let me give you a real-world example of what this looks like:
Let’s say we had a fintech client post a TypeScript role on the first of the month.
The candidate accepted on the 12th of the month. That’s an 11-day time to hire.
Fast, efficient, and way below the industry average.
You can track this manually if you’re hiring occasionally, but if you’re scaling, I recommend setting up a simple Excel file or Google Sheet to keep records.
How To Calculate Time To Hire In Excel
When we were just starting out, I relied heavily on Excel. Here’s how I did it:
- In column A, I listed all the job posting dates.
- In column B, I added the dates when offers were accepted.
- In column C, I used the formula =B2-A2 to calculate the days between.
Then I used =AVERAGE(C2:C10) (or the specific range you need) to get our average time to hire.
This helped us spot patterns.
For example, we noticed roles requiring specific frameworks (like NestJS or Next.js) often took longer. That insight pushed us to build niche pipelines for those skill sets.
Nowadays, we use Google Sheets to calculate time to hire, but the same principles apply.
What Time To Hire Benchmarks Are Normal?
I’m often asked, “What’s a good time to hire?”
Here’s the truth: it depends. But having benchmarks helps.
Tech startups should aim for under 30 days, while mid-sized SaaS companies push for 35 to 40 days.
At Remote Crew, we try to beat the 30-day mark whenever we can.
Some of our best hires have happened in under two weeks.
If you’re hiring remotely, that speed is possible. But only if your systems are tight.
What Slows Down Time To Hire?
Over the years, I’ve learned that the following factors are the biggest culprits:
1 - Vague Job Descriptions
Early on, I underestimated just how much a bad job description could hurt us.
I thought if we cast a wide net, we’d get more options. In reality, we just wasted time sifting through noise.
When we got more specific about the tech stack, outcomes, and what a “great” hire actually looked like, we started attracting candidates who actually fit.
Now, every job spec we write is more like a landing page: super clear, targeted, and designed to pre-qualify applicants.
2 - Too Many Approval Layers
One of our clients had five people involved in signing off on each hire.
It was chaos.
By the time they made a decision, the top candidates were gone.
I’ve found the sweet spot is two decision-makers, usually a tech lead and someone from the business side.
That keeps things moving without losing perspective. Too many cooks slow everything down.
3 - Poor Interview Scheduling
I’ve been guilty of this myself, thinking, “I’ll find time for that interview later this week.”
But by then, the candidate’s already moved on.
Now, we make next-day scheduling a rule.
If someone’s good, we don’t wait.
I’ve seen firsthand how keeping up momentum makes candidates feel valued and keeps the whole process on track.
4 - No Candidate Pipeline
In the beginning, we’d wait until a client needed a dev, then go looking.
That was fine for easy roles, but for niche ones, it dragged out the process.
So we changed our approach.
We’re always sourcing.
Even when we don’t have an open role, we’re talking to devs, tagging them, and building relationships.
That way, when a role opens up, we already have people in mind. It’s made a massive difference.
5 - Slow Communication
In the past, I’ve lost candidates because we were too slow to reply.
It stings, especially when you know they’d have been a great fit.
Now, we’ve built a 24-hour response rule into our process.
Even if there’s no real update, we’ll check in. That simple habit has helped us keep more candidates engaged through to the offer stage.
6 - Misalignment Between Hiring Team And Recruiter
This one’s tricky, and I’ve been on both sides.
If there’s no clarity upfront, the whole process suffers.
I remember one role where we kept getting “almost right” candidates, but no one could explain what was actually missing.
It was just wasted effort.
Now, we start every search with a deep intake call.
We get specific. Must-haves, deal-breakers, interview plan, everything.
Once we’re aligned, we move faster and get better results.
It’s honestly one of the most important things we do.
How To Improve Time To Hire: 6 Strategies That Work For Us
At Remote Crew, we’ve had to figure out how to move fast without compromising on quality.
After seeing dozens of hiring processes, good and bad, we’ve landed on a few strategies that make a noticeable difference.
Here’s what’s actually worked for us and our clients:
1 - Automate Early Screening
In the early days, I’d personally review every CV.
That worked… until it didn’t. When volume went up, I found myself spending hours on candidates who were clearly not the right fit.
Now, we use tools to run role-specific assessments automatically.
These tools simulate real work, whether it’s coding tasks, problem-solving, or logic exercises.
The signal-to-noise ratio is so much better.
We only spend time on candidates who’ve already proven they can do the job.
That alone has cut our time to shortlist by at least 50%.
2 - Craft Sharper Job Descriptions
I used to write job descriptions like internal checklists: dry, technical, and way too broad.
Then I realized most candidates don’t read those; they scan them.
And if you’re not speaking directly to their goals, they’re bouncing.
Now, we treat every job post like a landing page.
You want to start with a hook, talk about the mission, and communicate what kind of developer you’re actually looking for and why that role matters.
When we got more specific (tech stack, team size, remote policy, salary), we got better applicants faster. Clarity equals speed.
3 - Reduce Internal Delays
I’ve seen hiring grind to a halt because someone was on holiday or the CTO was "thinking it over."
That doesn’t fly in this market.
So we work with clients to streamline the decision-making flow.
We help them pre-define interview stages, assign clear responsibilities, and decide in advance who signs off.
When everyone knows the steps ahead of time, it’s amazing how much faster things move.
4 - Build Long-Term Talent Pools
Perhaps one of the biggest unlocks for us was realizing that you don’t start hiring when you need someone; you start way before that.
We’re constantly networking, sourcing, and tagging great devs, even when we don’t have an active brief.
That way, when a client comes to us with a new role, we can say: “We already have three people who match.”
It turns weeks into days.
Honestly, this is one of the most valuable things we do behind the scenes.
5 - Offer Remote Flexibility
I can’t count how many amazing developers we’ve placed from countries that weren’t even on a client’s radar.
Once you open up to remote and async work, the talent pool grows exponentially, and you can hire faster because you’re not stuck waiting on one local candidate.
We’ve placed senior engineers in Portugal, Poland, Brazil, and beyond.
Every time, clients are surprised by the quality and the speed. Remote isn’t just a perk anymore. It’s a competitive advantage in hiring.
6 - Track & Improve With Data
For every hire, we log the full journey: how long it took, how many interviews, where people dropped off.
That data has become one of our most useful tools.
When something’s off, like too many candidates ghosting or offers getting rejected, we can actually see it in the numbers and fix it.
Continuous improvement doesn’t sound sexy, but it’s why our process keeps getting faster and sharper.
We’ve Found That Every Saved Day Counts
Why? Because it comes with lots of benefits:
- Shorter hiring time, lower costs.
- More opportunities to secure top talent.
- A hiring process that candidates actually enjoy.
- Reduced disruptions for teams needing new talent.
When you reduce your hiring time, you’re not only saving valuable resources.
You’re also creating a recruitment experience that attracts quality candidates and keeps your business moving forward.
For companies seeking skilled tech professionals, Remote Crew is a partner that understands this journey.
Our team will help you hire faster with confidence.
Finding talent doesn’t need to be a long haul.
A streamlined, agile hiring process is within reach and ready to help your team thrive.
Find out more about how Remote Crew can help you hire remote developers.
