Hiring Glossary

An A-player is a top-tier hire who has done the relevant work before in a comparable context, can prove it, and performs at a consistently high level. The defining trait is demonstrated results in a situation like yours, not a polished résumé or a big-name employer.

Contingency recruiting is an external-search model where the recruiter is paid only if and when their candidate is hired, usually a percentage of first-year salary. It carries no upfront cost but creates a volume incentive that can work against harder or more senior roles.

Cost of vacancy is the financial impact of leaving a role unfilled: the lost output, revenue, and momentum the position would otherwise produce. For a key role it often runs to roughly double the salary, which is why an empty seat is rarely the cheaper option.

Headhunting is proactively identifying and approaching people who are already employed and not actively job-hunting, rather than collecting inbound applications. It is the standard approach for senior, specialised, or hard-to-fill roles where the strongest candidates rarely apply on their own.

A job description (JD) is the document that defines a role: its responsibilities, required skills and experience, reporting line, and how success is measured. A precise JD is the foundation of an effective search and the first thing strong candidates judge.

A passive candidate is someone performing well in their current role who is not actively looking for a job, but may consider the right opportunity if approached directly. Passive candidates are usually the strongest talent for a role and the main target of headhunting.

A portfolio review evaluates a candidate's past work directly, rather than relying on their description of it. For creative, engineering, and other output-driven roles, it is a fast way to verify real ability before investing in interviews.

Quality of hire measures how much value a new employee actually contributes, judged by their performance, ramp speed, and retention rather than how quickly or cheaply they were hired. It is the metric that matters most, and the hardest to fake.

A reference check is a conversation with a candidate's former managers or colleagues to verify their track record and working style before an offer. It is most useful for confirming how someone operates, and least useful when the references are hand-picked by the candidate.

A replacement guarantee is a recruiter's commitment to re-run a search at no extra fee if a placed hire leaves or is let go within a set period, commonly 3 to 12 months. It puts the recruiter's incentive on a hire that lasts, not just one that signs.

Retained search is an external recruiting model in which the client pays the recruiter in committed stages across the search, rather than only on placement. It is typically used for senior or business-critical roles and aligns the recruiter's focus with the client's priority.

A scorecard is a structured rubric listing the competencies and outcomes a role requires, used to rate each candidate consistently. It turns hiring decisions into evidence against defined criteria instead of gut feel.

A screening call is a short early-stage conversation, often 15 to 30 minutes, used to confirm a candidate's basic fit, interest, and key requirements before committing to a full interview. It filters the shortlist and protects everyone's time.

Sourcing is the systematic process of finding and building a list of qualified candidates for a role, usually before any of them have applied. It is the research-and-identification stage that feeds outreach, distinct from screening or interviewing.

A structured interview asks every candidate the same predefined questions, scored against the same criteria, so candidates are compared on evidence rather than rapport or first impressions. It is consistently more predictive of job performance than an unstructured chat.

A test assignment is a short, paid, job-realistic task a candidate completes so you can evaluate real output instead of interview performance. For any role with a visible deliverable, it is the most reliable single signal of whether someone can do the work.

Time-to-fill is the number of days from opening a role to a candidate accepting the offer. It is a core hiring-speed metric and a practical proxy for how long a critical gap stays open on the team.