Average Time to Fill a Sales Role: Benchmarks for SaaS Companies

What Is the Average Time to Fill a Sales Role?

Sales is one of the quicker functions to hire for. Gem's 2025 Recruiting Benchmarks Report, built on 1.3 million hires between 2021 and 2024, puts the average time to hire for sales at 35 days in 2024, one day more than in 2021. Across all departments, the average rose from 33 to 41 days over the same period. Gem reports this as days to hire. Time to fill, counted from the day the vacancy opens, is usually longer.

The bigger change is the number of interviews per sales hire, up from 14 to 21 since 2021. Every extra round adds days and gives a strong candidate another chance to accept a competing offer.

Time to Fill vs Time to Hire: Which Should You Track?

Track both, because they measure different stretches of the process. Time to fill starts when the vacancy is approved or published and ends when a candidate accepts your offer. Time to hire starts later, when your eventual hire enters the pipeline by applying or being sourced.

The gap between them shows where the time goes. A long time to fill with a short time to hire means you found the right person late, so sourcing is the bottleneck. When both are long, your interview process is the problem. Exclude always-open roles, such as junior sales positions, from the average, since they inflate it without saying anything about your process.

How Long Does It Take to Hire an AE in the Netherlands?

From first briefing to first working day, plan for around two months. The search itself can move fast: Katapult's average time to placement is under 30 days.

The time to fill a sales role is only part of the calendar, though. Under Dutch law, an employee's statutory notice period is one month, but an employment contract can set a longer one, up to six months. Ask about notice in the first call rather than at the offer stage.

Then add ramp time. The Bridge Group's 2025 research across 351 B2B companies puts the average SDR ramp at 3.0 months. Your real deadline is the day a new hire builds pipeline, not the day they sign.

Why Do Some Sales Roles Take Longer to Fill?

The Dutch labour market has cooled, yet strong sellers are still scarce. Statistics Netherlands (CBS) counted 95 vacancies for every 100 unemployed people in the second quarter of 2026, down from 142 in mid-2022. Katapult's SaaS salary benchmarks 2026 see the same split in sales: plenty of applicants, but a clear shortage of people who can run full-cycle deals on their own, especially at mid-market and enterprise level.

Several factors stretch the time to fill a sales role well past the average:

• Seniority, since enterprise and leadership candidates are few and rarely answer job ads

• Language, as Dutch employers now favour native target-market speakers over English-only profiles

• Founding roles, where the hire has to build pipeline without a playbook

• A slow process, with too many rounds or long gaps between interview and feedback

• A vacancy that hides the salary or lists requirements that do not matter
  
  

TheFork felt the language problem first-hand. Recruiting from its London headquarters, it spent months looking for Dutch field sales reps, then met its new hires two weeks after starting with Katapult.

How Can You Shorten the Time to Fill a Sales Role?

Start with sourcing. Gem found that sourced applicants are five times more likely to be hired than inbound ones, while job boards and social sites deliver 49% of applications but less than a quarter of hires. Waiting for applications is a slow way to reach a senior seller.

Then tighten the process:

1. Agree on the profile, pay range and interview stages before the vacancy goes live, as covered in how to hire salespeople

2. Publish the salary range and avoid the three mistakes we see in sales vacancies every week

3. Keep the process to three or four stages, one of them a role play

4. Give candidates feedback within two working days of each interview

5. Make the offer within days of the final round

A specialist partner shortens the search because it starts with a network rather than an empty job board. Acto, an AI revenue intelligence platform scaling across DACH, received a shortlist within 10 days of kick-off and closed its German-speaking AE roles within a month.

[Recruitment agency vs headhunter] explains which kind of partner fits your role.

Need a new seller on the team before next quarter? Book a call with Katapult and meet a maximum of four vetted candidates for the role.

FAQ - Frequently asked questions

Should the notice period count towards time to fill?

No. Time to fill usually ends when the candidate accepts your offer. Track the notice period separately as time to start, since it depends on the candidate's contract rather than on your process, and base headcount plans on the start date.

Can a candidate leave their current job before the notice period ends?

Yes, if their employer agrees. Dutch rules allow the employer and employee to agree that a resignation takes effect immediately, as long as they confirm it in writing. It is worth raising when the contract sets a notice period longer than one month.

When should I start hiring to have a productive rep by next quarter?

Count backwards. Allow five weeks or more for the search, at least a month for notice and about three months of ramp for an SDR. That puts the start of the search roughly five to six months before you need the rep at full productivity.

Sources

1. Gem, "2025 Recruiting Benchmarks Report", hiring data from January 2021 to December 2024

2. Business.gov.nl (Netherlands Enterprise Agency), "Notice period in case of dismissal"

3. The Bridge Group, "SDR Models, Motions & Metrics: 2025 Research Report", 6 February 2025

4. CBS (Statistics Netherlands), "Werkloosheid gedaald in tweede kwartaal 2026", 30 July 2026