What is a Job Requisition?

A job requisition is a hiring manager’s formal request for permission to create a new position or fill a vacant position. The name of this process is sometimes abbreviated to job req. The purpose of the job requisition process is to ensure that a position is needed and within your company’s budget before moving on to the hiring process. 

Differences Between Job Requisitions, Job Descriptions, and Job Postings

These documents may sound similar, but they each serve a different process. A job description describes what a position is designed to accomplish. This is typically put together by a hiring manager with help from HR. 

Meanwhile, a job requisition is a request for permission to hire someone for a position. HR owns this process and will review the job description during the process if not involved in writing the job description initially. 

Finally, a job posting is an advertisement to find candidates for the position. This is usually a slimline version of the job description. HR will create the job posting, but should have buy-in from the hiring manager to ensure the role requirements are advertised accurately. HR will then monitor the job posting’s effectiveness throughout the recruitment process. 

Job Requisition Purpose

A job requisition is important to encourage thoughtful hiring, measure hiring impacts, and ensure the hiring process is fair and consistent. 

Encourages thoughtful growth

The job requisition requires hiring managers to explain why hiring someone for the job is necessary and quantifies the budget needed to ensure a good candidate can be hired. HR will partner with the hiring manager to make sure the job description provides a clear and accurate description of the job that will attract qualified candidates. In many companies, HR will also facilitate budget review with senior leaders and obtain needed approvals before the job moves forward into the hiring process.

Develops HR metrics

The job requisition process provides useful HR data. For instance, HR can learn whether a realistic budget is being set for certain roles by evaluating how many candidates fell out of the recruiting process when it came time to discuss compensation. This knowledge can help benchmark for more accurate budgeting on future roles. 

HR can also use job requisition data to support HR hiring needs. For example, measuring how many recruiter hours are needed to fill roles can support an HR job requisition for more recruiters. HR may also track how many hours are spent working with hiring managers to develop accurate job descriptions. This data can justify additional hires in HR to coach managers through this process. Alternatively, the data can justify training hiring managers to improve their job description writing capabilities. 

Promotes a fair and consistent hiring cycle

HR should review job descriptions during the job requisition process if they haven’t already partnered with the hiring manager during the job description’s development. This review needs to ensure that the job description does not contain discriminatory language or include statements that don’t align with the company’s values. For instance, the EEOC will read a job posting seeking “recent college grads” as potential evidence of age discrimination. HR review during the job requisition process can prevent unintentionally discriminatory language from being published. 

What To Include in a Job Requisition

Job requisitions should be detailed enough that anyone needing to approve or reject the job requisition has everything that they need to make a decision. These are the major points to include in any job requisition.

Job title and reporting structure

This clarifies where the job will fit into the business. Job titles should align with any existing policies, such as brackets tied to pay (i.e. Developer 1, Developer 2, etc). Reporting structure should identify who the person in this job will report to and identify any other jobs that the person in this job will manage.

Reasoning for the requisition

This is often the most important point considered when a requisition is approved or rejected. The reasoning should make it clear how this job will benefit the business and why it is necessary to fill the job now. For instance, an expansion can help explain a need for new jobs to support the business. 

Proposed date to fill the role

Hiring managers filling out a job requisition should include a date by which they want to see the position filled. This information helps HR identify urgent hiring needs. It also helps HR to calendar recruitment progress updates back to the hiring manager. 

Job description

The job description should be a detailed description of the job and its responsibilities. The hiring manager should write the job description as they have the best understanding of what the job will require. However, it is very common for HR to partner with hiring managers to ensure the job description is clear and avoids any jargon that would be difficult to understand. HR partnership on the job description also helps avoid language that could be interpreted as discriminatory.

Budget estimates

Providing a realistic budget is essential to both the approval process and ultimately to finding a candidate for the job. Budgeting should make clear how the new job can be justified and identify any ways that the job will provide value back to the business. Data such as pay benchmarking studies or inability to fill the job in prior years due to pay conflicts can also be convincing when seeking to increase the budget for a job.

Budget specifics should include the proposed salary or hourly rate. If hourly, include an estimated number of hours needed and any expectations for overtime or incentive pay. 

Recruiting plan

Beyond the target date for filling the role, the hiring manager should clarify what they want from the recruiting process. For instance, jobs likely to attract a large volume of candidates can benefit from a recruiter screening call before sending only the most qualified candidates on to the hiring manager. This information can also help set realistic expectations for how long it will take to fill a job. A recruiting process including multiple rounds of interviews and a sample project is unlikely to yield a quick hire. HR should work with the hiring manager to make sure that expectations can be matched in the actual recruitment process.

HR Support for Job Requisitions

HR is a vital partner during the job requisition process. HR should take steps to make the job requisition process as straightforward as possible and track the results of each job requisition. A few ways that HR can help include developing templates for job requisitions that encourage a consistent process, adding the process to the hiring manager checklist, and conducting training so that hiring managers know what to expect. HR should be ready to partner with hiring managers and executives throughout as the experts on this process. 

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