Has the time to fill metrics genuinely improved over the years?
I think back to my days as a recruiter, you filled jobs by posting adverts. That was 15 years ago. The saying was: “Post and pray” because you never knew what would come back.
The average time to fill a role, as we advised the business, was 30 days.
Even then, time to fill had flexibility because of the ‘war on talent’. It was challenging to fill roles faster. Skilled people. The ‘right’ talent. When we needed to fill positions faster than usual, we would engage a 3rd party recruiting agency to assist. However, that was costly.
- So, even with the proper sourcing tools in hand – the business just needed to wait. Here were the reasons that recruiters gave for not delivering quickly:
- We’ve had a really low response rate
The calibre of applications aren’t quite right
Our salaries aren’t fitting with what is the average time to fill a position in the market demands.
Sound familiar?
Reasons, and perhaps excuses. And the business just had to wait.
Fast forward 15 years, and from my observations, we are still seeing similar time to fill metrics.
According to Job Vite – average time to fill a position remains anywhere between 25 (retail) or 48 (hospitality) days (when I read this, I nearly fell off my chair!). This is surprising since technology has come such a long way since then.
Why are hiring managers waiting this long for these high-volume skills? And the wait will undoubtedly be increased due to the volumes of applications – thanks to C-19. What is the cost associated with waiting? A straightforward formula I found published by Hudson (for non-revenue generating employees) is:
(Total Company Annual Revenue) ÷ (Number of Employees) ÷ 365 = Daily Lost Revenue
Here’s a working example. Let’s take a retailer. They generate 2.9 billion in revenues and have 11,000 employees. This means that their daily lost revenue PER vacant position is $722.
If it takes 25 days to fill this position, then it costs the business $18,057 in lost revenue. The time it is taking to fill roles is costing the business too much. Speed is of the essence.
Volume recruiting and time-to-fill considerations:
I’ve observed talent teams who recruit in high volume scenarios, grappling with time to fill metrics; spending hours screening thousands of CV’s – with inherent biases creeping in by the 13th CV. Then fatigue sets in. And by the 135th CV, unconscious biases have turned into bold conscious judgments:
- Their CV is not long enough – “reject”
- Their CV is too short – “reject”
- The layout of their CV wasn’t professional enough – “reject”
- Don’t put education at the back, have it at the front – “reject”
- They are not descriptive enough – “reject”
- They do not have enough retail experience – “reject”. And what even is this arbitrary average time to fill a position based on years of experience? If you have hit the two-year mark within a profession, how does that automatically make you qualified?
In the context of volume recruiting, keeping your process consistent and aiming to fill roles faster is a challenge. The quality of the screening process diminishes as the average time to fill increases.
If it takes 6 seconds to review a CV, that’s 1.6 hours to get through 1000, impacting your time to fill metrics.
Then there is the phone screen. If you only took 30 into this stage and spoke to them for 10 minutes each, then it will take the recruiter five hours.
And time to fill is not concentrated nor time-bound to one session – it elapses. You aren’t sitting for 1.6 hours at a time nor can you schedule back-to-back phone screens, so the realistic time to fill frame for this is about a week.
From there, it’s coordinating Hiring Manager interviews, conducting their interviews, getting feedback, making decisions, giving offers, taking reference checks, and finalizing compliance steps to fill positions faster. This is where you question, “what is the average time to fill a position?” as it ends up being a long and drawn-out process.
By automating the first pre-screening steps recruiters can seriously slash the time it takes to fill.
Plus they can drive a far better process. How? By getting a trustworthy understanding of the candidate and their personality modelled against the organisations’ success DNA (the “Success DNA” is the profile of what success looks like in your organisation).
When candidates apply their first step is an automated interview.
It takes 15-20 minutes to complete, and all candidates receive a personality assessment based on what they wrote (which they love).
Personality can be deduced from the text that candidates write (scientifically proven) and then there is also the feedback from thousands of candidates talking to the accuracy of these personality assessments.
Here’s a tiny sample of all the feedback >>
What took weeks to get to the interview stage can now be done in minutes following an application.
For Talent Acquisition to build its credibility in the business, it needs to demonstrate its impact on the bottom line and provide tangible solutions to address this need for speed. Tools like Sapia can help with solving for these speed and cost challenges, and the benefits of providing a consistent, bias-free candidate experience are just the icing on the cake.
Join the movement
To keep up to date on all things “Hiring with Ai” subscribe to our blog!
You can try out Sapia’s FirstInterview right now, or leave us your details here to get a personalised demo.
