Hiring teams love speed. Dashboards celebrate fast closures, recruiters are pushed to reduce delays, and leaders often treat time-to-hire as proof of hiring efficiency. LinkedIn notes that time-to-hire has become one of the most closely watched recruiting KPIs, with an average time-to-hire of 41 days and 62% of talent leaders prioritizing it.
But there’s a problem with this obsession: time-to-hire tells you how fast a seat was filled. It does not tell you whether the person hired will create value quickly.
What Actually Matters: Time-to-Impact
A better question is this: how long does it take for a new hire to start creating meaningful business value? That is time-to-impact.
Gallup research shows that only 12% of employees strongly agree their organization does a good job onboarding, highlighting how long it actually takes for employees to become productive.
Why Fast Hiring Can Still Fail
Research shows structured interviews are significantly better predictors of job performance than unstructured ones, meaning rushed hiring often reduces accuracy.
The Real Cost of Bad Hiring
According to SHRM and the U.S. Department of Labor, a bad hire can cost up to 30% of the employee’s first-year salary—excluding productivity loss and team impact.
Final Thought
Time-to-hire measures speed. Time-to-impact measures value. If you are only optimizing for speed, you are optimizing the wrong outcome.
References
- LinkedIn Talent Solutions – Reducing Time-to-Hire: https://business.linkedin.com/hire/resources/talent-acquisition/reducing-time-to-hire
- Gallup – Effective Onboarding Research: https://www.gallup.com/workplace/236441/employee-onboarding-experience.aspx
- McDaniel et al. (1994) – Interview Validity Meta-Analysis: https://home.ubalt.edu/tmitch/645/articles/McDanieletal1994CriterionValidityInterviewsMeta.pdf
- SHRM – Cost of a Bad Hire: https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/talent-acquisition/pages/the-real-cost-of-a-bad-hire.aspx
- Brandon Hall Group – Onboarding Impact Research: https://brandonhall.com/creating-an-effective-onboarding-learning-experience-strategies-for-success/
