Recruiting Glossary

A job seeker who is aggressively looking for a new position and applying to multiple vacancies.

A type of search allowing users to combine keywords with operators such as AND, NOT and OR to produce more relevant results.

The overall perception and feelings of a job seeker about an organization’s job application and hiring process.

A semi-fictional representation of an ideal candidate for a specific role, based on data and research into current employees and market trends.

An external recruitment professional specialized in scouting and approaching high-level or niche talent on behalf of a client.

A meeting between a recruiter and a hiring manager to define the requirements and strategy for a new job vacancy.

the movement of employees to new roles, promotions, or lateral opportunities within the same organization.

A person who is not actively seeking a job but may be open to a new opportunity if approached by a recruiter.

A professional in charge of the entire hiring process, from finding and screening candidates to coordinating interviews and closing offers.

A recruitment professional specialized in the initial identification and outreach to potential candidates, typically for top-of-funnel talent acquisition.

A pool of pre-selected and qualified candidates who are ready to fill specific roles as they become available in the organization.

A database of potential candidates, including previous applicants and individuals who have shown interest, kept for future hiring needs.

A former employee who is rehired after leaving the company, often after a period of working elsewhere.

The portion of an organisation's labour force engaged on non-permanent terms, including contractors, freelancers, consultants, and temporary workers.

A structured initiative that incentivises current employees to recommend candidates from their networks for open roles.

The end-to-end practice of sourcing, interviewing, hiring, and onboarding candidates without requiring physical presence at any stage.

A research-led practice of identifying and tracking high-potential external talent for current and future roles before any active vacancy exists.

A sourcing technique that uses search engines to find profiles indexed on professional networks without using those networks' native search.

Talent acquisition is the strategic, long-term approach to identifying, attracting, and hiring top-tier professionals to meet evolving organisational objectives and future business needs.

Skills-based hiring prioritises a candidate's specific competencies and demonstrated capabilities over traditional qualifications, such as university degrees or previous job titles.

A sourcing funnel is a structured model that tracks the progression of potential candidates from initial identification and outreach through to the formal application stage.

A recruitment technique providing candidates with an honest balance of the positive and challenging aspects of a role to ensure alignment and reduce early turnover.

Candidate engagement is the continuous, meaningful interaction between an organisation and potential candidates, fostering interest and building relationships throughout the entire recruitment lifecycle, from initial awareness to hiring and beyond.

Candidate sourcing channels are the diverse platforms and methodologies employed by recruiters to identify, attract, and engage potential job candidates for open positions within an organisation.

Cold outreach in recruiting is the proactive, unsolicited contact with potential candidates who have not previously expressed interest in a role or organisation, typically for niche or high-demand positions.

A confidential search is a recruitment process conducted with discretion to protect sensitive information, often involving high-level or strategically critical roles.

Contingency recruiting involves engaging recruitment agencies that are compensated only upon the successful placement of a candidate, aligning their financial incentives directly with hiring outcomes.

Direct Sourcing involves building talent pipelines and engaging passive candidates through proactive outreach, often leveraging employer brand and direct communication channels rather than relying solely on job board applications or agencies.

Diversity Sourcing is the proactive strategy of identifying and engaging candidates from underrepresented groups to build a more inclusive and equitable workforce.

Executive search is a specialised recruitment service focused on identifying, assessing, and appointing candidates for senior-level and executive positions within organisations.

Candidate ghosting occurs when a job applicant abruptly disengages from the recruitment process without explanation, ceasing communication after initial contact, interviews, or even after accepting a job offer.

Passive sourcing identifies and engages candidates not actively seeking new employment, expanding the talent pool beyond applicants to encompass a wider range of high-calibre professionals.

A referral bonus is a financial incentive paid to an employee for successfully recommending a candidate who is subsequently hired and retained by the company for a specified period.

Retained search is an exclusive, upfront-paid recruitment model where a single agency is entrusted to fill a key position, ensuring dedicated resources and a comprehensive market mapping.

A silver medalist is a highly qualified candidate who was the second choice for a role, narrowly missing out on the primary offer.

A Sourcing Jam is a focused, collaborative session where a recruiting team collectively identifies and engages potential candidates for specific roles, often leveraging diverse sourcing strategies simultaneously.

Targeted recruiting is a strategic approach focusing on proactively identifying, attracting, and engaging specific candidates who possess the precise skills and experience required for critical roles.

A search method that ranks candidates by meaning rather than literal keyword overlap, surfacing 'led a team of 12' when the query is 'people management'.

The process of re-screening past applicants in your ATS against a new role using AI matching, often surfacing strong fits at zero acquisition cost.

Candidates who reached the final stages of a previous loop but were not hired; typically the highest-converting group in any rediscovery campaign.

The distribution of hires across inbound, outbound, referral, and agency channels; healthy SaaS scaleups land at roughly 40/30/20/10.

A cash incentive (typically €1,000-€5,000) paid to employees whose referrals are hired and pass probation; consistently the cheapest channel per hire.

The candidate-experience equivalent of eNPS, surveyed at offer-decline and rejection touchpoints; healthy benchmark is +30 or above.

Automated bidding for job-ad placements based on real-time performance data; optimises cost-per-applicant and cost-per-hire dynamically.

Targeted sourcing efforts to expand the pipeline of underrepresented groups, e.g., partnerships with women-in-tech communities or underrepresented-talent platforms.

A policy requiring a minimum number of underrepresented candidates in the final shortlist for every role; popularised as the Rooney Rule in the NFL.

Pre-interview guidance shared with candidates on format, expectations, and the rubric; reduces anxiety, increases signal, and is now table-stakes.

Agency fee for retained or contingent search, typically 20-33% of first-year base for IC roles, higher for executive search; almost always negotiable.

A contract recruiter sitting full-time inside the client team, paid daily/monthly rather than per-placement; popular when scaling 20+ hires fast.

Post-application or post-decision survey capturing candidate sentiment; the source data behind cNPS and process-improvement priorities.

Structured offsite to map all known and unknown talent for a critical role across competitors and adjacent industries.

The deliberate practice of re-engaging former employees who left in good standing as a high-conversion talent channel.

A curated, kept-warm shortlist of pre-vetted candidates ready to be activated within 48 hours of a requisition opening.

Marketing-led inbound that lets candidates self-select into a company's hiring funnel through narrative content rather than job ads.

Identifying engaged speakers and contributors in conference Slack workspaces as warm passive sourcing leads.

Using GitHub commit history and review activity to identify engineers whose contributions match a target stack.

Treating starred repository patterns as a proxy for technical taste and current focus areas of an engineer.

Identifying high-signal contributors inside niche professional Discord servers as a warm-intro sourcing channel.

Reaching out to writers of niche professional Substacks because publishing cadence signals depth and credibility.

Identifying thoughtful repliers in a target expert's threads as a leading indicator of domain literacy.

A platform signal that reduces sourcing friction by surfacing candidates who have explicitly opted into being contacted.

Targeting recently-departed founders of failed startups as a high-quality, time-limited candidate pool.

Pitching candidates a defined two-to-four-year mission instead of an indefinite job, attractive to top performers.

A structured 12–24 month entry route that converts non-traditional talent into permanent hires via paid training.

A short, paid programme to bring caregivers and other career-break professionals back into senior-track roles.

A dedicated channel and translation process for matching military service skills to civilian career paths.

Structured hiring designed around credential recognition and language support for refugee professionals.

A formal partnership with coding or sales bootcamps that gives early access to graduates and curriculum input.

A structured year-round relationship with a university careers team beyond a single careers fair appearance.

