How long do you take to hire?

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Hiring the perfect candidate takes time, but wait too long to make a decision and the candidate might lose interest and get snapped up by another employer. Despite that, organisations around the world seem to be taking longer to make a hiring decision, with the time it takes to hire having risen by about a day, found a new report from Glassdoor.

Based on nearly 84,000 interview reviews shared on Glassdoor by candidates, the report titled How Long Does it Take to Hire? Interview Duration in 25 Countries revealed that the average time it takes to hire worldwide was 23.7 days in 2017, up from 22.5 days in 2016.

The interview process took the longest in Brazil (39.6 days), France (38.9 days), and Switzerland (37.6 days), while it was the shortest in India (16.1 days), Israel (16.9 days), and Romania (19.2 days). In Singapore, it took 25.4 days to hire, while Malaysia fell below average at 21.7 days. Employers in the United States took 23.8 days to hire while those in China took 24.7 days.

 

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Differences in labor market regulations have been found to largely drive the differences in hiring times, the study showed.

"Glassdoor's study found that the more regulatory hurdles companies face within their local labor markets, the more difficult it will be to hire — and fire — employees, directly impacting how long it takes to fill open roles," said Dr. Andrew Chamberlain, Glassdoor’s chief economist.

Although organisations can't completely control hiring delays, individual company policies also play an important role in the length of job interviews.

Glassdoor's study found that company factors — such as the number and type of interview "screens" used by hiring managers — explained about twice as much of hiring delays as other factors largely beyond the control of employers, such as the industry, location and job title being hired for.

Company specific factors explained 14.7% of variation in hiring delays while factors specific to the individual job title being hired for explain only about 7.3% of hiring delays. Similarly, all other factors combined — including country, metro, industry, type of employer (publicly traded, private, nonprofit, etc.) and number of employees — explained only about 7.2% of hiring delays.

As a word of caution, Chamberlain said: "The longer it takes to hire, the greater the productivity loss for employers. And, the longer money is left on the table waiting for potential candidates."

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