Hiring terms glossary

DEFINITION

An active candidate is someone who is actively seeking out work. They may be searching job postings, actively applying for jobs, or already in the interview process. The candidate may be employed and looking for new opportunities, or unemployed for a variety of reasons.

Examples

“I’m currently talking to Shelley – she’s an active candidate who is interviewing with other companies, but I think she's a great fit for this role.”

DEFINITION

Affinity means a natural liking or sympathy, for someone or something. The term affinity bias refers to an unconscious bias that occurs when someone is more naturally inclined towards someone you feel you have something in common with. Post-interview, affinity bias can also lead to favoritism.

Examples

In the hiring process, affinity bias can show up when the interviewer gravitates towards a particular candidate. For example, if the interviewer and the candidate went to the same university, this can cause the interviewer to favor this candidate or view them as “more intelligent” than other candidates. This is why structured interviews and skills-based hiring are integral to creating fair hiring processes.

DEFINITION

Ageism in the workplace refers to prejudice or discrimination on the basis of a person’s age.

Examples

A manager is choosing between two equally qualified candidates, with one candidate being 22 years old and the other being 42. They choose to hire the younger candidate solely because they're younger, and they don’t like hiring people over 35. Because this hiring decision was made based on age, they are being ageist against the older candidate.

DEFINITION

AI-powered refers to any product, device, or software that uses forms of artificial intelligence (like natural language processing, chatbots, speech recognition, machine learning, etc.) to carry out their service.

Examples

Many applicant tracking systems (ATS) use AI to automate the matching of applicants to job positions. Using AI, an ATS will scan a resume and predict how well a candidate matches to a particular position.

DEFINITION

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) became law in 1990. It is a civil rights law that prohibits discrimination against those with disabilities in areas including employment, public entities, public transportation, public accommodations, commercial facilities, and telecommunications.

Examples

An employer cannot hire Candidate A instead of Candidate B on the basis of Candidate B having a disability. This is prohibited by the ADA.

DEFINITION

An applicant tracking system (ATS) is software that helps organize and track candidates during the hiring process. Some additional features may include applicant job matching, sourcing, and scheduling interviews with the hiring team.

Examples

A popular ATS is Taleo. It’s used by companies like Starbucks to collect the resumes of potential employees, scan them to see candidates that match their requirements, and filter out those who do not. This way, the hiring manager is only looking at resumes the ATS has determined a good fit.

DEFINITION

Asynchronous hiring occurs when members of the hiring team, including the candidate, do not communicate or carry out the hiring process in real-time. This means that candidates and hiring team members are not expected to respond immediately and are often given timelines.

Examples

The hiring team cannot find a time that works for them and the candidate. For the first interview, they will send the candidates a pre-recorded video telling them more about the role and ask them to answer a few questions. The candidate is expected to respond with a pre-recorded video of them answering the questions before a set deadline. The candidate then waits for the hiring team to respond with further instructions about their candidacy. All communication would likely be done over email.
‍
‍

Interviewing

10 Tips for Conducting Video Interviews

Planning Interviews

What is a Virtual Interview?

DEFINITION

In a Human Resources context, attrition is the loss of an employee without a replacement. Whether voluntary or involuntary, attrition can occur when an employee retires, moves away, a position is eliminated, an employee passes away, or any other occurrences where the employee leaves the company.

Examples

Attrition was low at companies that did not have layoffs during the pandemic, but high at companies that were forced to reduce their workforce.

DEFINITION

Behavioral questions are interview questions that are designed to learn how a candidate handles situations in the workplace. Their goal is to reveal a candidate’s skills, character traits, and future performance. They usually start with phrases like: “Describe a time when..” or “Tell me about a time at work when..”

Examples

“Erica prefers to ask behavioral questions during interviews because she wants to understand how a candidate has solved real issues in their past roles.”
‍
‍

Interviewing

How to Formulate an Interview Question

DEFINITION

Candidate experience refers to a candidate’s interactions with, and feelings about, your company’s hiring process.