Using competitive engineering events to observe candidates working in real time before any interview.

Targeting strong candidates in lower-cost cities where compensation goes further while remaining within a viable timezone.

A deliberate strategy of sourcing outside flagship hubs to reduce competition and improve offer-acceptance rates.

Sourcing across EU member states using the Single Market and freedom of movement to expand the candidate pool.

Designing the entire sourcing-to-application flow around a candidate completing it on a phone in under 90 seconds.

Using compliant text-message outreach for blue-collar and frontline roles where email response rates are low.

Conversational sourcing through WhatsApp in markets where it is the dominant communication channel.

A time-boxed two-week effort to fully populate a pipeline for a critical role before formal screening begins.

A candidate relationship management system that nurtures prospects who are not yet ready to move.

A planned outreach to candidates from prior funnels who were silver medallists or out-of-process strong fits.

A multi-touch sequence that varies channel, framing and call-to-action across a 21-day window.

The percentage of cold-sourced candidates who respond at all to a recruiter's initial message; a leading indicator.

The percentage of replied candidates who move into an active screening conversation.

A per-channel measurement of cost-per-hire blended with quality-of-hire to inform next quarter's mix.

A team-design choice that determines pipeline depth versus closing speed for the function.

The portfolio breakdown of where actual hires originate, used to rebalance investment across channels.

The ratio of inbound applications to outbound-sourced hires, a signal of employer brand strength.

A shared, versioned set of Boolean search strings curated and tagged by role and seniority.

Searching for niche or atypical job titles that competitors miss, e.g. "Forward-Deployed Engineer".

Algorithmically broadening a search to include semantic variants of skills and titles.

The measurable improvement in candidate awareness from sustained employer-brand investment.

Treating existing employees as the first sourcing channel for any open role.

Using a structured alumni community as a warm sourcing pool for senior and specialist roles.

Sponsored placements inside niche industry newsletters as a brand-and-sourcing hybrid play.

Using podcast guest-host networks to identify domain experts willing to take a meeting.

A paid network of part-time external scouts who refer candidates against an evolving spec.

A one-page document summarising target persona, channels, messaging and exclusion criteria for a role.

A first set of 5–8 sourced profiles shown to a hiring manager to validate spec before mass outreach.

A composite profile of an ideal candidate's career path, motivations and likely current employer.

An explicit profile of who is not a fit, used to disqualify quickly and protect candidate experience.

Internal store of vetted Boolean strings tagged by role, geography and recency.

Targeted outreach to past silver-medallist candidates when a similar role re-opens.

Pre-event preparation listing target attendees, talking points and follow-up workflow.

Multi-year relationship with a university producing a steady flow of early-career hires.

Formal agreement with a community organisation to surface candidates from under-represented groups.

Search string built from validated skills rather than job titles or company names.

Use of search-engine site operators to surface candidate profiles indexed outside their host platform.

Multi-step outreach with timed follow-ups, A/B-tested subject lines and reply tracking.

Per-channel composite of reply rate, qualified rate and accepted-offer rate.

TA stands for Talent Acquisition: the strategic function inside HR that owns sourcing, screening, interviewing and hiring. TA is broader than recruitment and reports into People or HR leadership.

The application of artificial intelligence to the initial evaluation of resumes to rank and shortlist candidates based on their qualifications.

A multi-activity evaluation day where candidates are observed by multiple assessors through various practical exercises.

A recruitment practice that removes all personal information about candidates to reduce the chance of bias and ensure merit-based selection.

A method of evaluating candidates using standardized, objective criteria and numerical rankings to reduce bias and improve selection.

A resume that has been stripped of personally identifiable information to prevent unconscious bias during the screening process.

A brief preliminary interview used to verify basic qualifications and interest before moving a candidate to the next stage.

A practical task given to candidates to complete on their own time to demonstrate their skills and output quality.

An assessment requiring candidates to perform actual tasks representative of the job to demonstrate their proficiency.

A standardised test administered before or during the interview process to measure cognitive ability, personality traits, technical skills, or job-specific competencies.

A standardised instrument that measures mental capabilities, personality traits, and behavioural style for use in selection and development decisions.

A standardised evaluation used to objectively measure a candidate’s skills, cognitive abilities, or personality traits to predict job performance and ensure suitability for a specific role.

Psychometric assessments are standardised, objective measurements of an individual’s cognitive abilities, personality traits, and behavioural styles, designed to predict job performance and cultural fit.

A technical screen evaluates a candidate's specific skills and knowledge required for a role, typically focusing on areas like programming, data analysis, or engineering principles.

Assessment validity measures how accurately a recruitment assessment predicts job performance and other relevant employment criteria, ensuring fair and effective hiring decisions.

A knockout question is a mandatory, "yes/no" or multiple choice question within an application process designed to immediately disqualify candidates who do not meet essential job criteria.

Resume screening is the initial evaluation of job applications to identify candidates whose qualifications, experience, and skills align with the requirements of an open position.

A screening question is a precisely formulated inquiry designed to quickly assess candidate suitability against essential job requirements, typically used at the initial stages of the recruitment process.

Video screening involves candidates submitting recorded or live video responses to predefined questions, enabling recruiters to assess soft skills, communication style, and initial suitability beyond a CV.

A timed programming exercise (often via HackerRank/CodeSignal); useful for high-volume top-of-funnel filtering, controversial for senior roles.

A short application question whose poor answer disqualifies a candidate before any human review.

A batched, non-real-time screening flow that maximises recruiter throughput at the cost of immediacy.

A chat-based pre-screen that gathers qualifying answers in a candidate-friendly format.

An automated voice-based pre-screen that captures pronunciation, fluency and reasoning.

A short asynchronous video answer to one or two prompts, reviewed by recruiters in batches.

An automated grading flow for code or written tests that returns a normalised score within seconds.

A scoped technical or written exercise candidates complete on their own time, capped at a defined effort.

A 45–60 minute synchronous coding interview run on a shared editor with a single problem.

A collaborative coding session designed to assess thinking, communication and pragmatism, not raw output.

A traditional design or systems exercise on a whiteboard or shared canvas.

A screen where candidates are invited to ask the questions, used to test seniority and engagement.

A pre-offer reference call run on a fixed set of questions, scored against a rubric.

A documented check confirming a candidate's legal authorisation to work in a given country.

A finance-sector specific verification used where the role involves fiduciary or regulated responsibility.

Cross-checking a candidate against international sanctions lists for compliance-sensitive roles.

Confirming the candidate is who they claim to be using government-issued ID and biometric matching.

An agency document where a candidate confirms representation by a single recruiter for a specific role.

A medical screen used in regulated industries; subject to country-specific legality.

A standardised test measuring problem-solving capacity, validated against job performance.

A self-report instrument measuring stable traits relevant to a role's working context.

A scenario-based assessment measuring how candidates would handle realistic on-the-job dilemmas.

A direct test of role-specific factual knowledge, useful for technical and regulated roles.

A paid one-to-three-day on-site engagement to assess fit before a formal offer.

A scoped, paid, multi-week mini-engagement used in lieu of a traditional final round.

Configurable rules that disqualify applications based on missing must-haves at intake.

Configurable rules that fast-track applications meeting a high-confidence rubric.

A periodic check that interviewer scoring stays consistent across the team and over time.

The pace and spacing of interview rounds; tight cadence improves offer-acceptance.

The elapsed time from application submission to a recruiter's first qualifying touchpoint.

The conversion rate from initial screen to first hiring-manager interview.

The conversion rate from final round to a formal offer being extended.

A visualisation of how candidates flow through each funnel stage and where drop-off concentrates.

