A precision components manufacturer approached us with a familiar problem: technical and supervisory roles were taking an average of 58 days to fill, and delayed hiring was directly slowing a planned production line expansion.
Where the delays were actually coming from
Diagnosis mattered more than volume of sourcing. The real bottleneck wasn't a shortage of candidates — it was scheduling delays between shortlist and first interview, often stretching past two weeks due to fragmented internal calendars.
What changed
- A dedicated recruiter coordinated interview scheduling directly with department heads, removing a slow internal handoff
- Shortlists were pre-screened against a sharper role brief, reducing first-round rejection rates
- A standing weekly pipeline review replaced ad hoc status check-ins
The result
Average time-to-hire dropped from 58 days to 35 days across the engagement — a 40% reduction — without lowering the bar on candidate quality. Offer-acceptance rates also improved slightly, likely due to the faster, more responsive process itself.
If your hiring process has a similar hidden bottleneck, a recruitment audit as part of our HR consulting service can usually surface it within a week.