A job posting that's been online for two months isn't automatically a problem.
Some jobs take longer to fill. A senior engineer, for example, is not recruited on the same timeline as an entry-level operations role. Ashby’s 2026 recruiting data puts the median time to first fill at 52 days for junior roles, 63 days for mid-level roles, 71 days for senior roles, and 75 days for technical positions. Business roles sit at about 60 days.
So 60 days is not a deadline.
It is a good time to look at what is happening.
If the job is still open and the shortlist is getting no better, keeping the same posting live for another month may not change much.
Start with the candidates
The first question is not how many applications you received.
It is how many were worth a closer look.
That distinction matters. In iHire’s 2026 State of Online Recruiting report, 55.7% of employers said receiving too many unqualified applicants was one of their biggest online recruiting challenges. Candidate ghosting and unresponsiveness came next, at 51.6%.
If 300 people apply and only three look suitable, the problem is not a lack of applications.
It may be the job ad, the sourcing strategy, or the size of the candidate pool.
Look at the job itself
After 60 days, it is worth reading your own job posting as if you were a candidate seeing it for the first time.
Are the essential requirements clear?
Are there too many of them?
Does the salary make sense for the experience you’re asking for?
Is the location or time-zone requirement obvious?
A long list of “must-haves” can quietly turn a difficult search into an impossible one. That does not mean removing requirements just to attract more people. It means separating what someone genuinely needs on day one from skills they could learn after joining.
The same applies to compensation. If qualified candidates reach the offer stage and repeatedly walk away, the hiring problem may have less to do with the candidate pool than with the offer. For remote roles, it is worth checking whether your salary range is competitive for the market. See our guide to how much employers should pay for remote talent in 2026.
Check how long candidates are waiting
There is another possibility: the right people are already applying, but your process is losing them.
Greenhouse’s 2026 recruiting benchmark found that average time to fill reached 59.67 days in 2025, up from 43.64 days in 2022. At the same time, applications per job more than doubled, from 116 to 244.
More applications are not making hiring faster.
Part of the problem may be what happens after someone applies.
How long does it take to review an application? How quickly are interviews scheduled? How long does feedback sit with the hiring manager? How many interviews are actually necessary?
A strong candidate may not wait while an employer takes two weeks to schedule the next conversation.
Don’t confuse an old posting with a ghost job
A job that has been online for 60 days is not necessarily a fake or abandoned position.
That distinction matters.
A hard-to-fill role can stay open for months because the employer genuinely has not found the right person. FindRole’s October 2026 analysis of more than 27,000 active technology job postings found that 26.7% had been active for more than 60 days. The report also cautions that an old posting alone does not prove that a job is a “ghost job.”
The useful question is what has happened during those 60 days.
Have you found qualified candidates?
Have they reached interviews?
Have offers been made?
Have candidates rejected them?
If the answer is “not really,” it is probably time to change something.
What should change first?
Not everything.
Look for the part of the process that is producing the weakest result.
If there are hardly any applications, reconsider the reach of the posting.
If there are hundreds of applications but few qualified people, look at the requirements, job title, and sourcing channels.
If good candidates disappear during the process, look at speed.
If candidates reject offers, look at compensation and the overall opportunity.
And if several strong candidates reach the final stage but none is hired, make sure everyone involved agrees on what the job actually requires.
There is no magic number of days that tells an employer when to give up on a search. SHRM’s latest recruiting benchmark puts median time to fill for nonexecutive positions at 39 days, but role, seniority, and industry can push that number much higher.
That is why 60 days is best treated as a checkpoint, not a deadline.
If the search is moving forward, keep going. If it is simply repeating the same pattern, change the strategy.
Ready to change your hiring strategy?
If your job has been open for weeks without the right candidates, it may be time to try a different approach. Post your vacancy on Online.jobs and connect with remote professionals looking for their next opportunity.