Related
Blog
Mirrored diversity: why retail teams should look like their customers
Walk into any store this festive season and you’ll see it instantly. The lights, the displays, the products are all crafted to draw people in. Retailers spend millions on campaigns to bring customers through the door.
But the real moment of truth isn’t the emotional TV ad, or the shimmering window display. It’s the human standing behind the counter. That person is the brand.
The missing link in retail hiring
Most retailers know this, yet their hiring processes tell a different story. Candidates are often screened by rigid CV reviews or psychometric tests that force them into boxes. Neurodiverse candidates, career changers, and people from different cultural or educational backgrounds are often the ones who fall through the cracks.
And yet, these are the very people who may best understand your customers. If your store colleagues don’t reflect the diversity of the communities you serve, you create distance where there should be connection. You lose loyalty. You lose growth.
We call this gap the diversity mirror.
What mirrored diversity looks like
When retailers achieve mirrored diversity, their teams look like their customers:
- A grocery store team that reflects the cultural mix of its neighbourhood.
- A fashion store with colleagues who understand both style and accessibility.
- A beauty retailer whose teams reflect every skin tone, gender, and background that walks through the door.
Customers buy where they feel seen – making this a commercial imperative.
How to recruit seasonal employees with mirrored diversity
The challenge for HR leaders is that most hiring systems are biased by design. CVs privilege pedigree over potential. Multiple-choice tests reduce people to stereotypes. And rushed festive hiring campaigns only compound the problem.
That’s where Sapia.ai changes the equation: Every candidate is interviewed automatically, fairly, and in their own words.
- Bias is measured and monitored using Sapia.ai’s FAIR™ framework.
- Outcomes are validated at scale: 7+ million candidates, 52 countries, average candidate satisfaction 9.2/10.
- Diversity can be measured: with the Diversity Dashboard, you can track DEI capture rates, candidate engagement, and diversity hiring outcomes across every stage of the funnel.
With the right HR hiring tools, mirrored diversity becomes a data point you can track, prove, and deliver on. It’s no longer just a slogan.
Retail recruiting strategies in action: the David Jones example
David Jones, Australia’s premium department store, put this into practice:
- 40,000 festive applicants screened automatically
- 80% of final hires recommended by Sapia.ai
- Recruiters freed up 4,000 hours in screening time
- Candidate experience rated 9.1/10
The result? Store teams that belong with the brand and reflect the customers they serve.
Read the David Jones Case Study here 👇
Recruiting ideas for retail leaders this festive season
As you prepare for festive hiring in the UK and Europe, ask yourself:
- How much will you spend on marketing this Christmas?
- And how much will you invest in ensuring the colleagues who deliver that brand promise reflect the people you want in your stores?
Because when your colleagues mirror your customers, you achieve growth, and by design, you’ll achieve inclusion.
See how Sapia.ai can help you achieve mirrored diversity this festive season. Book a demo with our team here.
FAQs on retail recruitment and mirrored diversity
What is mirrored diversity in retail?
Mirrored diversity means that store teams reflect the diversity of their customer base, helping create stronger connections and loyalty.
Why is diversity important in seasonal retail hiring?
Seasonal employees often provide the first impression of a brand. Inclusive teams make customers feel seen, improving both experience and sales.
How can retailers improve their hiring strategies?
Adopting tools like AI structured interviews, bias monitoring, and data dashboards helps retailers hire fairly, reduce screening time, and build more diverse teams.
Blog
The Diversity Dashboard: Proving your DEI strategy is working
Why measuring diversity matters
Organisations invest heavily in their employer brand, career sites, and EVP campaigns, especially to attract underrepresented talent. But without the right data, it’s impossible to know if that investment is paying off.
Representation often varies across functions, locations, and stages of the hiring process. Blind spots allow bias to creep in, meaning underrepresented groups may drop out long before offer.
Collecting demographic data is only step one. Turning it into insight you can act on is where real change and better hiring outcomes happen.
What is the Diversity Dashboard?
The Diversity Dashboard in Discover Insights, Sapia.ai’s analytics tool, gives you real-time visibility into representation, inclusion, and fairness at every stage of your talent funnel. It helps you connect the dots between your attraction strategies and actual hiring outcomes.
Key features include:
- Demographic filters – Switch between gender, ethnicity, English as an additional language, First Nations status, disability, and veteran status. View age and ethnicity in standard or alternative formats to match regional reporting needs.
- Representation highlights – Identify the top five represented sub-groups for each demographic, plus the three fastest-growing among underrepresented groups.
