Hiring Managers Are Considering This Overlooked Metric

Hiring managers pick their favorite candidates by looking at their resumes and cover letters, identifying years of experience, academic degrees and skills. However, there is another metric they look for, whether they consciously register it or not: how quickly job-seekers reply to messages. 

In new research published in the journal Management Science, researchers analyzed over 11 million transactions on Fiverr, an online freelance marketplace that connects businesses and individuals with freelancers offering services. Freelancers advertise their services, like design, writing, programming and marketing, and businesses reach out depending on their needs. 

The researchers found a correlation between how quickly a job-seeker responded to an employer’s initial inquiry and the employer’s ultimate hiring decision. For example, when recruiters delayed their response by one hour, they reduced a candidate’s chances of being hired by 46% on average. When freelancers waited 24 hours or more to respond, they made themselves 90% less likely to win the job than competitors who replied immediately.

Further evidence shows that response speed is a powerful indicator of whether or not a candidate gets a job. The study found that an average Fiverr freelancer who took three hours or more to reply hurt their chances of getting hired. The damage was equivalent to if their ratings based on past jobs were 20% lower. 

Other studies clarify the relationship between response timeliness and hiring potential

In a follow-up study with over 8,600 participants, the researchers asked individuals to imagine hiring a freelance candidate based on their response to an employer’s initial message. The responses detailed how a freelancer planned to complete a job. For example, a photographer explained how they would conduct a photo session. 

Across these experiments, individuals factored in response time to determine a freelancer’s competence and warmth. Participants in the study said they would be more likely to hire freelancers who responded faster to an initial message. 

The researchers also found that timely replies can balance out lower-quality ratings. In an experimental study, the researchers asked participants to imagine a hypothetical scenario in which they were planning to hire a caterer for an upcoming event. They reached out to three caterers with an initial inquiry about the event. One caterer had a low-quality rating of 4.25 out of 5 stars based on previous jobs, the other had a high-quality rating of 4.85 stars, and the last one had no quality rating. The researchers manipulated the caterer’s reply speed to be either “within an hour” or “at the end of the day.” They found that participants favored hiring a caterer with a low-quality rating of 4.25 stars, provided that the person responded quickly. 

It’s not just caterers; this preference for timely replies applies to many hiring scenarios. The researchers found higher hiring rates for freelancers who responded more quickly to messages in every job category listed on Fiverr, from accounting to animation. The correlation between quicker response times and faster responders applies to a range of professions, from website copyeditors to photographers.