Examples

"One of our priorities this year is to refine the candidate experience during the hiring process. We plan to improve our communication and increase transparency for candidates. This was prioritized based on the most frequent feedback we received during last quarter's hiring rounds."

‍

Interviewing

A Guide to Creating a Great Candidate Experience

Planning Interviews

5 Tips for Better Interviews

DEFINITION

Candidate journey usually refers to the steps a job applicant goes through during the job-seeking process. Some call this the candidate journey map. It has seven steps: awareness, consideration, interest, application, selection, hiring, and onboarding.

Examples

Many recruiters and hiring managers build out their candidate journey map to include touch points that are specific to the position they’re hiring for. They often start with building a candidate persona and defining candidate needs.

‍

Interviewing

A Guide to Creating a Great Candidate Experience

DEFINITION

Candidate pipeline refers to a pool of candidates that a hiring manager or recruiter is considering for future openings at the company. It also consists of a “pipeline” or process the company has in place for hiring, and helps the hiring manager manage candidates as they go through each stage of the process.

Examples

Steps in a candidate pipeline might look like this:
‍
Step 1: Sourced
Step 2: Applied
Step 3: Vetted
Step 4: Phone Screen
Step 5: Interview 1
Step 6: Offer
Step 7: Hired

DEFINITION

Company culture refers to the shared “personality” of an organization. This may consist of workplace standards, attitudes, shared values, purpose, and behaviors. Often, people describe company culture as the way employees interact with each other and the attitude in which they approach their work. It may take the form of formal rules and processes, but it is also influenced by informal guidelines and practices.

Examples

For example, a happy employee might say, “I love our company culture. Everyone is supportive, we value hard work, work-life balance, and the overall office attitude is collaborative”.

An unhappy employee might say, “Our company culture is toxic. There is a clear hierarchy and only those who work to the point of burnout are valued or rewarded. I don’t feel like management is approachable and everyone is stressed out.”

‍

Interviewing

The Right Way to Hire for Culture Fit

Planning Interviews

The Importance of Inclusive Language in Hiring

DEFINITION

Conversational Artificial Intelligence (AI) refers to technology that simulates human communication. When you use a chatbot on a website, you can think of conversational AI as the “brain” helping the chatbot to process and respond to the information you’re giving it. At Hireguide, we use conversational AI to analyze your interview transcript to surface helpful insights about the interview.

Examples

Examples of conversational AI are: virtual agents, automated messaging, chatbots, Siri or Alexa.

DEFINITION

Cost per hire refers to the total costs associated with hiring an employee. This is determined by adding up all hiring related expenses (software, staffing agencies, training costs, administrative costs, etc.) and dividing this by the number of hires made.

Examples

Cost per hire can be thousands of dollars and depends on your business' needs, size, location, and industry.

DEFINITION

Hiring for culture add means looking for someone who has specific skills or values that are missing from your team. This could mean hiring a sales representative when your product is ready to launch. Or, you might need someone who will offer different perspectives or personality traits. For example, colleagues who bring different backgrounds and experiences to the table will be able to offer fresh opinions on policies and processes at work.

Examples

If your company is looking to become more collaborative, you might want to hire someone with a lot of experience working with teams. Or, if your company needs to launch a website but doesn’t have a design or coding team, you might want to hire a frontend developer to fill that gap.

DEFINITION

The concept of culture fit is rooted in interactional psychology. When assessing for 'fit', a hiring manager is looking for the likelihood that the candidate’s behaviors and values align with that of the company. When there is a ‘fit’ between an employee and a work environment, it generally means that they are compatible because their characteristics are well matched.

Examples

If a company has a very collaborative environment where colleagues tend to work together frequently, they may be looking for a candidate who can actively listen, has an outgoing personality, and possesses an openness towards others. A candidate with these characteristics would likely be a good “culture fit” for the company because their working styles compliment eachother.

DEFINITION

DEI stands for diversity, equity, and inclusion. The term DEI Policy refers to company programs or policies that promote these values. DEI policies encourage employees to be welcoming, encourage managers to hire a diverse team, and encourage a discrimination-free workplace.