A documented set of criteria and anchors used to consistently evaluate applications.

A scale where each numeric value has a behavioural example to reduce inter-rater variance.

A specific anchored scale validated against on-the-job performance for a given role.

A grid of skills and proficiency levels used to gap-analyse candidates against a target profile.

A weekly review that catches over-screening or under-screening before it warps the funnel.

The ratio of total applications to actual hires, used to detect over- or under-marketing of a role.

The proportion of advanced candidates who turn out to be unqualified, used to tune rubrics.

The proportion of rejected candidates who would have succeeded, harder to measure but vital.

The implicit or explicit standard that determines whether a candidate is hireable for a role.

The aggregate strength of a final-round shortlist, evaluated independently of any single hire.

TA screening is the talent acquisition process of evaluating inbound applications against role criteria to surface a shortlist for hiring managers, today increasingly run by AI.

An interview technique focused on discovering how a candidate acted in specific past situations to predict future performance.

An interview where a candidate is asked to solve a business problem to demonstrate their analytical and strategic thinking.

A structured collection of the skills, knowledge, and behaviors required for successful performance in a specific role or organization.

An interview conducted by a group of two or more people to provide a multi-perspective evaluation of a candidate.

A quantitative evaluation tool used to rank candidates against consistent criteria to ensure objective hiring decisions.

An interview method where candidates describe how they would handle hypothetical future work scenarios.

A standardized interviewing method where all candidates are asked the same set of questions in a fixed order to ensure fairness.

An interview focused on assessing a candidate's specialized technical skills and problem-solving abilities within their field.

A one-way video interview format where candidates record their answers to pre-set questions on their own time, without a live interviewer present.

A structured discussion among interviewers to align on what 'good' looks like for a role before interviews begin and again after early candidates have been assessed.

An evaluation lens that asks what new perspectives, experiences, or capabilities a candidate would bring to the team — replacing the older 'culture fit' frame.

A live, two-way interview conducted over video conferencing software, now the default format for early-stage screening and many full interview loops.

A proactive, structured conversation with current employees to identify retention drivers and friction points before they result in resignation or disengagement.

An interview scorecard is a standardised evaluation tool used by hiring teams to objectively assess candidates against predefined criteria, ensuring fairness and consistency throughout the selection process.

A coding challenge is an assessment requiring candidates to write or debug code, evaluating their technical aptitude and problem-solving skills relevant to software development roles.

A Competency-Based Interview assesses a candidate’s past behaviour in specific situations, inferring future performance based on demonstrated skills and attributes relevant to the job role.

The hiring bar represents the minimum standard of skills, experience, and cultural fit a candidate must meet to be considered for employment within an organisation.

The hiring loop is the structured, iterative process a candidate navigates from initial application to job offer, encompassing all stages of assessment and communication.

The Hiring Manager Intake is a foundational meeting between a recruiter and hiring manager to define a new role, its requirements, and the recruitment process.

The interview feedback loop is a systematic process for transmitting, receiving, and integrating post-interview observations to refine hiring decisions and improve subsequent interview rounds.

An Interview Kit is a standardised set of materials and guidelines used by interviewers to ensure a consistent, fair, and effective candidate assessment process.

Interviewer training equips individuals involved in the hiring process with the necessary skills and knowledge to conduct effective, unbiased, and legally compliant interviews.

A live coding interview is a real-time assessment where candidates write or debug code, typically sharing their screen, to demonstrate technical proficiency and problem-solving abilities directly to an interviewer.

A one-way video interview is an asynchronous interviewing method where candidates record video responses to pre-set questions, offering flexibility and streamlining initial screening stages for recruiters.

A secondary interview is a subsequent interview stage in the hiring process, following an initial screening, designed to further assess a candidate’s qualifications, experience, and cultural fit.

The STAR method is a structured interviewing technique used to gather comprehensive information about a candidate's past behaviour in specific situations, revealing their skills and competencies.

Aligning interviewer ratings to a shared rubric so a '4' from one panellist means the same as a '4' from another; reduces interviewer-bias variance by 30-50%.

A statistical measure of how consistently different interviewers score the same candidate; below 0.7 indicates a broken rubric or untrained panel.

Recorded video or written-response interviews candidates complete on their own time; cuts time-to-shortlist 40-60% but risks lower candidate engagement if overused.

A meeting where each interviewer commits to a written hire/no-hire score before the live discussion, removing the loudest-voice anchoring effect.

An interviewer from outside the hiring team with veto power over the offer; an Amazon-originated practice now widely adopted to maintain talent density.

Workshops designed to surface implicit interviewer assumptions; effective only when paired with structured interviews and calibration, not as a standalone fix.

A written-first hiring decision process where each interviewer documents their score and rationale before any synchronous discussion.

The artefact each interviewer fills out per candidate, mapping observed evidence to defined competencies; the spine of any structured loop.

The full sequence of interviews a candidate completes; modern best practice is 3-5 stages totalling 4-6 hours of candidate time spread over 7-10 days.

A structured interview format using past-behaviour questions ('Tell me about a time when...') mapped to defined competencies.

A collaborative coding session simulating real work; higher signal than algorithm puzzles for day-to-day engineering competence.

An open-ended architecture discussion for senior engineers, focused on scaling, trade-offs, and clarity of communication rather than a single right answer.

An interview focused on what new perspectives or behaviours the candidate would bring, replacing the bias-prone 'culture-fit' framing.

A behavioural interview mapped explicitly to documented company values, ensuring evaluation rigour matches the weight values get in promotion decisions.

Situation-Task-Action-Result, a candidate response structure that produces evaluable evidence.

Situation-Obstacle-Action-Result, an alternative framing that emphasises the obstacle.

Problem-Action-Result, a compressed alternative to STAR for short interview windows.

An interview format mapping each question to a specific role competency for scoring.

A multi-interviewer single-day format used at scale-up tech companies.

A traditional in-person multi-round single-day interview event.

The remote equivalent of an onsite loop, run over video in compressed time blocks.

The last interview stage before a hire/no-hire decision and offer construction.

A second-round interview led by the role's manager, focused on competence and fit.

An interview led by a trained internal assessor independent of the hiring team.

An interview with the manager-of-the-manager, used to validate seniority of senior hires.

A final interview with a founder, common in startups under 100 headcount.

An interview with multiple candidates and a single panel, observing peer interaction.

A format where multiple candidate referees are interviewed simultaneously by the hiring team.

A live collaborative session simulating a typical day's work product.

An interview with cross-functional partners the candidate would interface with.

A behavioural interview structured around the company's stated operating values.

A structured post-loop discussion converging interviewers on a consensus recommendation.

A binary decision rule preventing the dilution of "maybe" verdicts in debriefs.

The highest debrief verdict, typically requiring two strong-hire endorsements to advance.

A formal recommendation against hire that, in disciplined teams, vetoes the loop.

A short pre-loop document equipping interviewers with role context and assigned competencies.

A periodic exercise to align interviewers' scoring through joint review of recorded interviews.

A new interviewer joining an experienced one as observer before solo interviewing.

A formal sign-off that an interviewer is qualified to score a given competency or stage.

A weekly limit on interviews per interviewer to prevent fatigue-driven scoring drift.

A documented opt-in for recording interviews, required under GDPR and most equivalents.

Automated speech-to-text of interviews to enable searchable evidence and bias review.

Real-time AI-generated notes that let interviewers focus on the candidate, not typing.

A maintained library of pre-vetted interview questions tagged by competency and difficulty.

A discipline of rotating questions across cohorts to prevent leak-driven score inflation.

