How Long Does it Take to Hire a Good Employee?

When you’re hiring for a new position, you ideally want to get them on board as soon as possible, right?

Each day the role isn’t filled, the rest of your team is stretching thin to cover the gaps. Productivity dips. Deadlines pile up. And you’re missing out on the revenue the new employee could be bringing in.

Yet, the hiring process drags on—and before you know it, months have passed with no perfect candidate in sight.

But what if hiring didn’t have to take so long? At The Metiss Group, we’ve honed a hiring strategy that gets the right person in the right seat within one to two months.

In this article, we’ll identify the bottlenecks slowing down your hiring process and show you how The Hiring Process Coach™ avoids these common pitfalls. With a clear game plan, you’ll confidently recognize the right candidate — and secure them — before your competitors do.

How long it should take to hire a good employee

At The Metiss Group, our program, The Hiring Process Coach™ nails down the time it takes to hire a good employee in one or two months.

Here’s each step of that process:

• Define the role and ideal candidate: 5-6 hours
• Post the job and screen candidates: 2-3 weeks
• Assessment and interview process: 1-2 weeks

So with a buttoned-up hiring process, you could have your superstar on board in less than two months.

5 Factors that increase the time it takes to hire a good employee

Although you can hire a good employee in under two months, many hiring teams (who don’t follow this process) drag it out to three to six months. And sometimes, after six months have passed, their priorities have completely shifted. Which means they need to start over from scratch.

So if hiring can take under two months, why does it take many companies much longer to hire a good employee?

1. Lack of clarity around the job needs

A lack of clarity from the beginning will greatly increase the time it takes tohire a good employee.

Many hiring managers start with a generic job description, which is a long list of all the things the new employee will do. And the last line is always “Other duties as assigned.”

When you start the process like this, it’s difficult for you to understand what a superstar truly looks like. And it's also difficult for the superstar to see themselves in that role when they read the job posting.

Instead of using a generic job description, establish clarity by asking yourself: 

• What kinds of employees make me crazy?
• What kinds of employees do I absolutely love working with?
• What will success look like in this role?
• What would the ideal person look like to do this job?

Slowing down and focusing on this definition stage takes time, but it’ll dramatically accelerate your hiring process.

2. No availability from key interviewers

We frequently hear clients say, “I needed this person yesterday!”

But then when it’s time to interview candidates, the interviewers have full calendars for the next two weeks.

And let’s be clear: It’s not about having time. It’s about making time. An interview should only take about an hour.

Making availability is important for two reasons. Not only does it accelerate the hiring process, but it also keeps potential superstars interested. 

If a candidate hasn’t heard back from you for two weeks, but another potential company is moving them through the process and ready to make an offer, who do you think the candidate will favor more?

To address this, work with key interviewers to rearrange their priorities. Offer guidance on which meetings or tasks can be rescheduled. This will make room for interviews and keep the hiring process on track.

3. Hiring manager wants to wait and compare candidates

Let’s say the first person you interview is a superstar. No human is perfect, but they’re a great match in the hard and the soft skills.

But… they’re the first candidate you’ve seen. So you decide to wait and compare them to other candidates, just to make sure they’re really a superstar.

You spend the next three weeks interviewing others for the role, and they’re all total duds. Phew, now you can be totally sure that the first person was a superstar! Time to make an offer, right?

Except now that superstar has moved on. While you were waiting and comparing, another company made an offer.

If you wait and compare candidates, you risk starting from scratch when the first-round candidates move on. 

The good news is this: when you prioritize the definition phase in the beginning, you’ll recognize the superstar as soon as you see them. You won’t feel the need to wait and compare.

4. No one owns the hiring process

If your hiring process is “post and pray,” let us be the first to break it to you: you don’t have a hiring process.

An interview is not a process. An assessment is not a process. 

A hiring process is the sequence of steps that must be passed before a person gets hired. And someone needs to own and manage this process.

Here’s an example of a hiring process:

• Define the role and build a job scorecard
• Post the job description and reach out to network for referrals
• Screen candidates to review resume and pre-qualify for hard skills
• Send assessment to top candidates
• Interview with key stakeholders
• Reference check
• Send an offer

Many people underestimate the hiring process. They think they can post a job description, interview a candidate, and make a decision. And when no one owns it, you’ll spend a lot more time hiring a good candidate.

And hiring a superstar takes longer than hiring a warm body. There’s so much more to clarify. If we know that no one is perfect, you’ll need to figure out where they’ll need support. And you’ll need to take a good look in the mirror and ask, “Can I give that support?”

But don’t overdo it. Instead of gathering key stakeholders for one or two interviews, some hiring managers drag out this process one interview at a time, which could take weeks. And the candidate ends up repeating the same information multiple times.

Another way to keep things moving efficiently is to prepare candidates ahead of time for the reference stage. They can go ahead and begin rounding up colleagues and contact information, instead of waiting until right before you’re ready to make an offer.

5. Hiring team is indecisive

It’ll take a lot longer to hire a good candidate if your hiring team is indecisive.

And again, this goes back to getting it right in the definition phase. When you’re clear in the beginning, it’ll be much easier to make a decision later.

Sometimes we see hiring managers who are so indecisive that six months have passed, and now they’ve completely changed their minds about what they need. 

Remember — no human is perfect. So don’t wait for it. Hire for what you need, train for the rest.

Key takeaways on how long it takes to hire a good employee

While the hiring process can ideally take just one to two months, many companies experience a lack of clarity and indecision. This significantly lengthens the hiring process, which not only wastes company time and resources, but can also scare away good candidates.

To fast-track your hiring process, focus first on clarifying the role in the definition stage. From there, make sure the hiring team is available, decisive, and ready when they see a superstar.

At The Metiss Group, we guide businesses like yours to streamline the hiring process. You’ll bring on top talent in less time, saving you money and headaches.

Now that you understand how long it takes to hire a good candidate, now you need to learnthe cost of making a great hire.