The “Time to Fill” (TTF) metric is a cornerstone in recruitment, offering critical insights into the efficiency of hiring processes. However, while widely used, its accuracy can be compromised by certain practices, sometimes rendering it misleading. This article examines these challenges, outlines strategies to improve data accuracy, and emphasizes focusing on critical requisitions to
enhance recruitment effectiveness.
Understanding the Importance of “Time to Fill”
TTF measures the time from a job requisition’s approval to the candidate’s acceptance of an offer. It is an essential metric for several reasons:
- Operational Efficiency: TTF helps organizations gauge how quickly they can fill positions, ensuring business continuity.
- Resource Planning: It aids in workforce planning and budgeting by providing insights into resource allocation needs.
- Recruitment Performance: As a Key Performance Indicator (KPI), TTF evaluates the effectiveness of recruitment teams and processes.
Despite its significance, TTF can sometimes distort recruitment efficiency due to practices that impact its accuracy.
Several common practices can skew TTF metrics, including:
- Prioritization of Newer Requisitions: Organizations may prioritize filling the newest requisitions while neglecting older or duplicate requisitions, leading to misleading data.
- Cancellation of Older Requisitions: Closing older requisitions for convenience, especially when duplicates exist, misrepresents TTF and the hiring manager’s experience.
- Use of Evergreen Requisitions: Evergreen requisitions—posted to attract general candidates but closed after identifying a hire—can artificially reduce TTF to just a day or less, misrepresenting actual timelines.
To ensure TTF reflects true recruitment performance, organizations can implement the following strategies:
- First In, First Out (FIFO): Fill requisitions in the order they were opened to prioritize older ones first.
- Last In, First Out (LIFO): Cancel requisitions in reverse order, closing the newest ones first to maintain
accurate reporting. - Realistic Use of Evergreen Requisitions: Use these requisitions only as feeders for actual job openings to prevent artificially low TTF data.
Leverage dashboards to identify and manage duplicate requisitions, ensuring older ones are prioritized. Where possible, configure your Applicant Tracking System (ATS) to enforce these practices automatically, ensuring consistent data accuracy and improved recruitment efficiency.
Damn Lies and Statistics
You must always be conscious of your dataset. When your denominator gets small the effect of one outlier on your TTF metric can be enormous. If you build a dashboard you can limit drill down with low denominators and/or you can incorporate statistical methods to normalize the data, such as:
Median time-to-fill
Trimmed mean (e.g., drop top/bottom 5–10%)
Winsorized mean (cap extreme values)
Percentile reporting (50th / 75th / 90th)
Segmented time-to-fill (by role, location, job family)
Outlier exclusion with documented rules (e.g., paused or reopened reqs)
Focusing on Critical Requisitions
While overall TTF provides valuable insights, focusing on the TTF for critical requisitions delivers deeper strategic value. Critical requisitions typically include roles that are:
- Essential to operations
- Challenging to fill
- Highly impactful on business
performance
By prioritizing these roles, organizations can:
- Align Recruitment with Business Priorities: Ensure recruitment efforts focus on the organization’s most pressing needs.
- Improve Recruitment Strategies: Identify and address challenges like skill shortages or market competition through targeted approaches, such as competitive compensation or alternative sourcing methods.
- Enhance Stakeholder Engagement: Strengthen collaboration with hiring managers by focusing on roles with the greatest business impact.
Conclusion
Lastly, TTF should always be presented alongside the average age of open requisitions to provide critical context. The ultimate goal is not just to lower TTF but also to reduce the average age of open roles, ensuring an efficient and proactive recruitment process.
The “Time to Fill” metric remains a valuable tool for assessing recruitment efficiency, but it must be interpreted with care and supplemented by additional metrics and context. Practices like prioritizing newer requisitions, canceling older ones,
and using evergreen requisitions can skew TTF data, leading to misleading conclusions. By implementing FIFO and LIFO strategies and concentrating on critical requisitions, organizations can gain a clearer and more actionable view of their recruitment processes, resulting in better hiring outcomes and stronger business performance.
By incorporating these best practices into your recruitment strategy, you ensure TTF truly reflects the efficiency and effectiveness of your hiring processes, driving continuous improvement and alignment with organizational goals.