Examples

DEI policies should include how your company plans to demonstrate diversity, equity, and inclusion through actionable and measurable goals. For example, many DEI policies outline clear processes for making complaints about discrimination in the workplace so diverse candidates feel empowered to go to superiors if they are being mistreated.

‍

Planning Interviews

The Importance of Inclusive Language in Hiring

DEFINITION

Disparate impact refers to procedure, policy or practices that seem neutral but have an unanticipated negative impact on a legally protected minority group. Even when a company has the best of intentions to treat its employees equitably, instances of disparate impact can still occur.

Examples

An example of disparate impact would be a required credit check for all applicants. Unintentionally, a practice like this could exclude minority groups from lower-income backgrounds that may not have experienced the economic mobility needed to build a good credit score.

DEFINITION

Disparate treatment refers to deliberately unfair treatment of candidates or employees in a legally protected minority group. If a candidate or employee feels that they have been discriminated against due to personal characteristics like race, gender or sexuality, they can make a disparate impact claim.

Examples

If a company fails to hire someone because they are pregnant, that would be considered disparate treatment. Under the Civil Rights Act of 1964, applicants and employees are protected from employment discrimination if they are pregnant.

DEFINITION

Diversity hiring is the practice of hiring employees from diverse backgrounds. This can include hiring people who are of different genders, races, or sexual orientations than the company's current employees

It's about hiring people who are different from you, which is a good thing for everyone involved. It helps foster creativity in your team and provides new perspectives that can be extremely valuable to your business.

Examples

Examples of diversity hiring include:
‍
• Hiring someone who is part of an underrepresented group in your organization
• Having a diverse set of interviewers for a position
• Using blind application processes to prevent bias against certain groups

Evaluating Candidates

Why is Diversity in Hiring Important?

Interviewing

Tips to Reduce Interviewer Bias

DEFINITION

An employee referral refers to a program where employers ask their current employees to recommend candidates from their networks. In most cases, if the referred candidate is hired, the employee that referred them gets some sort of award (usually a bonus).

Examples

“We’re so lucky that Olivia provided an employee referral. The candidate is great and we didn’t have to spend any time or money on sourcing.”

DEFINITION

Employer brand or employer branding refers to how your company markets itself to job seekers. Employer branding is a culmination of how you communicate your values, your appreciation for employees, your company culture, etc.

Examples

A good tactic for establishing employer brand may include sharing stories about satisfied employees on social media. This helps to advertise that employees are happy at work and gives insight on the company culture.

DEFINITION

Equal opportunity employment is the practice of hiring and promoting employees based on their qualifications for the job, not their race, gender, age, or other factors. It's important to note that equal opportunity may not mean equal outcomes. The idea is that everyone has an equal chance to succeed in their career, regardless of what they look like or who they are.

Examples

Examples of diversity hiring include:
‍
• Hiring someone who is part of an underrepresented group in your organization
• Having a diverse set of interviewers for a position
• Using blind application processes to prevent bias against certain groups

DEFINITION

“Future of work” refers to the concept of how workers and the workplace will evolve in the future. It is also a reference to the idea of “work” itself and a projection of how all types of work will be done in the future.

Examples

“In this podcast, we discuss the future of work and what you need to know to stay relevant, employable, and attractive to potential employers.”

DEFINITION

Group interview refers to an interview technique where a single interviewer interviews multiple candidates simultaneously.

Examples

In industries like hospitality or retail, interviewers might choose to do a group interview because they may want to see how candidates interact with others on their team or work in a group environment like they would on the job.

DEFINITION

A hiring manager is often a manager of a department or team that is responsible for filling a position with new talent. They sometimes work with recruiters and HR managers to source, interview and hire candidates. The hiring manager has the final decision-making power and usually becomes the supervisor of the new hire.

Examples

“Martha, the director of marketing, has an open role on her team. Any referrals should be passed onto her since she's the hiring manager."

DEFINITION

Hiring metrics (also called recruiting metrics) are data points used to measure and track the success of hiring candidates in your organization.

