This article is for administrators.
The Average Days to Pursue metric on the Recruiting Analytics dashboard shows how long candidates stay in each hiring step before moving to the next step in the hiring process. This can help reveal internal process efficiency (or bottlenecks), so you can protect candidate engagement.
Review Candidate Timing Example
Note: Based on your hiring stages, you may see additional steps like schedule a recruiter screen or recruiter screen scheduled or background checks. Only Paycor’s default stages will be visible. If you have created customer hiring stages, those will not be visible as stages but will contribute to the whole average to hire number of days.
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New Candidate: Measures time spent as a newly added applicant, where action hasn’t yet been taken. This stage ends when the candidate is moved into a new, active hiring stage.
- In the above example, on average, it takes 2.3 days to move a new candidate from the Job Seeker stage to an evaluation stage.
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Schedule a Recruiter Screen: Measures the time spent in the Recruiter Screen stage, in the Schedule status. This means you’re working to coordinate the meeting, but it is not yet saved with a future date and time. This stage ends when the Recruiter Screen is saved with a date and time or the candidate moves to a new stage.
- This stage is not reflected in the example above. Not all teams use the Recruiter Screen stage.
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Recruiter Screen Scheduled: Measures the time spent in the Recruiter Screen stage, in the Scheduled status. This means the meeting is saved with a future date and time. This stage ends when the candidate moves to a new stage.
- This stage is not reflected in the example above. Not all teams use the Recruiter Screen stage.
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Review Requests: Measures the time it takes for additional reviewers to make a decision about the candidate. This stage ends when the candidate is moved forward, out of the Review stage.
- In the above example, it takes an average of 0.2 days for a hiring manager to review a forwarded candidate and move them to a new hiring stage.
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Schedule a Phone Screen: Measures the time spent in the Phone Screen stage, in the Schedule status. This means you’re working to coordinate the meeting, but it’s not yet saved with a future date and time. This stage ends when the Phone Screen is saved with a date and time or the candidate moves to a new stage.
- In the above example, it takes an average of 3.5 days to coordinate the details and schedule a phone screen with a candidate.
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Phone Screen Scheduled: Measures the time spent in the Phone Screen stage, in the Scheduled status. This means the meeting is saved with a future date and time. This stage ends when the candidate moves to a new stage.
- In the above example, it takes an average of 13.3 days to conduct the scheduled phone screen and move the candidate to the next hiring stage.
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Schedule an Interview: Measures the time spent in the Interview stage, in the Schedule status. This means you’re working to coordinate the meeting, but it is not yet saved with a future date and time. This stage ends when the Interview is saved with a date and time or the candidate moves to a new stage.
- In the above example, it takes an average of 1.7 days to coordinate the details and schedule an interview with a candidate.
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Interview Scheduled: Measures the time spent in the Interview stage, in the Scheduled status. This means the meeting is saved with a future date and time. This stage ends when the candidate moves to a new stage.
- In the above example, it takes an average of 7.2 days to conduct the scheduled interview and move the candidate to the next hiring stage.
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Background Checks: Measures the time spent in the Background check stage. This stage ends when the candidate moves to a new stage.
- This stage is not reflected in the example above. Not all teams use the Background Check stage.
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Offers: Measures the average time across every candidate who reaches the Offer stage, measured from the time the applicant was added to the platform. This does not measure the time spent in the Offer stage, but the time it takes to get to the Offer stage.
- In the above example, it takes an average of 5.5 days from the time a candidate applies to the time they’re in the offer stage.
- Since this average is significantly less than the time it takes to conduct phone screens and interviews, it suggests that a number of candidates were fast-tracked to the offer stage.
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Average to Hire: Measures the average time across every candidate that is hired, from the time the applicant was added to the platform to the time the candidate was hired.
- In the above example, it takes an average of 16.9 days from the time a candidate applies until the candidate is hired.
- This metric can vary significantly by job type. Positions with higher pay or specialized skill requirements may take longer to fill.
Notes
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The Offers and Average to Hire sections show the average number of days from the candidate's application date until the candidate reaches that stage.
- In the above example, it appears that stages are being skipped and candidates are being fast-tracked into the Offer stage, lowering this average.
- Sometimes, these averages may look unusually large. In those cases one or more old outliers may significantly skew the average.
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Select the link at the bottom of each stage to identify jobs that take longer than expected and may affect your metrics. This can help you determine if there are outliers that are significantly impacting the overall number of days or if it’s a true representation of the average.
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To review data by department, location, or user, select the Data Set link.
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Paycor does not include the following in the averages:
- Inactivated candidates
- Back Burner candidates
- Reschedules or repeated stages (rounds)
- Deleted candidates
- Candidates will not appear in the Average Days to Pursue Candidates until they have moved forward into an active stage. If they are sitting in the Job Seeker area, they won’t be counted.
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A tile reading N/A means that there are zero qualifying candidates moved forward out of that status during the selected date range. There’s no data to average.
- It does not mean zero days.
- A tile reading 0.1 means that the average time in the stage was less than 2.3 hours (.095 days).
- An arithmetic mean, not a media is used to calculate the average. This means that a small number of outliers or special circumstances can significantly impact the average.
- Days are calendar days, not business days. Weekends and holidays are included.
- If multiple companies/clients are selected in the company chooser, the totals are combined across all selected companies. The average is pooled, not specific to each company.
Frequently asked questions
Why does a step show “N/A” instead of a number?
There were no candidates that moved out of that specific status during the selected date range/filters.
Why is “Average to Hire” so much bigger than the other numbers?
It measures the entire candidate journey, from the time the candidate applied to the day they were hired, not just the time in a single step.
Are rejected or backburner candidates included?
No. Rejected, withdrawn, paused, and backward-cycled candidates aren’t included in these metrics.
Are weekends counted?
Yes. These metrics use calendar days, not business days.
Updated: September 22nd, 2026 4966 views 0 likes
*This content is for educational purposes only, is not intended to provide specific legal advice, and should not be used as a substitute for the legal advice of a qualified attorney or other professional. The information may not reflect the most current legal developments, may be changed without notice and is not guaranteed to be complete, correct, or up-to-date.