How Long It Takes to Recruit (And Why)

Hiring someone can take a while. If you've ever felt like recruitment drags on longer than it should, you're not imagining it.

According to recent UK data, the average time to hire is around 4–6 weeks and that’s for straightforward roles. Senior, specialist, or niche hires can take up to 12 weeks or more. In that time, your team’s under pressure, projects get delayed, and the cost of waiting quietly stacks up.

So, what’s slowing everything down—and what can you do to speed it up?

⏱️ Why Recruitment Takes So Long

1. Unclear Job Briefs

If the hiring manager isn’t aligned with HR or there’s no clear picture of the role, it leads to messy job ads, mismatched applicants, and wasted time.

2. Poor Job Ad Performance

Let’s be honest, most job adverts are bland, recycled, or too vague. If your ad isn’t pulling in qualified people, you’ll spend weeks filtering through noise (or refreshing the listing altogether).

3. Slow Internal Processes

Endless approval loops, interview delays, and inconsistent feedback all add days or weeks. Meanwhile, great candidates either ghost or take other offers.

4. Over-Reliance on Recruiters

Agencies can help, but they also create lag, especially when they don’t fully understand your business. If you're briefing the same role multiple times to different people, you're doubling the effort, not cutting time.

🧠 A Smarter Way to Hire, Faster

Here’s where Better Job Adverts changes the game. We strip away the clutter and give you a streamlined, effective way to attract the right candidates quickly, without handing over 20% of their salary to a third party.

✅ We Write Job Ads That Actually Work

No more generic listings. Our copy is crafted to attract serious applicants from the start, so you're not waiting for quality CVs to trickle in.

✅ We Post Where It Matters

Your ad goes live on high-performing job boards like CV-Library, Indeed, Reed, and LinkedIn. No guesswork, just reach.

✅ We Save You Time

We handle the copy, posting, candidate delivery, and even pre-screening (depending on your package). The result? You're reviewing legit applicants within days, not weeks.

✅ We’re Fixed-Fee

No dragging out the process for a higher fee. No bloated commissions. Just clear pricing that lets you budget confidently and move faster.

🚀 How Fast Could You Actually Hire?

Here’s what a typical Better Job Adverts timeline looks like:

• Day 1: You brief us.

• Day 2–3: We send you a professionally written job ad for approval.

• Day 4: The ad goes live across top job boards.

• Day 5–10: CVs start landing in your inbox.

• Week 2–3: You’re interviewing the right people.

• Week 4: You’ve made an offer.

  
  

Compare that to 6+ weeks of sifting through low-quality applications or chasing agencies, and the difference is pretty clear.

Final Thought

Hiring fast doesn’t mean cutting corners, it means cutting friction. If you want to move faster and hire smarter without blowing the budget, Better Job Adverts is here to help.

You focus on who to hire. We’ll make sure they actually apply.