Benchmarks
How long does it take to fill a role in Ireland? Our own data
Across the eight Irish vacancies we publish as case studies, the median time to fill was 53 days from brief to close, ranging from 20 days to 137. Dublin roles had a median of 41 days against 67.5 for roles in Galway and Cork — not because regional employers are slower, but because the commutable pool for a site-based role outside Dublin is genuinely smaller. Plan an Irish hire around eight weeks plus notice, and longer for a specialist role outside the capital.
The figures
These come from eight vacancies we were instructed on in Ireland, worked, and closed as filled. The clock runs from the day the vacancy opened with us to the day it closed — it includes the employer's own interview and offer stages.
| Measure | Days |
|---|---|
| Fastest role | 20 |
| Median — the typical role | 53 |
| Slowest role | 137 |
Eight roles is a small set and we are not going to present it as a national benchmark. It is our own record, published so an Irish employer can plan against something real rather than a number from a UK survey.
Dublin against the regions
This is the split that matters when you are planning:
| Where | Roles | Median days |
|---|---|---|
| Dublin | 4 | 41 |
| Galway and Cork | 4 | 67.5 |
The instinct is to read that as regional employers moving slower. It is not what we see. It is the size of the pool within a realistic commute.
A Dublin role draws from a dense, mobile labour market where a 40-minute commute covers hundreds of thousands of people. A site-based role in Co. Galway on an evening shift draws from the towns within about half an hour of the gate. Same brief, same effort, a fraction of the population — and it shows up as weeks.
Two consequences follow:
- Outside Dublin, the salary has to acknowledge the pool. If there are 40 people who can do the job within commuting distance, you are not competing on convenience, you are competing on money and conditions.
- Remote and hybrid change the maths entirely. The moment a role is genuinely remote it competes in the Dublin market wherever the employer sits — for pay as well as for candidates.
What the pipeline looks like
Across the same eight roles: 322 candidates sourced and screened, 51 presented, 33 client interviews, 9 hires.
| Stage | Candidates |
|---|---|
| Sourced & screened | 322 |
| Internal interview | 121 |
| Presented to client | 51 |
| Client interview | 33 |
| Hired | 9 |
For a typical Irish role that means about 30 candidates worked and 6 presented to make one hire. Only 16% of everyone sourced was worth presenting, and about 27% of client interviews ended in a hire — so plan on interviewing three or four people, not one.
What actually moves the timeline
The size of the commutable pool. Established above, and it is the dominant factor in this dataset.
How quickly you give feedback. Ireland is a smaller market and word travels. A strong candidate in Galway is usually in two or three processes, and the employer who comes back inside two days wins by default.
Whether the role is a title or a description. Our 89-day Graduate/Junior Quantity Surveyor search in Co. Cork was not hard because QS work is rare — it was hard because the combination of level, location and sector narrowed it to a handful of people.
The notice period. Easy to forget when planning. One month is common in Ireland and longer at senior level, so a 53-day search still means roughly three months from brief to someone at a desk.
Planning a hire backwards
If you need someone productive by a given date, work back:
- Dublin, standard role: about 6 weeks to offer, plus notice.
- Outside Dublin, or specialist: about 10 weeks to offer, plus notice.
- Either, plus a slow interview process: add whatever your feedback lag is, twice.
And if the role has already been live for a month with nothing worth interviewing, the market has answered — that is the point to change the salary, the location requirement or the approach, not to repost.
What we would tell an employer before starting
Three things decide whether an Irish search runs to the short end of that range or the long one, and two of them are yours.
Be honest about the commute. The single most useful sentence in a regional brief is the real answer to "where would this person realistically live?" If the honest answer is a handful of towns, we plan a direct search from the start rather than spending three weeks proving an advert cannot reach people who are not there.
Block the interview slots before the advert goes live. Not a promise to find time — actual slots in a diary. Our slowest searches almost all share the same shape: candidates presented quickly, then a fortnight of scheduling, then a candidate who has accepted something else.
Decide what is genuinely essential. In a pool of forty people, one unnecessary "essential" can remove a third of them. Five essentials is a role; a dozen is a wish, and in a market this size the wish costs months.
The part that is ours is the search itself — and on a flat fee, a role that takes 137 days costs the same as one that takes 20.
Frequently asked questions
How long does it take to hire someone in Ireland?
On our own filled Irish vacancies the median was 53 days from brief to close, with a range of 20 to 137 days. Add the notice period on top — one month is common in Ireland, and longer for senior roles.
Is hiring slower in Dublin or outside it?
Faster in Dublin, on our numbers. Dublin roles had a median of 41 days against 67.5 for roles in Galway and Cork. The constraint outside Dublin is the size of the commutable pool for a site-based role, not employer speed.
Why do some Irish roles take three months or more?
Almost always a small pool plus a location that cannot be commuted to. Our longest search, a Food Production Line Leader on an evening shift in Co. Galway, took 137 days and 119 candidates worked to make two hires.
Does a fixed fee slow an Irish search down?
No. The fastest role in this set closed in 20 days on the same flat fee as the 137-day one. On a fixed fee the cost of a long search sits with us, not with you.
Want the fixed price for your role?
Advertise it yourself across Ireland's major job boards from €499, or hand the whole search to a dedicated recruiter with Guaranteed Hire — a flat fee by salary band with a 100% refund if the role is not filled. No VAT is added for Irish businesses.
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Or call (01) 575 5347.