Survey: 13% of recent hires say their job search took longer than six months

How long has looking for a job taken you? Recent data from Clutch shows that 13% of full-time employees say their job search took longer than six months.

The company also reports that “only 41% of workers seeking technical roles apply to 5 or fewer jobs, signaling tougher competition for companies,” and that “only 1% of recent hires accepted a job after more than 6 months of interviews.”

In terms of how the research was carried out, Clutch polled 507 full-time, adult, American workers who began a new position over the last six months.

Here’s how long it’s taken Americans to look for a job

Check out the breakdown:

• “Less than 1 month:” 30%
• “1-2 months:” 28%
• “3-4 months:” 20%
• “5-6 months:” 10%
• “More than 6 months:” 13%

The report notes that “once a recruiting process exceeds 1 to 2 months, it’s increasingly likely that a candidate has already accepted another offer from a company that simply moved faster.”

How many jobs people apply for each time they look for a job

Most apply to two, three, four or five of them, but some apply to many more:

• 1: 19%
• 2-5: 33%
• 6-10: 21%
• 11-20: 11%
• 21-40: 8%
• 40+: 8%

How Americans feel about the nature of interviews

Respondents said that these are the ways it impacts what they think of a company:

• “Strongly:” 40%
• “Somewhat:” 30%
• “Slightly:” 21%
• “Not at all:” 9%

Here’s how long interviewing takes

Most people surveyed said that it didn’t take longer than two weeks:

• “Less than 2 weeks:” 43%
• “2-3 weeks:” 26%
• “1-2 months:” 19%
• “3-4 months:” 8%
• “5 or more months:” 4%

Similarly, prior research from Comparably has found that 63% of tech workers get a response from an employer within 7 days of an interview.