- Track trends over time – See month-by-month changes in representation over the past 12 months, compare to earlier periods, and connect the data back to your EVP and attraction spend.
- Candidate experience metrics – Measure CSAT (satisfaction) and engagement rates by demographic to ensure your hiring process works for everyone. Inclusion is measurable.
- Hiring fairness – Compare representation in your applied, recommended, and hired pools to spot drop-offs. Understand not just who applies, but who progresses — and why.
From insight to action
With the Diversity Dashboard, you can pinpoint where inclusion is thriving and where it’s falling short.
- See if your EASL candidates are applying in high numbers but not progressing to live interview.
- Spot if candidates with a disability report high satisfaction but have lower offer rates.
- Track the impact of targeted campaigns month-by-month and adjust quickly when something isn’t working.
It’s also a powerful tool to tell your success story. Celebrate wins by showing which underrepresented groups are making the biggest gains, and share that progress with boards, executives, and regulators.
Built on science, backed by trust
Powered by explainable AI and the world’s largest structured interview dataset, your insights are fair, auditable, and evidence-based.
Measuring diversity is the first step. Using that data to take action is where you close the Diversity Gap. With the Diversity Dashboard, you can prove your strategy is working and make the changes where it isn’t.
Book a demo to see the Diversity Dashboard in action.
Blog
Neuroinclusion by design. Not by exception.
Why neuroinclusion can’t be a retrofit and how Sapia.ai is building a better experience for every candidate.
In the past, if you were neurodivergent and applying for a job, you were often asked to disclose your diagnosis to get a basic accommodation – extra time on a test, maybe the option to skip a task. That disclosure often came with risk: of judgment, of stigma, or just being seen as different.
This wasn’t inclusion. It was bureaucracy. And it made neurodiverse candidates carry the burden of fitting in.
We’ve come a long way, but we’re not there yet.
Shifting from retrofits to inclusive-by-design
Over the last two decades, hiring practices have slowly moved away from reactive accommodations toward proactive, human-centric design. Leading employers began experimenting with:
- Sharing interview questions in advance
- Replacing group exercises with structured simulations
- Offering a variety of assessment formats
- Co-designing assessments with neurodiverse candidates
But even these advances have often been limited in scope, applied to special hiring programs or specific roles. Neurodiverse talent still encounters systems built for neurotypical profiles, with limited flexibility and a heavy dose of social performance pressure.
Hiring needs to look different.
Insight 1: The next frontier of hiring equity is universal design
Truly inclusive hiring doesn’t rely on diagnosis or disclosure. It doesn’t just give a select few special treatment. It’s about removing friction for everyone, especially those who’ve historically been excluded.
That’s why Sapia.ai was built with universal design principles from day one.
Here’s what that looks like in practice:
- No time limits — Candidates answer at their own pace
- No pressure to perform — It’s a conversation, not a spotlight
- No video, no group tasks — Just structured, 1:1 chat-based interviews
- Built-in coaching — Everyone gets personalised feedback
It’s not a workaround. It’s a rework.
Insight 2: Not all “friendly” methods are inclusive
We tend to assume that social or “casual” interview formats make people comfortable. But for many neurodiverse individuals, icebreakers, group exercises, and informal chats are the problem, not the solution.
When we asked 6,000 neurodiverse candidates about their experience using Sapia.ai’s chat-based interview, they told us:
“It felt very 1:1 and trustworthy… I had time to fully think about my answers.”
“It was less anxiety-inducing than video interviews.”
“I like that all applicants get initial interviews which ensures an unbiased and fair way to weigh-up candidates.”
Insight 3: Prediction ≠ Inclusion
Some AI systems claim to infer skills or fit from resumes or behavioural data. But if the training data is biased or the experience itself is exclusionary, you’re just replicating the same inequity with more speed and scale.
Inclusion means seeing people for who they are, not who they resemble in your data set.
At Sapia.ai, every interaction is transparent, explainable, and scientifically validated. We use structured, fair assessments that work for all brains, not just neurotypical ones.
Where to from here?
Neurodiversity is rising in both awareness and representation. However, inclusion won’t scale unless the systems behind hiring change as well.
That’s why we built a platform that:
- Doesn’t rely on disclosure
- Removes ambiguity and pressure
- Creates space for everyone to shine
- Measures what matters, fairly
Sapia.ai is already powering inclusive, structured, and scalable hiring for global employers like BT Group, Costa Coffee and Concentrix. Want to see how your hiring process can be more inclusive for neurodivergent individuals? Let’s chat.