Part 2: How Long It Runs
Baselines, actual medians, and the detection lag that separates a slow start from a confirmed failure — by role and by outcome.
Part 1 established that a slow search, a quota miss and a fit failure are the statistical baseline, not the exception. The next question is duration: once one of these is underway, how long does it actually run before it's recognized and acted on?
The answer matters because every dollar figure in this series is a function of time. A search that closes at baseline costs almost nothing. The same search left open for the true average duration is where the real number comes from.
How Long Before Anyone Knows?
Baselines, actual medians, and the detection lag that separates a slow start from a confirmed failure — by role and by outcome.
45 net excess days
A well-resourced team should fill an enterprise IC role in 30 days and a VP search in 45. Benchmarks put mid-level time-to-fill at 42 days, AI tech at 60–90, and executive searches at 90–120. Actual medians here: 75 and 90 — 45 net excess days either way.
7.5-month detection lag
Underperformers do not self-identify. Enterprise sales cycles run 7–9 months, setting the floor before a quota miss can be told from a slow start — plus a 90-day PIP. Average tenure before a managed exit: 12–24 months.
Within 18 months
The mis-hire rate is measured across the first 18 months. The clock runs longest where output is indirect: a sales engineer's shortfall is misattributed to the AEs they support for 18–30 months, and a VP low-hire runs the same before board action.
Where the 45 Excess Days Come From
The same net excess — 45 days — shows up at both the individual-contributor and VP level, just measured against a different baseline. Only the shaded portion carries a cost.
Baselines and medians as set out in the panels above — SHRM · Seattle Corporate Search · The Resource Company.
Underperformers do not self-identify. It takes most of the detection window just to distinguish a slow starter from a permanent quota miss.
Tenure Before Anyone Acts
The detection lag sets the floor. In practice, a low-hire or mis-hire often runs well past it before the exit happens.
The detection lag is the modeled minimum before a quota miss can be conclusively distinguished from a slow start, and applies to all three roles — Bridge Group.
Time is the multiplier this series keeps returning to. Every month a detection lag runs is another month of quota gap, deal-influence shortfall, or organizational drag compounding before Cycle 2 even starts. Part 3 puts a dollar figure on exactly what that compounding costs, role by role.
Baselines: 30 days (AE/SE), 45 days (VP). Actual medians: 75 days (AE/SE, Seattle Corporate Search 2025), 90 days (VP, The Resource Company 2025). Detection lag: 7.5 months, derived from 7–9 month enterprise sales cycles (Bridge Group) plus a 90-day PIP.
Research compiled May 2026 · Sources: SHRM, RepVue, Bridge Group, Ebsta × Pavilion, BLS, McKinsey, Robert Half, LHH, Gartner, LinkedIn Talent Trends, SaleSo, Seattle Corporate Search
These are planning numbers. The hire is the variable.
Twenty minutes, no pitch — what the role really needs, and whether this is a search worth running.