A follow-up question designed to test depth beyond a polished first answer.

A "what would you do" question, typically lower validity than past-behaviour questions.

A question testing how a candidate plans to operate in the first 90 days.

A deliberately challenging question designed to assess composure under stress.

A rapid-fire round of short questions, used to assess fluency and recall.

A format where the candidate writes a press release or RFC for a future product.

A senior-engineer interview centred on a real or fictional system design.

An interview where the candidate reviews provided code and articulates trade-offs.

A debugging-focused interview using a deliberately broken codebase.

A simulated sales pitch presented by the candidate to a panel acting as customer.

A roleplay where the candidate handles a realistic customer conversation.

A pre-sales-style interview where the candidate demos the company's product to a panel.

A live negotiation simulation used in commercial and partnership roles.

Predefined follow-up question that drills into the specifics of a behavioural-interview answer.

Forward-looking 'what would you do' prompt used sparingly to probe judgement, not history.

Time-boxed task that mirrors a real piece of the job to be performed during or after interview.

Live design or problem-solving exercise on a shared visual surface.

Statistical measure of how consistently different interviewers rate the same candidate.

Gradual movement of an interviewer's effective standard, surfaced by trending their scores over time.

Documented sequence in a hiring debrief — written notes first, junior interviewers vote first.

An offer made by a current employer to match or exceed a new offer from an external company to retain an employee.

A formal document offering a candidate a position, detailing salary, benefits, and key terms of employment.

The process of integrating a new employee into the company, covering logistics, culture, and initial training.

An initial trial period of employment where performance is evaluated before the role becomes permanent.

The process of contacting a candidate's past employers to verify performance and professional experience.

A notification sent to candidates to inform them they are no longer being considered for a specific position.

A comprehensive benefits package encompasses the non-wage provisions offered to employees in addition to their basic salary, designed to attract, retain, and motivate talent.

Job grading is a systematic process of evaluating and ranking jobs within an organisation based on their content, complexity, and overall contribution to business objectives, in order to establish a fair and equitable pay structure.

A compensation band defines the salary range, including minimum and maximum pay, for a specific job role or level within an organisation, ensuring equitable and structured remuneration.

Contract-to-hire allows organisations to evaluate a candidate’s performance and cultural fit on a contract basis before extending a permanent offer, mitigating hiring risks.

A deferred start date allows a new hire to begin employment at a later agreed-upon time, often beyond the standard notice period, benefiting both employee and employer flexibility.

Digital onboarding streamlines the integration of new hires using technology, automating paperwork, training, and cultural assimilation to enhance efficiency and candidate experience.

E-signatures are legally recognised digital approvals, replacing handwritten signatures for efficiency and speed in recruitment documentation.

Job leveling is a systematic process of defining and categorising jobs within an organisation based on their scope, complexity, required skills, and impact, ensuring internal equity and external competitiveness.

Job shadowing involves an individual observing an experienced employee to understand daily tasks and departmental functions, offering practical insight into a role and its environment before committing to employment.

A New Hire Survey is a structured questionnaire issued to recently onboarded employees to gather feedback on their recruitment, onboarding, and initial experience with the organisation.

Offer management encompasses the entire process of extending and securing job offers, from initial candidate communication to final acceptance and onboarding handoff.

Offer negotiation is the critical process where a candidate and potential employer discuss and agree upon the terms of employment, encompassing salary, benefits, and other contractual elements.

Ongoing onboarding is a continuous, long-term process integrating new hires into the company culture, values, and operational workflows beyond the initial probationary period.

Pre-boarding engages new hires between offer acceptance and their official start date, fostering connection and facilitating administrative readiness to ensure a seamless transition into the organisation.

Rehire refers to the process of bringing back former employees to an organisation, often leveraging their prior experience and understanding of the company culture.

A sign-on bonus is a one-time financial incentive paid to a new employee upon joining a company, typically used to attract highly sought-after talent or compensate for foregone benefits.

Total Rewards encompasses all quantifiable and non-quantifiable benefits an employee receives, extending beyond base salary to include compensation, benefits, development, and work-life integration.

Upskilling is the process of training employees to acquire advanced or additional skills, enabling them to perform new roles or adapt to evolving job requirements within their current organisation.

A structured ramp document defining what success looks like at 30, 60, and 90 days post-start; correlates with reduced first-year attrition by 20-30%.

A structured framework defining min/mid/max compensation per level and family; underpins fair, defensible offer decisions and supports pay-transparency compliance.

A formal definition of seniority levels (e.g., L3-L7) with explicit scope, impact, and behavioural expectations per level; prerequisite for fair calibration.

A pre-built playbook for recruiters covering common candidate objections, comp guardrails, and escalation paths; reduces time-to-close and protects bands.

A late-stage recruiter conversation surfacing concerns and confirming verbal acceptance before the formal offer goes out; suppresses post-offer surprises.

A non-binding conversation conveying the offer's headline terms before the written contract; legally meaningless in most EU jurisdictions but psychologically critical.

Stock options or RSUs granted at hire; vest over 4 years with a 1-year cliff in standard EU and US scaleups.

Additional equity awarded periodically (typically every 18-24 months) to top up the post-cliff vesting curve; now table-stakes at scaleup stage.

A market-data exercise comparing your benefits package against competitors in the same geography and size band; refreshed annually.

The pre-defined sign-off chain (recruiter → hiring manager → comp → finance → exec) for offer letters; mature teams measure cycle time end-to-end.

The formal contractual offer document containing all material terms.

A standardised, legally-reviewed template kept current with country-specific clauses.

A defined deadline for offer response, typically five to ten working days.

A documented rule of who must approve which offer ranges and exceptions.

An employee's salary expressed as a percentage of the band midpoint.

A pre-offer check ensuring a new hire's compensation is consistent with peers.

A benchmark of offer terms against current external market data.

A documented set of benefits to support a candidate moving location for the role.

A formal commitment to sponsor and pay for a candidate's work authorisation.

A scheduled additional equity grant beyond the initial new-hire grant.

The timetable over which equity becomes the employee's, typically four years.

A minimum service period before any equity vests, usually one year.

Restricted Stock Units, the most common public-company equity instrument.

Incentive Stock Options, a US-specific tax-advantaged option type.

Non-Qualified Stock Options, the standard option type without the ISO tax treatment.

Enterprise Management Incentives, a UK-specific tax-advantaged share option scheme.

A cash-settled equity-equivalent used by privately-held companies that prefer not to dilute.

A variable compensation tied to overall company profitability rather than individual performance.

Performance-tied pay that complements base salary, typically 10–40% for commercial roles.

The expected total annual compensation when variable targets are fully met.

A documented formula linking sales-team variable pay to specific revenue outcomes.

A short-term cash incentive layered on top of a standard commission plan.

A personalised document summarising the full value of a compensation package.

A pre-defined approach to handling competing offers without breaking compensation discipline.

The brief period in which a candidate's current employer typically responds.

A captured, categorised reason for any rejected offer to inform future strategy.

The percentage of late-stage candidates who decline offers, a leading indicator of comp competitiveness.

The standardised checklist of equipment, access and welcomes for a new hire's first day.

A documented set of 30, 60 and 90-day expectations co-created with the new hire.

A structured peer pairing for the first 30–90 days outside the reporting line.

A grouped onboarding experience for new hires starting in the same week or month.

A survey-based score capturing new hires' satisfaction with the onboarding experience.

The percentage of hires still employed at the 90-day mark; a leading indicator of mis-hire.

Departures within the first six months, often signalling hiring or onboarding issues.

The elapsed time from start date to a hire performing at full expected output.

