Candidate’s follow-ups are a key signal in our hiring process. The badger quotient.

When determining whom to hire, employers care about how quickly they receive replies from the job seekers and service providers they contact.

Fast replies signal a provider’s future responsiveness and increase hiring likelihood independently from other signals of future responsiveness, such as a worker’s quality (Study 2) or the content of the message sent (Study 4). Together, our studies identify a distinct signal that employees can control to increase their hireability: replying to messages quickly. Empirically, every minute counts.

From the paper: Speed Is a Signal: When Faster Replies Increase Hiring Likelihood