It Takes 83 Days to Fill One Nursing Job

The average open RN position takes 78 to 83 days to fill. Each departure costs roughly $61,000. Annual RN turnover sits around 17.6%, and the country is heading toward a shortage of more than 250,000 RNs and nearly 85,000 physicians.

Every one of those numbers gets treated as an HR problem. We consider them an "us" problem.

Recruitment is a marketing problem wearing an HR department's clothes. A vacant role behaves exactly like an unfilled service line — there's an audience that needs to be found, a message that needs to be specific, and a story that needs to be told before the position exists to fill it, not after. Most organizations only start "marketing" a role once it's already open, which means the 83-day clock starts from zero instead of from a head start.

What we've seen work, treated as an actual marketing problem:

Treat the open role like a service line launch. Same audience-sequencing logic applies: know who you're actually trying to reach, understand what they care about, and build toward them before the req goes live, not after.

Make "why work here" an ongoing content asset, not a static jobs page. A page that only exists when there's an opening looks exactly like what it is — a placeholder, not a genuine culture conversation about a great place to work or great team to be part of.

Use current staff as the actual recruiting asset. A specific nurse describing a specific reason they stayed does more than any generic culture paragraph, because it's the one thing a competitor can't copy. But, it needs to be authentic and not beat around the bush if there are topics that are keeping people away.

Track time-to-fill and cost-per-hire as marketing metrics, not just HR ones. Marketing spend can move both numbers directly, but only if marketing is in the room when those targets get created and numbers get reviewed.

Eighty-three days is a long time to be running a marketing plan that doesn't start until day one of the vacancy.