How Long Should It Really Take to Fill a Critical Role?
Published: 1 June 2025
Most hiring teams accept slow recruitment as an inevitable fact of professional life. The reality is that excessive time-to-hire is almost always a process problem — and it's one that costs more than most leaders realise.
The Hidden Cost of Time to Hire
When a quota-carrying sales role sits vacant for ten weeks instead of five, the cost is not just the recruiter's fee. It's the pipeline that didn't get built, the accounts that didn't get covered, the deals that went to a competitor. For a mid-market Account Executive with a €600K annual quota, ten weeks of vacancy represents roughly €115,000 in lost pipeline generation.
Realistic Time-to-Hire Benchmarks by Role
These benchmarks reflect what's achievable with a well-run process and what commonly happens in practice. The gap is usually process and prioritisation, not market availability.
| Role | Achievable Timeline | Common in Practice |
|---|---|---|
| SDR / BDR | 3–5 weeks | 8–12 weeks |
| Account Executive | 4–6 weeks | 10–14 weeks |
| Sales Manager | 5–7 weeks | 12–16 weeks |
| Sales Director | 6–10 weeks | 16–22 weeks |
| CFO / Finance Director | 8–12 weeks | 16–24 weeks |
| HR Director | 6–10 weeks | 14–20 weeks |
Why Hiring Takes Longer Than It Should
1. The Brief Isn't Clear Enough
Most hiring processes start with an incomplete brief. Without clarity on ICP, deal size, and candidate stage, sourcing is unfocused, assessment is inconsistent, and decision-making stalls.
2. Too Many Interview Rounds
Five-round interview processes are common in larger companies and have spread into scale-ups. After the second or third well-structured interview, incremental predictive validity is minimal. What five rounds does achieve is a longer elapsed timeline and a higher candidate dropout rate.
3. Stakeholder Alignment Issues
One of the most consistent causes of extended time-to-hire is misalignment between hiring stakeholders — leading to extended deliberation, requests for additional rounds, and offers that are revised or delayed.
4. Slow Sourcing for Multilingual or Specialist Roles
For multilingual commercial roles, internal talent acquisition teams often lack the network or infrastructure to find qualified candidates quickly. Relying on job boards alone for these roles typically yields a thin and low-quality pipeline.
How to Reduce Time to Hire Without Compromising Quality
- Start with a proper brief — align all stakeholders before opening the role
- Limit interview rounds to three maximum for most commercial roles
- Use specialist recruitment support for hard-to-source multilingual profiles
- Pre-schedule interview blocks rather than booking reactively
- Prepare offer terms before the final round so decisions can move quickly
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