Tech roles are notorious for lengthy hire times. Can we change that?

Time may fly when you’re having fun, but certainly not when you’re hiring for a tech role.

According to an April report by recruiting software company Ashby, the average technical hire needed 23.3 hours of collective interview time in Q1 2026. In comparison, the average business hire took only 12.2 hours of interview hours. Of the technical roles examined in the report (data, product management, engineering, design, and IT and security), data roles were the timeliest investment for recruiters, requiring an average of 24.9 interview hours per hire.

What’s the hold up? Mike Meyer, CIO at Salesloft, told IT Brew that, unlike other industries where someone’s experience may speak for itself, tech managers want to see candidates demonstrate their skills firsthand. This, along with the need to ensure a candidate’s culture fit, can drag out the hiring process.

“You have more to vet in a technical role, because you’ve got to do all the same things you do for other roles…And then you’ve also got to make sure that they’ve got the technical ability as well,” Meyer said, adding that assessing candidates for AI expertise adds another layer of complexity to interviews.

While Meyer said more stages in the interview process may be warranted for certain positions, he noted that it can drive candidates away from certain opportunities within the industry.

“I could see a candidate saying, ‘Well, why would I spend my time going through all these interviews, meeting all these people that I may never work with, when I could just as easily go through this very quick process with this other company and get to a good outcome sooner?’” Meyer said.

Tightening up the hiring process. IT Brew asked several tech leaders about how the hiring process could be shortened for candidates. Gary Brickhouse, CISO at GuidePoint Security, said leaders can start by crafting job descriptions that accurately convey what they’re seeking in a candidate.

“That is where we can set good expectations from the very beginning, so…you’re getting better candidates from the beginning based on that,” Brickhouse said. “Not to mention, it helps the people who are doing the interview.”

While some interview rounds can’t be cut from the process, Brickhouse added that organizations can have multiple leaders sit in on interviews to condense the amount of rounds candidates go through. Similarly, Meyer suggested organizations with multiple stages of technical interviews boil down that process.

“If you’re giving somebody a coding exercise and then you’re also separately testing their AI skills, let’s consolidate that and say, ‘Hey, use an LLM to complete this exercise and walk us through your thinking,’” Meyer said.

Arya Marwaha, CEO at AI-native recruiting platform Contrario, said organizations should make haste with desired candidates during the interview process: “You should literally give a technical interview to them the same day or the next day, and then you should try and invite them for an onsite, at least in our startup land, the same week, if not next week.”