A documented schedule for a new hire's progression to full productivity.

A defined initial employment window with reduced notice, governed by local law.

Compliant, time-bounded retention of reference materials post-hire.

The documented decision process for handling adverse background-check results.

All forms, policies and acknowledgements a new hire must complete before day one.

A scheduled reverification when initial work authorisation has an expiry date.

A physical or digital package sent before day one to set tone and reduce first-day anxiety.

A separate checklist held by the new hire's manager, distinct from HR onboarding.

A formal review at the mid-point of the probationary period to surface and address issues.

A state of unintentional discrimination where a hiring process disproportionately excludes members of a protected group.

A verification process used to confirm a candidate's legal, financial, and educational history to ensure suitability and safety.

The practice of recruiting with a focus on eliminating bias and ensuring equal opportunity for diverse candidate groups.

European regulation classifying recruitment AI as high-risk, requiring strict transparency, bias monitoring, and human oversight.

A benchmark used to detect potential discrimination, flagging processes where a group's selection rate is less than 80% of the highest group's rate.

A period where a departing employee remains on the payroll but is prohibited from working or entering company premises.

A comprehensive EU data privacy regulation governing how personal data of candidates must be collected, processed, and stored.

The end-to-end process of verifying a candidate's identity, credentials, employment history, and criminal record before a hire is finalised.

The structured framework that defines job families, levels, titles, and progression criteria across an organisation.

The practice — increasingly mandated by law in Europe — of publishing salary ranges in job postings and disclosing pay structures to candidates and employees.

The systematic comparison of internal pay levels against external market data to ensure compensation is competitive, equitable, and defensible.

A contractual provision prohibiting an employee from engaging in competitive business activities for a specific period and geographic area following the termination of their employment.

AI explainability refers to the ability to comprehend and interpret the decision-making processes of artificial intelligence systems.

Algorithmic fairness ensures AI systems produce unbiased outcomes, preventing discrimination and promoting equitable treatment across all candidate groups.

CV redaction is the process of obscuring personally identifiable information from résumés to mitigate bias in recruitment.

Bias mitigation in recruitment involves strategies and tools designed to identify and reduce unconscious or conscious biases across all stages of the hiring process, ensuring fair and equitable candidate evaluation.

A Bona Fide Occupational Qualification (BFOQ) is a legally permissible reason to discriminate in employment based on characteristics like religion, sex, or national origin, provided it is reasonably necessary for the normal operation of a business.

A Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA) is a systematic process to identify, assess, and mitigate data protection risks associated with new projects or technologies involving personal data.

An Employer of Record (EOR) is a third-party organisation that legally employs staff on behalf of another company, handling all compliance, payroll, and HR responsibilities without engaging in their day-to-day management.

Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) prohibits discrimination in employment based on protected characteristics, ensuring fair treatment for all applicants and employees.

Fair Chance Hiring eliminates discriminatory barriers to employment for individuals with criminal records, focusing on qualifications and rehabilitation rather than past mistakes.

A gig worker is an independent contractor, freelancer, or temporary worker engaged in short-term, task-based, or project-based work, often facilitated by digital platforms.

A legally binding contract, a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) safeguards sensitive company information shared with prospective employees or third parties during the recruitment process, preventing its unauthorised disclosure.

Pay equity ensures employees with comparable roles, responsibilities, and experience receive equal compensation, irrespective of gender, ethnicity, or other protected characteristics, aligning with legal and ethical standards.

A Right-to-Work Check verifies a candidate’s legal eligibility to work within a specific country, a mandatory compliance step for employers to prevent illegal employment.

Work eligibility, or the right to work, mandates that individuals possess the legal authorisation to undertake employment within a specific jurisdiction, a critical compliance factor for all employers.

A structured review of an AI hiring tool's outputs to detect disparate impact across protected groups, increasingly mandated under the EU AI Act.

The patchwork of national laws governing hiring, termination, and worker protections across EU member states; differs materially country-by-country despite EU directives.

A statutory employee body (Betriebsrat in Germany, comité d'entreprise in France) with consultation rights over hiring policies, layoffs, and major restructures.

An industry- or company-level pay agreement negotiated with unions; sets minimum salary bands and benefits, especially binding in DACH and Nordic markets.

2023 EU directive requiring employers to disclose salary ranges in job ads and report gender pay gaps; member states must transpose by mid-2026.

Recruitment AI systems are classified as "high-risk", triggering documentation, audit and human-oversight obligations.

The legal ground (consent, legitimate interest, contract, legal obligation) for processing candidate data.

A documented balancing test demonstrating that legitimate interest is appropriate as a lawful basis.

A contract between data controller and processor specifying GDPR-required protections.

A formal request from a candidate to receive all personal data held about them.

A candidate's GDPR right to request deletion of their personal data subject to retention exceptions.

A candidate's GDPR right to correct inaccurate personal data held by an employer.

A candidate's GDPR right to limit further processing pending review.

A candidate's GDPR right to object to processing under legitimate interest.

A GDPR right requiring human review for any decision producing legal or similarly significant effects.

A technical measure replacing identifying fields with tokens to reduce risk if data is breached.

Removing identifiers such that data subjects can no longer be re-identified, taking data out of GDPR scope.

A legally-recognised safeguard (SCCs, adequacy decision) for transferring personal data outside the EEA.

EU-approved template contract clauses enabling lawful international data transfers.

An EU Commission decision that a non-EEA country provides adequate data protection.

A commitment that data is stored and processed only within a defined geographic region.

A specific data-residency commitment to keep data inside the European Union.

The GDPR requirement to collect only data adequate, relevant and limited to what is necessary.

The GDPR principle that data collected for one purpose cannot be repurposed without a new lawful basis.

The GDPR principle requiring defined retention periods rather than indefinite storage.

The GDPR requirement to keep personal data accurate and up to date.

The GDPR security principle covering technical and organisational measures.

The GDPR principle requiring controllers to demonstrate compliance, not just achieve it.

A GDPR-required documented inventory of all personal data processing operations.

A required role under specific GDPR conditions, with statutory independence.

A configuration where two organisations jointly determine purpose and means of processing.

A third party processing personal data on behalf of a primary processor under contract.

GDPR's deadline for notifying a supervisory authority of a personal-data breach.

The independent national regulator enforcing GDPR in each EU member state.

The UK's Information Commissioner's Office, the supervisory authority post-Brexit.

The French data protection authority, a particularly active GDPR enforcer.

The Belgian data protection authority, the Gegevensbeschermingsautoriteit.

The Spanish data protection authority, the Agencia Española de Protección de Datos.

The Italian data protection authority, formally the Garante per la Protezione dei Dati Personali.

Generic shorthand for any country's data protection authority.

The principle that organisations must explain and justify algorithmic decisions affecting individuals.

AI systems whose outputs can be traced back to interpretable factors a human can review.

A regulatory or policy requirement for human review of AI-driven decisions.

A New York City law requiring annual bias audits for automated employment decision tools.

A US state law requiring consent and disclosure for AI analysis of video interviews.

A Maryland statute regulating use of facial recognition in pre-employment screening.

California's regulator with active jurisdiction over algorithmic discrimination in hiring.

US federal law prohibiting employment discrimination on the basis of protected characteristics.

The Americans with Disabilities Act, requiring reasonable accommodation in selection processes.

The US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the federal employment discrimination regulator.

The US Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs, regulating federal contractor hiring.

An international standard for information security management systems.

A widely-used trust-services audit report covering security, availability and confidentiality.

An international privacy-information-management standard extending ISO 27001.

