Your recruiting team says they're drowning.
They're working nights and weekends. Reqs are sitting open for 60+ days. Hiring managers are complaining about slow progress. So you're considering hiring three more recruiters to handle the volume.
But before you add headcount, ask this question:
"Where is recruiting time actually going right now?"
We recently time-tracked recruiting activity across 20 companies and 200+ recruiters for two weeks. The results were shocking.
The average recruiter spends:
→ 52% of their time on administrative work (scheduling, follow-up, data entry)
→ 28% on sourcing and candidate engagement (the actual recruiting work)
→ 12% on hiring manager coordination and alignment
→ 8% on reporting, meetings, and other non-recruiting activities
Translation: Most recruiters spend half their time doing work that shouldn't require a recruiter at all.
That's not a capacity problem. That's a capacity allocation problem.
And it explains why adding more recruiters often doesn't fix recruiting speed or quality. You're scaling inefficiency.
Here's where recruiting time actually goes, what percentage it should be, and how to reclaim 10-15 hours per week per recruiter.
Your recruiting team isn't drowning because they're too small—they're spending half their time on work that shouldn't require a recruiter at all.We analyzed recruiting time allocation patterns using industry research on how recruiters spend their time, recruiting productivity metrics, and recruitment operations benchmarks. These sources tracked recruiting activity across multiple industries, company sizes, and recruiting team structures.
We also time-tracked two weeks of recruiting activity across multiple industries, company sizes, and recruiting team structures. Participants logged every task in 15-minute increments and categorized activities as:
Here's what we found:
What it includes:
The numbers are sorta bleak: 67% of recruiters say it takes 30 minutes to 2 hours to schedule a single interview. More striking: interview scheduling alone can account for 25-100 hours of coordination time for just 50 interviews.
And this isn't just an efficiency problem—it's a candidate experience problem. Research shows that 42% of candidates say they leave a process when interview scheduling takes too long.
Time spent per interview: 45-90 minutes on average
For a recruiter managing 20 reqs with 3 interviews per role: 30-40 hours per month just on scheduling
The problem: Interview coordination is necessary work, but it doesn't require a recruiter's expertise. It's perfect work for recruiting coordinators or scheduling automation. In fact, 33% of recruiters cite interview scheduling as a major barrier to productivity.
What good looks like:
Target time allocation: 5-10% of recruiter time
How to get there:
ROI calculation:
If interview coordination currently consumes 28% of a recruiter's time (roughly 11 hours per week), reclaiming that capacity is equivalent to adding 0.28 recruiters per person.
For a 10-person recruiting team: That's 2.8 full-time recruiters worth of capacity
Value: $280K-$350K in recruiting capacity you already paid for
What it includes:
Research shows that in-house recruiters spend almost two hours a day on administrative tasks—more than a full workday each week. Much of this time goes to ATS management and data entry that could be automated.
Time spent per candidate: 8-15 minutes on average
For a recruiter managing 200 active candidates: 27-50 hours per month on data entry
The problem: Most ATSs can automate 70%+ of this work, but recruiting teams don't configure automation or integrations because "we'll get to it later." Tracking conversion by stage and eliminating manual data entry are critical for recruiting efficiency.
What good looks like:
Target time allocation: 5% of recruiter time
How to get there:
ROI calculation:
Reclaiming 9% of recruiter time (14% current - 5% target) = 3.6 hours per week per recruiter
For a 10-person recruiting team: 36 hours per week = nearly 1 FTE of additional capacity
Cost to implement: $2K-$5K in training and integration setup (one-time cost)
What it includes:
Time spent per day: 60-90 minutes on average
The problem: Most of these emails shouldn't require manual intervention. They're predictable, repetitive, and perfect for automation. More importantly, the consequences of poor communication are severe: 64% of candidates who quit the hiring process do so due to poor communication, and 52% of job seekers decline offers because of poor communication during the process.
The long-term brand damage is worse: 70% of rejected candidates say they would not reapply after a negative experience, and 48% of rejected candidates say they do not know why they were rejected. Automated, consistent communication can dramatically improve these metrics.
What good looks like:
Target time allocation: 2-3% of recruiter time
How to get there:
ROI calculation:
Reclaiming 7-8% of recruiter time = 2.8-3.2 hours per week per recruiter
For a 10-person recruiting team: 28-32 hours per week
Cost to implement: Minimal (most ATSs include email automation)
What it includes:
Time spent per req: Highly variable (3-15 hours depending on hiring manager engagement)
The problem: Some of this work is legitimate hiring manager partnership. But much of it is rework caused by poor intake processes, lack of accountability, and treating recruiters as order-takers instead of partners.
Standardized intake processes and clear hiring manager expectations are critical for recruiting efficiency.
