If your open position is taking longer than 40 days on average to fill, you might want to consider changing your hiring strategy. According to the latest Recruiting Benchmark Report, collected by Jobvite, the average time-to-hire (in days) across all industries has been slowly declining in the last few years with 2017 being the lowest at 38 days.

The report is rich. We read it from start to finish so you don’t have to. Here are the main takeaways:

1. There are less applicants overall

Yes, you read that right. There has been a decline in the number of applicants per Open Requisition. Jobvite reports a decline of 64% in the number of applicants since 2015. That could mean a lot of things for your business. This could mean we have a stronger economy on our hands where the number of people looking for a job is declining. 

2. More offers are being given out from interviews

This is perhaps the most interesting part of the report. It has a lot of implications for recruiters. The Interviews to Offers metric has gone up by 9% since last year. That could imply a few things but the most reasonable assumption is that recruiting technology of the last couple of years is actually succeeding in getting qualified candidates in front of recruiters. The screening process is much more effective that way. This is a positive trend that we’re definitely watching into 2018.

3. More offers are getting accepted

This is yet another interesting bit that we’ve taken away from the report. It is probably also due to the effects of better screening. On a fundamental level, the report hints that the industry is doing a much better job overall at matching candidates with jobs.

Conclusion

This report also sheds a lot of light on larger trends happening in the recruiting industry overall. More and more companies are relying on big ATS names, even though we have quite a few entrants into the space.

The rise of sourcing tools is definitely implied in this report even though it might not have a strong front-of-house presence. That could explain why screening is getting better and why better candidates are making their way to the recruiters. The bottom line: 2017 was a great year for hiring. We’re optimistic about the trend continuing into 2018.