DEI recruitment is the practice of designing the hiring process to attract, fairly evaluate and hire candidates from a diverse range of backgrounds, while measuring outcomes by representation and pass-through rates.

The reduction in staff over time through retirement, resignation, or role elimination without immediate replacement.

The average total investment—including internal and external expenses—required to complete a single successful hire.

A metric derived from employee surveys that measures how likely staff are to recommend their employer to others.

A measure of internal stakeholder contentment with the recruitment process and the caliber of candidates provided.

The ratio of job offers accepted by candidates compared to the total number of offers extended.

Short, frequent surveys used to collect immediate feedback from employees on specific topics or general sentiment.

A multi-dimensional metric evaluating the long-term value, performance, and retention of a new employee to the organization.

The period of time it takes for a new hire to reach full productivity and perform their duties independently.

The specific channel or platform (e.g., referral, job board, LinkedIn) that originally led a successful candidate to the vacancy.

The total number of days from the approval of a job requisition to the final acceptance of the offer.

The number of days between a specific candidate's application and their acceptance of a job offer.

A standardised measure of how likely candidates — both hired and rejected — are to recommend your hiring process to a peer.

The percentage of candidates who exit the hiring process at each stage, used to diagnose where a recruitment funnel is leaking talent.

A temporary suspension of external hiring, usually announced by leadership in response to financial conditions or strategic re-prioritisation.

The percentage of offers extended that are turned down by candidates, often analysed by reason to surface process or compensation issues.

A visual and analytical model of the candidate journey from sourcing through hire, used to measure conversion and diagnose process health.

The structured process of forecasting future workforce requirements and aligning recruiting, internal mobility, and learning investment to meet them.

A strategic process for identifying and developing high-potential internal candidates to replace departing leaders and maintain operational continuity within the organisation.

Turnover rate is the percentage of employees who leave an organisation during a specific timeframe, serving as a primary metric for assessing retention efficiency and workforce stability.

Data-driven recruiting is a strategic approach that utilises metrics and insights to optimise every stage of the hiring process, from candidate sourcing to offer acceptance.

Employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS) measures employee loyalty and satisfaction by gauging their willingness to recommend their workplace.

The recruitment funnel is a structured multi-stage process that visualises and tracks candidates’ journeys from initial application to successful hire.

Calculated as the percentage of employees who remain with an organisation over a specified period, the retention rate is a vital metric for assessing workplace stability and employee satisfaction.

Workforce Analytics involves the systematic collection, analysis, and interpretation of HR data to gain insights into an organisation's workforce, enabling data-driven decision-making.

The Application Completion Rate measures the percentage of candidates who start an application and successfully submit it, providing insight into the user-friendliness and efficiency of the application process.

Benchmark hiring involves establishing quantitative and qualitative standards for ideal candidate profiles and recruitment process performance to inform and improve future hiring strategies.

Closed-loop feedback in recruiting is a system where insights from hired candidates are continuously fed back into the hiring process to refine and improve future recruitment strategies.

The Applicant Conversion Rate measures the percentage of candidates who advance from one stage of the recruitment pipeline to the next, indicating funnel efficiency.

Cost Per Applicant (CPA) measures the average expense incurred to attract and secure a single job applicant, encompassing all recruitment marketing and sourcing expenditures.

A Leaver Survey is a structured questionnaire administered to employees upon their resignation, designed to gather candid feedback on their employment experience and reasons for departure.

A multi-stage funnel models the candidate journey as a series of sequential steps, from initial awareness to eventual hiring, allowing for granular analysis of conversion rates and bottlenecks.

People Analytics leverages data-driven insights to optimise human resources functions, enhance employee performance, and improve organisational outcomes within a structured, ethical framework.

Predictive Hiring leverages data analytics and statistical algorithms to forecast future recruitment needs, identify ideal candidate profiles, and predict candidate success within an organisation.

Recruiter productivity measures the efficiency and effectiveness of talent acquisition professionals in sourcing, engaging, and hiring candidates, directly impacting an organisation's growth and operational costs.

Skill gap analysis identifies discrepancies between the skills an organisation currently possesses and the skills required to achieve future strategic objectives, ensuring workforce readiness and competitive advantage.

Talent density measures the proportion of high-performing individuals within an organisation, focusing on the collective capability and impact of its people.

The number of active requisitions a single recruiter manages; healthy load is 12-18 for IC roles, 6-10 for executive search. Above 25, quality of hire drops materially.

A productivity metric expressing hires per recruiter per quarter, weighted by role complexity; replaces vanity metrics like sourced-profiles-per-week.

The percentage of candidates progressing between each pipeline stage; the gap between 'phone screen → onsite' is usually the most diagnostic.

The average number of days a candidate spends in each stage; a leading indicator of recruiter capacity and hiring-manager engagement.

Tracking groups of candidates by sourcing channel, role, or quarter to compare downstream performance; reveals which sources produce hires that stick.

A composite score combining 6-month performance rating, retention, and hiring-manager satisfaction; the single most important strategic recruiting metric.

A finance-recruiting joint plan listing approved hires by quarter, role, and location; the source of truth for what the recruiting team is funded to deliver.

Statistical forecasting of who is likely to leave the organisation in the next 6-12 months; informs retention spend and replacement-hiring plans.

Voluntary departures of employees the company would have preferred to keep; isolated from total attrition to focus retention investment.

The percentage of candidates who start an application but don't complete it; over 40% drop-off signals a broken or too-long form.

A central store combining ATS, CRM, HRIS, and finance data; enables real workforce-planning analytics rather than ATS-native reporting.

Industry-comparable data on hires-per-recruiter, cost-per-hire, and time-to-fill, segmented by company size, sector, and geography.

The methodology assigning credit to a sourcing channel for each hire; first-touch vs last-touch attribution materially changes spend decisions.

The number of active candidates per open requisition needed to confidently close on time; healthy ratio is 5-8x for IC roles, higher for hard-to-fill.

The end-to-end measurement of candidate flow through every funnel stage with conversion rates.

A targeted review of stages where candidates exit at higher-than-expected rates.

Identifying the single funnel stage that most constrains overall throughput at any moment.

Comparing groups of hires by start month or sourcing channel to surface durable differences.

A statistical view of how long hires remain employed by start cohort.

A specific quality-of-hire input measured exactly one year after start.

The number of active requisitions a single recruiter can effectively manage simultaneously.

Hires generated per sourced profile, segmented by channel.

The total number of cold outreaches sent in a defined period.

Net Promoter Score collected from candidates regardless of outcome.

Tracking representation by protected characteristics at each funnel stage.

The percentage of candidates advancing from one specific stage to the next.

A synonym for yield ratio used predominantly in US contexts.

The composition of a final-round shortlist on relevant diversity dimensions.

Multi-touch attribution acknowledging more than one channel influences a single hire.

A simple attribution model crediting the first channel a candidate engaged with.

A simple attribution model crediting the final channel before application.

An attribution model spreading credit across all touchpoints in the candidate journey.

The percentage of careers-page visitors who complete an application.

The percentage of job-listing views that result in a click on the apply button.

The aggregate click-through rate on a job listing in a third-party board.

The percentage of relevant job-board searches in which your role appears.

Applications generated per euro of sponsored-listing investment.

A composite leading indicator combining workload, on-call hours and engagement scores.

A weighted composite of pipeline depth, freshness and conversion-to-target.

How closely predicted hiring outcomes match actual outcomes over a defined window.

A distribution of how long requisitions have been open, used to flag stale roles.

A flag for candidates with no recent activity, prompting re-engagement or close.

A scheduled comparison of headcount-plan targets to actual hire delivery by month.

