The Growing Challenge Of Time-To-Hire
Statistics show that time-to-hire is increasing across all industries. At first glance, this simply appears to be a return to a “norm” – that is, to levels consistent with the pre-pandemic years, when the labor market was not as volatile.
However, a higher time-to-hire metric is detrimental for employers. Longer hiring cycles make it more difficult to secure top talent, particularly in the tech and engineering sectors. When it takes longer to complete the interview process, it gives your competitors time to swoop in with lucrative offers and lure your candidates from you.
Time-to-hire dipped during the hiring surge of 2021-22. The need to fill open roles quickly – to manage pivots, economic volatility, and a candidate’s job market – led to a quicker interview process to avoid losing candidates. But, as economic turmoil and widespread layoffs spread across the tech and engineering sectors, hiring slowed. So too did the urgency to hire.
The struggle for tech and engineering companies is that while time-to-hire is increasing, unemployment levels continue to remain low. In June 2025, the United States reported unemployment rates of 2.8% in the tech sector and 2.5% in engineering, compared to an overall rate of 4.2%. This means that it is still very much a candidate’s job market, especially for highly skilled and emerging roles. Companies that hesitate to move quickly to secure top talent risk losing that talent to competitors.
Why Time-To-Hire Is Increasing In 2025
Time-to-hire has been increasing in 2025 and is approaching levels that were considered the norm in 2019. However, the dynamics that are creating these longer recruitment cycles in 2025 are complex. Several interrelated factors are lengthening the hiring process across the engineering and tech sectors. Understanding those factors is key to mitigating them.
Economic And Labor Market Headwinds
The labor market in the tech and engineering sectors was volatile in the early 2020s. Although it is stablizing now, the massive layoffs in the tech sector, in particular, that began in 2022, have created a sense of uncertainty for both employers and candidates. Companies are wary of hiring, unsure of which way the current economic and labor market headwinds might shift. For many, hiring has become bogged down by requiring multiple levels of approval, which extends time-to-hire.
Candidates are cautious too. Having gone through a period of massive layoffs and attuned to the general economic turbulence, many are worried about job security and hesitant about changing roles. As a result, they may take longer to evaluate or negotiate job offers.
Skills Shortages And Premium Talent Competition
Specialized technical skills are in high demand. Skill shortages in emerging technologies are especially problematic since few candidates have the required knowledge and skill sets. Roles in artificial intelligence, machine learning, data engineering, and advanced manufacturing are among the hardest to fill. As companies compete fiercely for available talent, job offer negotiations take longer and salaries are driven increasingly higher.
Hiring Freezes And Structural Shifts
The 2020s have proven to be extremely turbulent. As companies adapt to tempestuous socioeconomic trends, digital transformation, increasing automation, and AI adoption, they’ve needed to redefine their workforce needs. In some cases, that has meant implementing hiring freezes. In other cases, that has meant restructuring job descriptions, combining responsibilities, or creating entirely new roles.
This kind of strategic approach adds a level of complexity to the hiring process, which often results in an increased time-to-hire. Whether defining a new role or redefining an existing one, it can take significant time for all parties to reach consensus. As well, a newly defined role can create uncertainty for both the employer and the candidate and may lead to a longer interview process as details are questioned and hammered out.
In 2025, the trend is moving towards hiring fewer people as well as taking longer to finalize hiring decisions.
How To Accelerate Candidate Flow
Although the trend is towards an increasing time-to-hire, there’s no reason why you can’t bypass that trend. By implementing the strategies below, you can streamline your recruitment process and continue to attract top talent.
Implement A Structured Hiring Process
Unclear or overly complex hiring processes are one of the biggest reasons behind a lengthy time-to-hire metric. Developing a standardized hiring process for all candidates that follows a competency-based framework can help ratchet down time spent on the hiring cycle.
To develop a standardized process, create precise job descriptions that focus on essential skills and measurable competencies. Disregard the “nice-to-have” requirements. Eliminating them from the mix will allow you to hone in on the candidates that will be the best fit, which will reduce the number of candidates you interview and minimize time-to-hire – all while ensuring that all candidates are evaluated fairly and consistently.