What good looks like:
Target time allocation: 15-20% of recruiter time (more is fine for strategic partnership work)
How to get there:
ROI calculation:
Better intake and accountability systems reduce time spent on hiring manager coordination by 20-30%
Savings: 2-3 hours per week per recruiter
Cost to implement: Internal time investment in training and process documentation
What it includes:
Time spent per week: 3-4 hours on average
The problem: Not all meetings are bad. But when you're already at capacity, every hour in meetings is an hour not recruiting.
What good looks like:
Target time allocation: 5-8% of recruiter time
How to get there:
ROI calculation:
Reducing meeting time by 1 hour per week per recruiter = 5% increase in recruiting capacity
For a 10-person recruiting team: 10 hours per week
Cost to implement: Free (requires discipline, not budget)
What it includes:
Time spent per week: 11-13 hours on average (out of 40 hours total)
The problem: This is the work that actually matters. The work that requires a recruiter's expertise. The work that produces quality hires.
And most recruiters spend less than 30% of their time doing it.
What good looks like:
Target time allocation: 50-60% of recruiter time
How to get there: Reclaim capacity from the first five categories. Every hour freed up from administrative work, scheduling, and unnecessary meetings is an hour that can go toward strategic recruiting.
The impact of getting from 28% to 50% recruiting time:
If a recruiter currently spends 11 hours per week on actual recruiting work, increasing to 50% time allocation = 20 hours per week. That's an 80% increase in recruiting capacity without adding headcount.
For a 10-person recruiting team: Equivalent to adding 8 additional recruiters
Value: $800K-$1M in recruiting capacity you already paid for
Current state (typical recruiting team):
Optimized state (with process fixes):
Net impact: 27 percentage points (roughly 11 hours per week) of additional recruiting capacity per person
For a 10-person recruiting team:
Cost to implement:
ROI: 2.1x in year one, higher in subsequent years
Want to know where your recruiting team's time is actually going? Here's how to run a two-week time audit:
Step 1: Create tracking categories
Step 2: Ask recruiters to log time in 15-30 minute blocks
Use a simple spreadsheet or time tracking tool. Track for two weeks (one week isn't enough to account for variability).
Step 3: Analyze the data
Additional guidance on metrics to track and analyzing conversion rates can help you understand which time investments produce the best results.
Step 4: Interview recruiters about pain points
Quantitative data tells you where time goes. Qualitative feedback tells you why.
Step 5: Prioritize fixes based on impact and feasibility
Low-hanging fruit: Automation, templates, calendar tools
Medium effort: Recruiting coordinators, ATS integrations, hiring manager training
High effort: Process redesign, organizational change management
Download our free TA Process Audit to identify recruiting process bottlenecks in 10 minutes — then use this time tracking framework to quantify the impact. [LINK TO CHECKLIST]
Here's the uncomfortable truth:
Most recruiting teams are sitting on 20-40% unused capacity.
Not because recruiters are lazy or inefficient. But because they're spending half their time on work that shouldn't require a recruiter at all.
You've already paid for that capacity. You just haven't unlocked it.
The three highest-impact fixes:
1. Hire recruiting coordinators (or outsource interview coordination)
Cost: $50K-$65K per coordinator
Impact: Frees up 15-20% of recruiter capacity
ROI: Each coordinator enables 2-3 recruiters to focus on actual recruiting
2. Implement scheduling automation
Cost: $3K-$12K annually
Impact: Eliminates 10-15 hours per week of calendar Tetris
ROI: Pays for itself in 2-3 weeks
3. Create standardized intake process with hiring manager SLAs
Cost: Internal time investment (no budget required)
Impact: Reduces time spent clarifying requirements, chasing feedback, managing rework
ROI: 5-10% capacity gains, plus better candidate experience and faster time-to-fill
Combined impact: 30-40% increase in recruiting capacity without adding recruiting headcount
For a 10-person recruiting team, that's the equivalent of adding 3-4 recruiters — except you've already paid for them.
If you suspect your recruiting team is spending too much time on administrative work instead of actual recruiting:
Option 1: Run a time audit
Track recruiting activity for two weeks, analyze where time is actually going, and quantify the opportunity.
Option 2: Download our free TA Process Audit
Our 15-question diagnostic includes questions about recruiter time allocation, capacity bottlenecks, and process efficiency. You'll know within 10 minutes whether you have a capacity allocation problem. [LINK TO CHECKLIST]
Option 3: Bring in flexible recruiting support while you fix processes
If your team is underwater and doesn't have capacity to both execute recruiting AND fix broken processes, consider on-demand recruiting support.
IQTalent provides flexible recruiting capacity on an hourly basis ($120/hour for recruiting, $80/hour for sourcing) with no long-term contracts. We can handle execution while your internal team focuses on process redesign, or we can augment capacity for surge hiring while you implement recruiting operations improvements.
Schedule a free 30-minute consultation to discuss your recruiting capacity challenges.
Your recruiting team isn't drowning because they're too small. They're drowning because they're spending half their time on work that shouldn't require a recruiter. Before you hire more recruiters:
You'll reclaim 20-40% of existing capacity, which might be all the "additional headcount" you need.