A breakdown of hires that replace departures versus those that grow headcount.

The percentage of openings filled by existing employees moving role.

The percentage of hires who are returning former employees.

The percentage of referrals that progress to hire, typically much higher than other channels.

A funnel-conversion measure detecting screening over- or under-qualification.

A late-funnel measure of compensation competitiveness and candidate confidence.

The percentage of in-process candidates who self-withdraw from the funnel.

The percentage of candidates who become unresponsive at a specific stage.

The percentage of scheduled interviews where the candidate fails to appear.

The percentage of interviews rescheduled at least once before they happen.

An internal NPS-style score for recruiter performance from hiring-manager respondents.

A finance-grade calculation of recruiting return on investment over a defined period.

The unique set of benefits and values an employer offers to employees in exchange for their work and commitment.

The reputation of an organization as an employer, reflecting its values, culture, and employee experience.

A formal document outlining the duties, responsibilities, required skills, and qualifications for a specific position.

Recruitment marketing is the strategic application of marketing tactics to attract, engage, and nurture talented individuals before they apply for a specific role within an organisation.

Employer Value Proposition (EVP) defines the unique benefits and values an organisation offers to attract, engage, and retain top talent.

A Candidate Journey Map is a visual representation charting every interaction a prospective hire has with an organisation, from initial awareness to onboarding and beyond.

A career site is a dedicated section of a company’s website designed to attract, inform, and convert potential candidates into applicants, acting as a primary employer branding touchpoint.

Employee Experience (EX) encompasses the entire journey an individual undertakes with an organization, from initial contact as a candidate to their eventual departure as an alumnus.

An inclusive job description is a fair, unbiased advertisement for a position, crafted to attract diverse talent by using neutral language and focusing on essential skills and responsibilities.

Workplace flexibility allows employees to adapt their work arrangements, such as schedule, location, or work style, to better suit their personal needs and enhance productivity and engagement.

A documented progression path showing the criteria and competencies needed to move from one level to the next; high-retention orgs publish theirs internally.

A consistent, multi-channel story explaining what working at the company is actually like.

A widely-referenced public score reflecting employee and candidate ratings of an employer.

An employer's owned profile on Indeed with reviews, salaries and culture content.

A LinkedIn premium feature for richer employer-brand storytelling on the platform.

All written, visual and structured content on a company's owned careers site.

First-person content from current employees explaining their day-to-day and motivation.

Short-form video showing realistic day-to-day work, anchoring expectations.

Authentic content showing how decisions are made and how the company actually operates.

A periodic external review of how a company's employer brand is currently perceived.

A targeted survey measuring awareness, consideration and reputation among target talent.

A documented archetype of the people the brand should attract and resonate with.

A document outlining what the candidate would gain rather than what the company demands.

A talent strategy where the company's mission is the primary attraction lever.

A short articulation of why the company exists, beyond financial outcomes.

A public document outlining how the company operates and what it values.

The internal values that govern day-to-day behaviour and hiring/firing decisions.

A structured system for peer and manager recognition that doubles as employer-brand content.

A structured celebration of employee tenure, often shared externally.

A structured paid extended leave used as both retention and brand differentiator.

An explicit per-employee budget for training, often a top employer-brand differentiator.

An explicit policy on company-funded conference attendance, valued by senior individual contributors.

A policy allocating paid time for engineers to contribute to open-source projects.

A recurring internal event where engineers prototype outside their normal scope.

An internal programme supporting employees to speak at industry conferences.

An internal programme supporting employees to publish books or essays in their domain.

A structured programme supporting employees to share authentic content on their own networks.

The personal brands of recruiters acting as a primary employer-brand surface.

A periodic newsletter for the company's wider talent community, separate from marketing.

A managed community of past candidates and prospects nurtured for future opportunities.

A managed community of former employees, kept warm for boomerangs and referrals.

A structured cash bonus paid to employees whose referrals are hired and stay.

A public articulation of the company's commitment to inclusive hiring.

A public commitment to disclosing salary ranges in job postings.

A public commitment to remote work as the company's default operating model.

A brand commitment to asynchronous communication as the company default.

A structural shift to a four-day work week, an increasingly common employer-brand lever.

A formal policy allowing employees to work from temporary international locations.

A clearly stated policy on parental leave, often a key differentiator.

Structured access to mental-health support, typically via covered therapy sessions.

A monthly allowance for employee wellbeing spending, typically EUR 50–150.

A budget for remote employees to access coworking spaces near home.

A frequently-shared employer-brand artefact in early-stage company offices.

The frequency and structure of team offsites, valued by candidates considering remote roles.

A periodic public-facing event showcasing the company's work, useful for employer brand.

A public-facing product roadmap signalling transparency to potential candidates.

A publicly-shared analysis of a system failure, signalling engineering culture.

A technical blog reflecting the company's engineering culture and standards.

A design-focused blog reflecting how the company thinks about craft and process.

A software application that enables the electronic handling of recruitment and hiring needs by managing the entire candidate lifecycle.

The automated conversion of a resume into a structured format that a computer can easily search and analyze.

A formal internal request to hire for a new or existing position, used to secure budget and departmental approval.

The AI technology used to process and generate human-like text, often used in recruiting to automate screening and communication.

Recruitment Process Outsourcing is a business model where an employer transfers all or part of its permanent recruitment operations to an external service provider.

A talent marketplace is a skills-based platform that uses AI to match internal employees with specific projects, gigs, and full-time roles based on their competencies and career goals.

Candidate Relationship Management (CRM) is a strategic approach and associated technology used by organisations to build, maintain, and nurture relationships with potential and past candidates.

Agile recruiting is a flexible, iterative approach to talent acquisition, adapting swiftly to changing market demands and business needs through continuous feedback and improvement cycles.

Chat recruiting uses conversational interfaces, such as chatbots and live chat, to engage candidates, answer questions, and streamline parts of the hiring process.

Chatbot screening automates the initial candidate qualification process using conversational AI to engage applicants, gather information, and assess suitability against predefined criteria.

Full-cycle recruiting encompasses all stages of the hiring process, from initial job requisition to candidate onboarding, managed by a single recruiter or small team.

Gen-AI Sourcing leverages generative AI to automate and enhance candidate identification, engagement, and initial screening processes, significantly boosting recruiter efficiency and outreach effectiveness.

High-volume hiring is the process of recruiting, assessing, and onboarding a significant number of employees simultaneously for similar roles, often driven by rapid organisational growth or recurring seasonal demands.

A job board aggregator compiles job postings from numerous sources into a single, searchable platform, streamlining the job discovery process for candidates.

Machine Learning Screening leverages artificial intelligence to automate and enhance the initial stages of candidate evaluation, identifying suitable applicants more efficiently and accurately than traditional methods.

Mass recruiting, also known as volume hiring, involves attracting, assessing, and onboarding a large number of candidates for numerous similar positions within a compressed timeframe as efficiently as possible.

Organizational design aligns an organisation's structure, roles, and processes with its strategic objectives to enhance efficiency and effectiveness.

Recruitment automation leverages technology, particularly AI and machine learning, to streamline and enhance various stages of the hiring process, from sourcing to onboarding.

Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO) is when a company transfers all or part of its permanent recruitment processes to an external provider to improve hiring efficiency and outcomes.

A Request for Proposal (RFP) is a formal document issued by an organisation to solicit detailed proposals from potential vendors for a specific product or service, often used in procuring HR technology solutions.

A skills taxonomy is a hierarchical classification system that categorizes and organizes the skills within an organization, providing a standardized framework for identifying and managing human capital.

