Insights
How Long Hiring Actually Takes
For mainstream IT, finance and light industrial roles, a good agency delivers a first shortlist within 72 hours and a start date in two to four weeks. Specialist engineering runs four to eight weeks, and niche or clearance-dependent roles six to twelve. Most delay comes from the client side — slow interview scheduling and vendor onboarding — not from sourcing.
Benchmarks by role type
Note the gap between the two columns. Producing a shortlist is fast. Everything after it is where the weeks go.
| Role type | First shortlist | Time to start |
|---|---|---|
| Light industrial / warehouse | 3–5 days | 1 week |
| Administrative & clerical | 72 hours | 1–2 weeks |
| Mainstream IT (React, Java, .NET, QA) | 72 hours | 2–4 weeks |
| Finance & accounting | 72 hours | 2–4 weeks |
| Specialist engineering (controls, quality) | 1–2 weeks | 4–8 weeks |
| Niche or clearance-dependent | Case by case | 6–12 weeks |
Where the time actually goes
When a search runs long, the cause is usually one of five things — and only the first is the recruiter’s.
- Sourcing and screening: 2–5 days for mainstream roles. Rarely the bottleneck.
- Interview scheduling: often 1–2 weeks. Multiple calendars, one of which belongs to someone travelling.
- Internal decision-making: days to weeks. Nobody wants to be the one who says yes.
- Offer and negotiation: 2–5 days, longer if a counter-offer appears.
- Notice periods: two weeks is standard in the US, and it is not negotiable for a candidate who wants to leave well.
Vendor onboarding deserves a special mention. On a first engagement, MSA review, insurance verification and supplier setup routinely take longer than the recruiting itself. Start that paperwork the day you brief the agency, not the day you want someone to start.
How to compress the timeline
- Pre-book interview slots. Give the agency two fixed windows per week and the single biggest delay disappears.
- Decide who the decision-maker is before the search starts, not after the shortlist arrives.
- Give feedback within 24 hours. Good candidates are usually in two or three processes; the slowest one loses.
- Send vendor paperwork on day one, in parallel with sourcing.
- Agree the salary or rate band up front. Discovering a mismatch at offer stage wastes weeks for everyone.
- Interview in two rounds, not four. Additional rounds rarely improve the decision but reliably cost you candidates.
A warning about very fast promises
If an agency promises a shortlist for a specialist controls engineer in 24 hours, they are either sending you profiles they have not screened, or recycling a database. Both waste more of your time than an honest four-week estimate.
The useful question is not "how fast can you fill this?" but "what is realistic, and what specifically would make it slower?" An agency that answers the second question honestly is one worth working with.