Interview process now averages 22 days: Report

Was 12 days in 2010 but Canada has shorter hiring time than U.S., U.K.

On average, it now takes a job candidate 22 days to go through the interview process in Canada, compared to 12 days in 2010, according to Glassdoor Research.

However, Canada has a shorter hiring time when compared to the United States (22.9 days), Australia (27.9 days), the United Kingdom (28.6 days), Germany (28.8 days) and France (31.9 days).

For employers with 10 to 49 employees, candidates experienced a hiring process that took between 15.2 and 16.9 days across the U.S., Canada and the U.K. For comparison, for employers with more than 100,000 employees, candidates experienced a hiring process that took between 23.0 and 36.1 days across these three countries.

The report, Why is Hiring Taking Longer?, spans six countries and presents a statistical analysis of trends in hiring times based on interview reviews from job candidates who shared their experiences on Glassdoor (with roughly 14,600 job interview reviews posted by Canadian job seekers).

It evaluated four key areas: average hiring process in the past year, changes over time, factors that have contributed to delays, and why changes occurred. In addition to differences by country, the study looked at these four areas by company size, job title, metro location and sector.

After controlling for economic factors that changed during this period, including the mix of industries, jobs and geographic areas, the interview duration has grown, on average, between 3.3 to 3.7 days since 2010, said Glassdoor.

Jobs that take the longest to for candidates to go through the hiring process were typically government, academic or senior executive positions. In the U.S., police officers report the longest process (127.6 days), followed by patent examiners (87.6 days), assistant professors (58.7 days), senior vice-presidents (55.5 days) and program analysts (51.8 days).

The shortest process is typically found among more routine, lower-skill job titles, said Glassdoor. The shortest hiring times were for entry level marketing jobs (3.9 days), followed by entry level sales (5.4 days), servers and bartenders (5.7 days), entry level account managers (5.9 days), and dishwashers (6.9 days).

So why is the process taking longer? Candidate screening processes are one big reason, according to the report. For example, in the U.S., candidates reporting employee background checks have grown from 25 per cent in 2010 to 42 per cent in 2014; skills tests have grown from 16 per cent in 2010 to 23 per cent in 2014; drug tests have grown from 13 per cent in 2010 to 23 per cent in 2014; and personality tests have grown from 12 per cent in 2010 to 18 per cent in 2014.

Latest stories