Why the distinction matters
The two diagnose different failures. A long time to fill with a short time to hire means sourcing is the constraint: the process moves fast once candidates exist, but they take too long to arrive. A long time to hire means the process itself is the constraint: slow screening, interview scheduling drift, approval bottlenecks. Fixing the wrong one is a quarter of wasted effort, so measure both before prescribing.
What is a normal time to fill?
The SHRM median sits around 39 days. Senior, specialised and security-cleared roles legitimately run longer; high-volume frontline hiring should run far shorter. Every day of it has a price: multiply the days a role sits open by its daily cost of vacancy and the case for fixing the bottleneck writes itself.
Where the days actually go
In most audits the elapsed time is dominated by waiting, not evaluating: days lost between application and first review, between interviews, and between final interview and offer. Structured scheduling, pre-agreed interview panels and offer approval delegated in advance routinely remove a week or more without touching selection quality.
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