Talent intelligence is the application of data analytics and insights to understand, predict, and optimise talent acquisition and management strategies within an organisation.

Use of large language models to extract structured data from CVs in any layout, language, or format, replacing brittle keyword-based parsers.

A structured conversation with a departing employee to capture root causes; only useful if results are reviewed quarterly and acted on systemically.

A continuous-feedback program (pulse surveys, eNPS, sentiment analysis) replacing the annual engagement survey; informs culture and manager interventions.

Automated tooling that flags masculine-coded vocabulary ('rockstar', 'aggressive') in JDs which depress female-identifying applications by 5-15%.

The integrated set of tools (ATS, CRM, sourcing, assessment, scheduling, analytics) supporting the recruiting workflow; healthy stacks have 5-9 tools, not 25.

The discipline of keeping candidate data clean, deduplicated, and GDPR-compliant; prerequisite for any AI matching or rediscovery effort.

Programs analogous to sales enablement, providing recruiters with playbooks, talking points, and competitive intelligence per role and persona.

Training and tools that upskill hiring managers in scorecard-writing, interview technique, and offer-decision quality; measurable in fewer aborted searches.

The function (often abbreviated RecOps) that owns process, tech, data, and reporting for talent acquisition; 1 RecOps role per 8-12 recruiters is the typical staffing ratio.

Tools that automate top-of-funnel outreach, follow-ups, and pipeline maintenance; freed-up time should redeploy to high-touch closing, not cut headcount.

Self-service tooling (calendar-share links, panel-find optimisers) that cuts back-and-forth from days to minutes; saves 5-8 hours per recruiter per week.

Algorithms that find feasible slots across multi-panel calendars; the bottleneck this solves is one of the top-3 causes of pipeline drag.

An apply flow optimised for phones (5 fields max, single page, no PDF upload requirement); 65%+ of applies originate on mobile in 2026.

A logged-in space where candidates can track application status, schedule interviews, and update their profile; reduces 'where are we?' inbound by 70%+.

Live-assistant tooling that transcribes interviews, prompts unanswered competencies, and drafts scorecards; controversial when used without candidate consent.

A structured data model linking skills to roles, candidates and learning paths.

A formal taxonomy of skills with relationships such as substitution, prerequisite and adjacency.

Algorithmic deduction of likely candidate skills from indirect evidence in CVs and profiles.

A measure of how related two skills are, used to suggest realistic candidate transitions.

LLM-assisted creation of first-draft job descriptions from a structured spec.

Automated review of JDs and outreach to flag exclusionary or biased phrasing.

Dynamic JD content rendered based on a viewer's location, role or referrer.

An internal platform matching employees to internal roles, projects and mentors.

A purpose-built CRM for nurturing candidates over multi-month or multi-year horizons.

An ATS designed for high-volume hiring with automation as the primary feature, not a bolt-on.

An ATS where candidate interaction defaults to chat-based interfaces.

An ATS exposed primarily through APIs, with the customer building the candidate-facing surface.

A real-time event notification from an ATS to an external system, e.g. on application submitted.

A documented API surface allowing read/write integrations with external systems.

A query-language-based API surface offering more flexible reads than typical REST APIs.

A standard protocol for automating user provisioning across SaaS systems.

A federated authentication standard widely used for enterprise single sign-on.

A standard authorization framework used for delegated API access between systems.

A documented retry strategy for webhook delivery failures.

A recruiting tech pattern where downstream actions trigger from event streams rather than polling.

A centralised storage of raw recruiting data enabling cross-system analytics.

A data pattern moving processed insights from a warehouse back into operational tools.

Matching the same candidate across multiple sources into a single canonical profile.

A general data-engineering technique used in recruiting to dedupe candidate records.

A purpose-built CDP-style tool for unifying candidate touchpoints across the funnel.

A tool for centrally managing tracking tags on careers pages and job-board distribution.

Tracking applicant analytics from server logs rather than browser scripts, more reliable post-cookie.

A web-spec-aware approach to recruiting analytics built without third-party cookies.

Data collected directly by an employer rather than via third-party intermediaries.

A native application form on the careers page rather than a redirect to an ATS.

A standard apply flow consuming a candidate's existing platform profile, e.g. LinkedIn Easy Apply.

Passwordless candidate authentication via a one-time email link.

A modern passwordless authentication standard increasingly used by candidate-facing surfaces.

Use of facial-match technology to verify a candidate's identity matches their submitted documents.

AI tools that rewrite candidates' CVs to fit a specific JD, creating new screening challenges.

A computed similarity score between a JD and a CV, typically used as one signal among many.

A matching approach using vector embeddings of CVs and JDs to detect semantic similarity.

A search method using vector embeddings rather than lexical matching.

A search architecture combining lexical and vector search results for higher recall and precision.

An LLM pattern using retrieval over candidate data to ground answers in evidence.

Technical and policy controls preventing LLM misuse in recruiting workflows.

A maintained library of prompts for repeatable LLM-assisted recruiting tasks.

Disciplined version control of LLM prompts in production recruiting systems.

A test framework for benchmarking LLM-driven recruiting outputs against ground truth.

The marginal LLM inference cost of evaluating one application, a key unit-economics metric.

A candidate-facing chat interface for FAQ and basic application tasks.

An LLM-driven assistant embedded in the recruiter's day-to-day tools.

An LLM-driven assistant designed for hiring managers' specific tasks like writing JDs and prep.

A technical layer in an AI hiring tool that adjusts outputs to reduce known biases.

The discrete stages a requisition moves through from draft to closed in the ATS.

Automated path a requisition takes through finance, HR and hiring-manager approvals.

Outbound HTTP event fired whenever a candidate transitions between pipeline stages.

Programmatic endpoint for performing the same status change across many candidates in one call.

Non-production environment for testing template, workflow and integration changes.

Automated user-account creation and de-provisioning driven by an identity provider.

System for Cross-domain Identity Management used to keep ATS users in sync with the IdP.

Contractual right and technical means to export all workspace data in machine-readable form.

Documented commitment to backwards-compatible API and export-format changes.

Read-only event firehose of every privileged action in the system, for SIEM ingestion.

Talent Acquisition — see TenPerZent's recruiting glossary for the working definition used by talent acquisition teams in 2026.

Sourcing in Recruiting — see TenPerZent's recruiting glossary for the working definition used by talent acquisition teams in 2026.

Hiring Funnel — see TenPerZent's recruiting glossary for the working definition used by talent acquisition teams in 2026.

Semantic AI in Recruiting — see TenPerZent's recruiting glossary for the working definition used by talent acquisition teams in 2026.

HRIS vs ATS — see TenPerZent's recruiting glossary for the working definition used by talent acquisition teams in 2026.

What is an applicant tracking system? Complete ATS definition, how it works, key features, and how AI-native ATS differs from traditional platforms — for HR professionals.

Talent acquisition and recruiting are related but distinct disciplines. Understanding the difference shapes how you build your HR function and what capabilities you invest in.

What is a candidate pipeline? Definition, difference from a talent pool, how to build and manage one, and the tools that make pipeline management scalable.

The hiring funnel explained: stages from awareness to hire, typical conversion rates at each stage, and how to diagnose and fix the bottlenecks that cost you candidates.

Source of hire tracks which channels produce your hires. Why it's the most actionable recruiting metric, how to track it accurately, and how to use it to optimise sourcing spend.

What is a job requisition? Definition, components, typical approval workflow, and how proper requisition management improves hiring speed and quality.

What is talent management? Definition, how it differs from talent acquisition, the core talent management processes, and how they connect across the employee lifecycle.