What employers need to know about finance hiring timelines.
From starting the search to having someone at their desk, the finance hiring timeline is often longer than employers expect.
When a Financial Manager, Accountant or senior member of the finance team resigns, one of the first questions is usually:
How quickly can we replace them?
Time to hire in finance can vary considerably depending on the seniority of the role, skills required and availability of suitable candidates. In South Africa, employers also need to factor in something that traditional time to hire figures don’t always show: the successful candidate’s notice period.
Recent South African data gives us a useful benchmark. Capitec reported an average time to hire of 32 days in its 2026 financial year, improving from 37 days the previous year.
But there is an important distinction employers need to make.
Time to hire is not the same as time to start.
If it takes approximately a month to find, interview and secure the right finance professional, and that person then needs to work a calendar month’s notice, the business could already be looking at two months before the new employee arrives. For senior or specialist finance appointments, it can take considerably longer.
So rather than asking how quickly a vacancy can be filled, a better question is:
When do we actually need this person sitting at their desk?
Then work backwards.
Where Does the Time Actually Go?
A finance recruitment process has several moving parts, and each one contributes to the overall timeline.
Getting the brief right
Before the search starts, the business needs clarity on the responsibilities, qualifications, systems experience, industry knowledge, reporting structure, working arrangements and salary. This sounds obvious, but an unrealistic brief can add weeks to a search.
Imagine looking for a BCom graduate with SAP, manufacturing experience, advanced costing knowledge and several years of management experience, while offering remuneration aligned with a considerably more junior Accountant.
The problem is unlikely to be solved by searching harder. The market is telling you that the brief and package are not aligned. A specialist finance recruiter should identify this early, rather than spending several weeks looking for a candidate who is unlikely to exist at the proposed salary.
Finding and screening candidates
Advertising a vacancy is only one part of a finance search. Many strong finance professionals are already employed and performing well. They may not be actively looking at job advertisements, which means they need to be identified and approached directly.
Then comes screening.
Qualifications and job titles only tell part of the story. Depending on the position, employers may also need to assess ERP exposure, technical depth, industry experience, commercial awareness, leadership ability and communication skills. The objective should not be to produce the largest shortlist.
Three candidates who genuinely fit the brief are considerably more useful than twenty loosely relevant CVs.
Interviews and decision-making
This is often where avoidable delays begin.
The first interview happens quickly, but the Financial Director is only available for the second interview the following week. Then the Managing Director wants to meet the preferred candidate. Another few days pass while everyone provides feedback.
Meanwhile, the candidate may be progressing through another company’s recruitment process.
Strong candidates do not stop exploring other opportunities because they have had one good interview with your organisation. Before the search starts, establish who genuinely needs to meet candidates and how quickly those people can be available.
A thorough process does not have to be a long process.
Assessments, checks and the offer
Psychometric testing, qualification verification, references and other appropriate checks can add valuable information to a finance hiring decision. They should, however, be planned rather than introduced at the last minute.
The same applies to the offer. If salary expectations have been discussed from the beginning and internal approval levels are understood, producing an offer should be relatively straightforward.
Waiting several days for an approval process to begin after the preferred candidate has been selected introduces unnecessary risk at exactly the point when the business is closest to securing them.
A More Realistic Finance Hiring Timeline
For employers, the useful calculation is not simply the number of days it takes to make an offer.
Think about the complete journey:
Search and screening → Interviews → Assessments and checks → Offer → Notice period → Start date
Using Capitec’s FY2026 average as a current South African financial sector reference point, the hiring portion alone was 32 days.
Then add the successful candidate’s notice period.
For an experienced finance professional with a calendar month’s notice, that immediately takes the planning horizon towards approximately two months. Senior or highly specialised positions may require more time because the available talent pool is smaller, selection processes can be more involved and notice periods may be longer. That is why businesses needing someone in place for a particular event, such as year end, budgeting season, an audit or a system implementation, should start recruiting well before the pressure becomes urgent.
What Affects Time to Hire in Finance?
Some factors are largely outside an employer’s control.
Others are not.
An overly narrow candidate profile
Every additional non-negotiable requirement reduces the size of the available talent pool.
