May 23, 2025
Why it takes 5-6 weeks to hire now and what happens in the meantime
Key numbers at a glance
Median global time-to-hire: 38 days (about 5½ weeks) according to this report
U.S. average time-to-hire: 35 days, U.K.: 40 days
Time top candidates stay on the market: ≈ 10 days according to Workleap
Average U.S. cost per hire: $4,700 according to this Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) study
Job-seekers who abandon long applications: 60 % according to Workleap
Average applications per open role worldwide: 73 (only ≈ 3 reach interview stage, and only 1 offer made) from this study
These figures highlight the mismatch between how long employers take to make a decision and how quickly sought-after talent disappears.
The growing drag on time-to-hire
Hiring cycles have stretched to 5–6 weeks or more as organisations add assessments, interviews and compliance checks to their processes. A global study pinpoints the median time-to-hire at 38 days, with U.S. firms averaging 35 days and their U.K. counterparts about 40 days (SmartRecruiters, 2025).
The cost of delay is twofold. First, prime candidates often leave the market within ten days, so a slow process literally hires itself out of the competition. Second, every extra week that a role remains vacant translates into productivity losses and higher spend. In the United States, the average cost per hire is already about $4,700; protracted executive searches or hard-to-fill technical roles can run far higher.
The screening overload
Easy one-click job boards now generate roughly 73 applications per opening, yet only about three candidates on average proceed to interview. When recruiters screen résumés manually, that paperwork pile becomes a bottleneck of its own. Missed keywords can knock out strong talent; overwhelmed reviewers may default to the first acceptable option rather than the best one.
Internal friction and scheduling gridlock
Even after a streamlined application arrives, coordination inside the firm can stall progress:
Feedback loops: Hiring managers often juggle their own workload, delaying résumé reviews or feedback on interviews.
Interview choreography: Employers in the U.K. typically meet six candidates per role; in the U.S. and Canada it is closer to seven. Finding calendar space for multiple decision-makers can add days or weeks.
Communication gaps: Misalignment among recruiters, HR and line managers leads to repeated questions, conflicting signals to applicants and ultimately re-work.
Poor candidate communication makes matters worse. More than half of U.S. job-seekers and two-fifths of those in the U.K. say they have been “ghosted” by an employer after an interview (SelectSoftware Reviews, 2024). Besides employer brand damage, that silence often forces roles to be reposted and the entire cycle to start again.
Technology as a pressure valve, if used well
To tackle these choke points, 88% of organisations have adopted an Applicant Tracking System (WeCreateProblems, 2024), and many layer on AI-driven tools:
Automated résumé parsing flags qualified profiles in minutes rather than days.
Self-service scheduling links eliminate the back-and-forth of email.
Video or one-way interview platforms can cut early-stage screening time by two-thirds.
Still, today's automation is no cure-all. Over-reliance on rigid filters can exclude atypical but promising candidates, and impersonal processes risk the very engagement they aim to preserve. The goal is to remove friction, not the human touch, from hiring.
Tools like intuHire help hiring teams evaluate candidates on deeper attributes, such as skills alignment, growth potential, and culture fit, by generating structured insights that support more objective comparisons and better hiring decisions.
Click the link below to find out more about how intuHire works or to join the waitlist!