It's taking more and more time for companies to determine whether a candidate is a good fit, according to a recent study which found that, on average, it now takes about 22.9 days to screen job candidates, nearly double the 12.6 days it took in 2010. The study says that this is mainly because of the increased use of additional screening methods such as background checks, skill tests, drug tests, and personality tests. However, the study's authors stressed that these numbers are averages and that there are many jobs that are both significantly over and significantly under this figure. It can take governments 60 days to decide whether to hire a candidate, for example, while franchise businesses take only eight. What job you're going for also matters: police officers have the longest screening process at approximately 127 days; by contrast, entry-level marketing jobs only took about 4 days to decide to hire a candidate (this is shorter than even dishwashers, at about 7 days). 

While this might seem like a long time to go through multiple interviews, tests and other procedures, it's actually quite short compared to other countries such as Australia (27.9 days), the UK (28.6), Germany (28.8) and France (31.9).