Consider a Financial Manager who must have a particular qualification, manufacturing experience, advanced SAP knowledge, costing expertise, team management experience and live within a reasonable commute of the office. There may be perfectly good reasons for every requirement.
But when combined, the pool of candidates who meet all of them may be very small. Employers should therefore distinguish between what the person absolutely needs on day one and what a strong candidate could reasonably learn.
That flexibility can materially change the search without lowering the standard of the hire.
Salary that does not match the brief
If several suitable candidates withdraw when remuneration is discussed, the issue may not be candidate availability. It may be the package. The complete opportunity matters. Career progression, flexibility, leadership, company stability, benefits and the quality of the role can all influence a candidate’s decision.
But remuneration still needs to reflect the responsibility and skills being requested. Repeatedly searching for the same profile at a package the market is rejecting simply adds time to the vacancy.
Location and working arrangements
Location has become an increasingly important part of candidate decision-making. Travel time, traffic and commuting costs can significantly narrow the number of professionals willing to consider an opportunity. This does not mean every finance role needs to be hybrid.
It does mean employers should understand the trade-off. If the position requires five days onsite in an area that involves a difficult commute, the salary, opportunity and overall employee proposition need to be attractive enough to compensate.
Sometimes the candidate shortage is actually an attractiveness problem.
Counteroffers
The recruitment process does not end when the candidate accepts your offer. Strong finance professionals may receive counteroffers when they resign, particularly when their departure creates a significant problem for their existing employer. Understanding why a candidate wants to leave is therefore important from the beginning.
Someone moving purely for a relatively small salary increase may be easier to retain with a counteroffer than someone who has reached a career ceiling and is looking for broader responsibility. Good recruitment involves understanding that motivation before the resignation is handed in.
The Hidden Cost of Taking Too Long
A vacant finance position is not simply an HR problem. The work still exists. Month-end still happens. Management reporting still needs to be completed. Auditors still require information. Cash flow still needs managing.
Usually, those responsibilities are absorbed by other members of the finance team. For a short period, this may be manageable. Over several months, it can create pressure, delay projects and increase the risk of losing another employee who has been carrying additional responsibilities.
There is also a second cost.
Good candidates disappear.
One South African financial institution featured in a 2025 recruitment case study reportedly reduced its average time to hire from 89 days to 21.7 days after changing its recruitment model and internal processes.
It is a useful reminder that lengthy hiring is not always caused by a difficult candidate market.
Sometimes the bottleneck is inside the business.
How Can Employers Reduce Finance Hiring Time Without Compromising Quality?
Hiring faster does not mean lowering the standard. In many cases, the biggest improvements come from removing waiting rather than removing assessment.
Before the search starts:
- agree the responsibilities and reporting structure
- establish a realistic salary range
- separate essential requirements from preferences
- decide who needs to interview candidates
- understand what assessments and checks will be required
- confirm who has authority to approve the eventual offer
During the search:
- make interview availability a priority
- give feedback quickly
- keep candidates informed
- discuss remuneration and notice periods early
- prepare the offer process before reaching final selection
These are relatively simple changes, but together they can remove weeks from a recruitment process.
So, When Should You Start Recruiting?
There is no single time to hire figure that applies to every finance position in South Africa. A junior transactional finance role may be filled relatively quickly. A Financial Manager with specialised manufacturing experience or a senior finance leader may require a much longer search.
The current data does, however, give employers a useful reality check. If the recruitment process itself takes around a month and your preferred candidate has a calendar month’s notice, two months from starting the search to having someone in the business is not an unreasonable planning assumption for a professional finance appointment.
For scarce skills and senior positions, allow longer. Most importantly, do not wait until the position becomes urgent.
If somebody needs to be operational before year end, budgeting season or another critical business deadline, work backwards from that date and build recruitment time, notice periods and some contingency into the plan.
The People Connection View
After many years of recruiting finance professionals, we have learnt that speed alone does not create a successful appointment. But neither does delay equal diligence. The strongest recruitment processes combine clarity with momentum.
They know what the business genuinely needs, understand what the market can provide and are prepared to make a decision when the right candidate appears. Because finding a strong finance professional is only part of the challenge.
The other part is making sure they are still available when you are ready to hire them.