Hire for Speed: The Eight-Day Rule
The average top candidate is gone in eight days — move at the speed of a $100k lead.
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Time to result
- ~days to results
- Steps
- 3
- Confidence
- 88%
Hormozi cites that the average top candidate gets a job in eight days, making time the single biggest reason companies lose great hires. She argues you should nurture a candidate with the same urgency you'd give a $100,000 customer, because you're often paying employees $50,000 to $200,000 and they may stay for years. Small companies can win against larger competitors purely on speed if they build a fast, tight process. In her own early hiring she scheduled the next interview during the current call and sent rejections and follow-ups same-day.
Origin
Hormozi observed across her portfolio companies that the most common reason they lost candidates was time, and codified an eight-day urgency rule from watching top candidates disappear.
Core principles
- 01The average top candidate accepts a job within eight days.
- 02Time is the number one reason companies lose great candidates.
- 03Nurture a candidate the way you'd nurture a $100,000 customer.
- 04Speed can be a small company's competitive advantage.
How to run it
- 1
Treat the candidate like a high-value lead
Reframe each candidate as a $100,000+ customer and apply the same responsiveness and nurture you'd give that lead.
- 2
Compress every step to same-day cadence
Send rejections the same day, send follow-ups the same day, and schedule meetings immediately.
Pro tip Schedule the next interview while you're still on the call with the candidate.
- 3
Close inside eight days
Design the process so a candidate can move from first contact to offer within eight days, because waiting longer means losing the best people.
Watch out If you wait more than eight days to hire, you're getting worse candidates.
In the wild
When Hormozi first started Gym Launch it was just her and her assistant hiring, yet they sent rejections same-day, follow-ups same-day, and scheduled the next meeting immediately after each interview because they understood the importance of speed.
→ A two-person team ran a fast enough process to win top talent despite limited infrastructure.
A portfolio company interviewed a candidate on Monday but didn't flag it to Hormozi until Thursday, by which point momentum was lost.
→ Delay repeatedly cost portfolio companies candidates they wanted.
Common mistakes
Letting days pass between steps
Interviewing on Monday and following up on Thursday lets faster competitors close the candidate first.
Undervaluing the employee relative to a customer
Failing to give a candidate the urgency of a six-figure customer ignores that the hire is worth as much or more over time.
Is it for you?
Best for
Any hiring manager competing for in-demand candidates.
Not ideal for
Situations where deep multi-stakeholder vetting genuinely can't be compressed.
From the transcript
“The average top candidate gets a job in eight days.”
“if you're waiting more than eight days to hire somebody, you're getting worse candidate.”
From the episode
Leila Hormozi: $100,000,000 Leadership, How to Build High-Performance Teams People Never Want to Leave
Leila Hormozi