Align Hiring Managers And Recruiters Early
Another common issue that can slow time-to-hire is misalignment between recruiters and hiring managers. When those two groups have a different understanding of the ideal candidate profile, interview logistics, and/or expected timeline, things can go awry, extending your time-to-hire.
Establish And Track Recruitment Metrics
It’s difficult to know what needs improvement or how to improve things if you don’t measure those things. If you don’t already track recruitment metrics, start by establishing clear benchmarks for key metrics like time-to-fill, time-to-hire, cost-per-hire, and candidate drop-off rates.
Once you have those benchmarks in place, you’ll be able to easily pinpoint bottlenecks in your hiring process. Knowing just where slowdowns are occurring can help you understand where adjustments need to be made.
Define Decision-Making Criteria In Advance
Another issue that frequently lengthens time-to-hire is a lack of clarity around candidate evaluation criteria. Without that criteria, it can take time for decision-makers to reach consensus on the best candidate.
For each job posting, develop clear evaluation criteria – e.g., which skills, experiences, or cultural attributes are non-negotiable and which are flexible. By ranking candidates against this criterion, decisions can be made more quickly and confidently.
Improve The Feedback Loop
Candidates often express frustration over the long wait for feedback after interviews. Slow feedback loops hurt the candidate experience, increase time-to-hire, and give your competitors a chance to swoop in and lure your prime candidate away.
Establish clear expectations for turnaround times on feedback – and hold managers accountable. For times when the feedback turnaround expectation can’t be met, develop alternative protocols to keep your candidates engaged. For example, a quick email explaining the situation and providing an updated ETA for feedback can help prevent them from accepting offers from your competitors.
How The Right Recruitment And Staffing Partner Can Help
Here’s the thing: If your time-to-hire has slowed, it can take time to resolve the bottlenecks. In the interim, you could lose several opportunities to snag top talent. And, even if you’ve optimized all your processes, sometimes it’s difficult to balance hiring demands with internal capacity. A specialized recruitment or staffing partner can provide an alternative solution.
Access To Deep Technical Talent Networks
Recruitment firms that specialize in engineering and tech talent maintain deep and robust talent networks. They can dip into those networks to quickly provide highly qualified candidates with niche skill sets, such as a controls engineer with required certifications or an AI specialist who is knowledgeable in specific frameworks.
Streamlined Coordination And Scheduling
The difficulty of coordinating interviews with multiple stakeholders can create a bottleneck in the hiring process. A recruitment partner can take over the scheduling duties and ensure that candidates move efficiently through each stage.
Real-Time Transparency And Insights
Credible recruitment agencies highlight transparency. They provide real-time search dashboards, weekly pipeline updates, and candidate feedback summaries. This level of transparency creates alignment with hiring managers, keeps everyone on track, and reduces the chance of unpleasant surprises late in the game.
Market Intelligence And Feedback
Recruitment agencies possess a wealth of valuable information. Because they work with multiple clients and across industries, they know about current salary trends, candidate expectations, and hiring activity at your competitors. Having access to that information can help your hiring manager make informed and timely decisions.
When you find a specialized recruitment firm that’s a great fit for your company, that firm becomes an integral part of your hiring team. They can provide you with access to top talent and critical job market information and they can also take over routine tasks that tie up your hiring team’s time – all of which can reduce time-to-hire.
Conclusion
In 2025, time-to-hire is increasing. But that increase is due to a complex combination of factors and does not point to an abundance of available talent. Instead, economic uncertainty has created a sense of caution as companies deliberate hiring strategies. But, the scarcity of tech and engineering talent makes this situation less than ideal. The longer your hiring process takes, the more likely you are to lose top candidates.
The solution is to focus on two strategies: structuring your hiring process for speed and alignment while also partnering with a specialized recruitment firm. By optimizing your internal process and leveraging external expertise, your company can mitigate the trend towards a lengthening time-to-hire and secure the top talent you need.
