Why time to hire is the wrong metric for recruiting success

For years, we have been told that speed is the ultimate prize in recruitment, but in 2026, the obsession with a lightning-fast time to hire is actually sabotaging your long-term business growth. While filling a seat quickly might look good on a monthly report, it often hides the much larger costs of cultural misalignment, poor team fit, and the inevitable churn that follows a rushed decision.

The problem with the speed trap

In the traditional recruitment world, the clock is the enemy. HR leaders and business owners have been conditioned to believe that the faster they move a candidate from application to offer, the more efficient their team is. This metric, known as time to hire, has become the primary yardstick for success. But here is the catch: speed does not equal quality.

When you prioritise the clock over the person, you are essentially playing a game of musical chairs. You are more focused on making sure every desk has a body in it than ensuring that body belongs there. In 2026, the Australian labour market is more nuanced than ever. Candidates are looking for purpose, and businesses are desperate for stability. A fast hire that leaves after six months costs you far more in lost productivity and re-recruitment fees than a slower, more considered process ever would.

We need to stop treating recruitment like a 100-metre sprint and start viewing it as a long-term investment. If your applicant tracking system (ATS) is only telling you how many days a role has been open, it is only telling you half the story. The real gold standard is quality of hire – how well that person integrates, stays, and performs within your unique team environment.

Why time to hire is a lagging indicator of failure

The biggest issue with relying on time to hire as your north star is that it is a lagging indicator. It tells you what happened in the past, but it says nothing about the future success of the employee. You can hire a software engineer in ten days, but if they have a personality clash with the lead developer on day eleven, that ten-day record is worthless.

In 2026, we are seeing the rise of the 'Brilliant Jerk' problem more than ever. These are candidates who look perfect on paper – their skills are top-notch and their qualifications are impeccable – but they wreak havoc on workplace culture. A traditional ATS that only parses resumes for keywords will help you hire these people faster, but it won't help you hire better.

We have found that 74% of employers admit to hiring the wrong person at some point. Most of those mistakes happen because the pressure to close the role quickly overrode the need to assess cultural alignment. By shifting the focus away from the stopwatch and towards people-science, you can begin to see the true impact of your hiring decisions on the bottom line.

Quality of hire: the new gold standard for 2026

So, if speed isn't the answer, what is? The answer lies in data-driven quality. This means looking beyond the resume to understand the 'whole person'. It involves assessing how a candidate’s work personality aligns with the existing team and whether their personal values match the company's mission.

When we talk about quality of hire, we are looking at three distinct pillars: organisational fit, team synergy, and task motivation. A candidate might have the skills to do the job, but do they have the motivation to do it in your specific environment? This is where modern people analytics come into play.

By using a platform like Compono Engage, businesses can first benchmark their actual company culture. This allows you to understand the 'personality' of your organisation before you even post a job. When you know who you are, it becomes much easier to find people who belong. This isn't about slowing down for the sake of it; it's about moving with purpose and precision.

The hidden costs of a 'speed-first' recruitment strategy

Let's talk about the numbers. The cost of a bad hire in Australia is estimated to be at least 30% of the employee's first-year earnings. For a mid-market business, that is a massive hit to the budget. When you rush the process to satisfy a time to hire metric, you are significantly increasing the risk of this financial loss.

Beyond the direct financial cost, there is the 'cultural tax'. A poor fit drains the energy of the team, increases the workload for others, and can even lead to your high performers walking out the door. In 2026, employee retention is the ultimate competitive advantage. You cannot build a stable, high-performing culture on a foundation of rushed, short-term hires.

This is why we advocate for a 'flipped' recruitment model. Instead of spending weeks sifting through resumes and only doing fit assessments at the very end, we suggest bringing that data to the front. Using Compono Hire, you can automatically rank candidates based on their alignment with your culture and team needs before you've even looked at their CV. This saves you time on the wrong candidates so you can invest it in the right ones.

How to transition from speed to significance

Transitioning your recruiting metrics requires a mindset shift from the top down. It starts with educating leadership that a role remaining open for an extra week is a small price to pay for a person who will stay for three years. You need to start measuring things like 90-day retention rates, manager satisfaction scores, and team performance metrics.

Your applicant tracking system should be a tool for intelligence, not just a digital filing cabinet. It should provide you with explainable rankings that tell you why a candidate is a good match, looking at the nuances of their skills and their psychological fit. This empowers your HR team to act as strategic advisors rather than just process administrators.

Finally, remember that the candidate experience matters. In 2026, candidates are savvy. They can tell when they are being rushed through a meat-grinder process. A more thoughtful, data-backed approach shows that you care about their success as much as your own. This builds brand loyalty from day one, regardless of whether they get the job or not.

Key takeaways for modern recruiting

• Stop the clock: Time to hire is a process metric, not a success metric. Shift your focus to quality and retention.
• Benchmark first: Understand your current team and culture using Compono Engage before you start looking for new additions.
• Flip the funnel: Use assessments and people-science at the start of the process to filter for fit, not just at the end.
• Measure what matters: Track long-term metrics like 12-month retention and team productivity to see the real ROI of your recruiting.
• Empower your ATS: Ensure your ATS is providing intelligent, explainable data that helps you make objective decisions.

Where to from here?

• Explore: The Compono Platform
• Talk to an expert: Book in a 15-minute chat to get a walkthrough of how Compono Hire can transform your recruiting success in 2026.