To benchmark the success of both internal and external recruiting efforts, “Time to Hire” (TTH) tends to be the metric of choice. TTH reflects the total time required to staff an open position. That said, determining TTH varies between organizations dramatically. Where do you plant the flag? At the beginning, when the requisition is approved? Or how about when a recruiter has been assigned to the opening? Where it really gets to be confusing is that some HR professionals collapse “Time to Fill” (TTF), which is when the candidate accepts the offer and “Time to Start,” which means the new hire’s first day, into TTH.

According to a SHRM survey, 50% of staffing professionals do not make a clear distinction between “Time to Fill” (TTF) and “Time to Start” (TTS). Given the significant difference between the two concepts, a company is incapable of accurately tracking the efficiency of its hiring funnel when these concepts are collapsed or when different team members are reporting against different metrics.

To put the issue in perspective, imagine trying to determine the efficacy of a new product. If the key value proposition for the product is to streamline recruiting efficiency, how will you be able to gauge success?

The issue of TTH calls forth the need for organizations to clearly define terms and benchmarks at the beginning of new product evaluation. The subtleties underlying time-to-hire metrics can make or break new product adoption. By choosing to ignore these subtleties, a company may falsely attribute success or failure to a new product and inadvertently hobble future performance. By simply making the effort to clearly define metrics at the onset of new technology evaluation, organizations will achieve far better intelligence into the ultimate deployment of the technology. Did it live up to its promises of greater efficiency? To answer that question, you better have all your recruiters reporting back TTH under same definition.