Examples

Examples of hiring metrics include: attrition rate, time to hire, interview-to-hire ratio, offer acceptance rate, and diversity of candidates.

DEFINITION

A hiring pool is a group of candidates who are being considered for a position at a company.

Examples

Examples of hiring metrics include: attrition rate, time to hire, interview-to-hire ratio, offer acceptance rate, and diversity of candidates.

DEFINITION

Inclusive language practices encourage wording that doesn’t marginalize people based on their social identities and/or lived experiences (e.g., race, age, gender, disability, etc.). The language we use can reflect implicit biases and ultimately creates barriers in the workplace.

Examples

Defaulting to ‘he’ as the pronoun of a theoretical person is gendered-language which assumes that men are the default or norm in that situation. Such gendered-language, jargon, slang, or discriminatory expressions can result in an ‘othering’ experience for candidates where their prospective sense of belonging is negatively influenced.

‍

Planning Interviews

The Importance of Inclusive Language in Hiring

DEFINITION

An informed candidate is a candidate that:
has done their research about your company’s culture and values,
is knowledgeable about the industry and their role,
and is prepared for the interview with the right questions and answers.

Examples

“Sharon was an informed candidate. She came to the interview with great industry forward insights and what her role would be in the future. She asked great questions about how we currently operate and ways she could transform the role."

DEFINITION

Interview intelligence tools help you record, transcribe, and analyze interviews with candidates, typically using AI. Interview intelligence software can provide better insights on how candidates may perform on the job, while making it easy for your team to review and decide on candidates.

Examples

Hireguide is interview intelligence software that helps you conduct structured interviews and transcribe them, making the hiring process more effective and streamlined.

DEFINITION

A job analysis is the first step in creating a successful and accurate job description, recruiting employees based on those requirements, and developing training programs. A job analysis documents and analyzes data about the work required for a job or role.

Examples

A job analysis provides a clear basis for hiring managers to plan and structure interviews. Interview questions should come directly from the knowledge and skills required for the role. With a clear job analysis, hiring managers can have one source of truth to refer to when writing questions and interviewing candidates.

DEFINITION

A job board is a website or webpage where employers post open roles for job seekers. Usually, job seekers can search by category and location to find job opportunities they may want to apply for.

Examples

Well-known job boards include websites like Indeed or Glassdoor.

DEFINITION

A job description is a document, online post, or body of text that outlines the responsibilities and requirements associated with a specific position. It informs a job seeker what they need to know before applying to the role.

Examples

A good job description has five main parts: a summary of the role, a detailed list of responsibilities, a list of relevant qualifications and skills, a salary range, expected hours and location, and a summary of the company itself.

Planning Interviews

The Importance of Job Descriptions

DEFINITION

A lateral hire occurs when the candidate hired previously held the same role, at the same level, usually for a similar salary at their last employer. This can be done internally between departments, or externally from one organization to another.

Examples

“We need a lateral hire to fill this position quickly. We don’t have much time to train them so a candidate with similar experience, who can get up to speed without a long onboarding process, would be ideal.”

DEFINITION

In a talent acquisition context, mobile strategy refers to a hiring strategy that is optimized for job seekers who use mobile devices throughout their hiring process.

Examples

An example of mobile strategy that many job boards now consider is how their content is displayed on mobile devices, before considering a design for desktop or laptop computers. This is because they know that job seekers are often looking for jobs on the go or while commuting.

DEFINITION

Natural Language Processing (NLP) is a branch of artificial intelligence (and more broadly, computer science) that focuses on helping computers process and interpret written text and spoken words the way that humans do.

Examples

An example of NLP are email filters. Email providers use NLP to detect words that are common in spam emails to filter them out of inboxes.

DEFINITION

In work settings, a non-compete refers to a formal agreement made between an employer and an employee where the employee agrees that they will not be employed by a competitor within one year of leaving a company.

Examples

“Angie can’t work for Microsoft for at least a year, she signed a non-compete.”

DEFINITION

Notetaker is Hireguide’s AI transcription assistant. When you’ve scheduled your interview, the AI Notetaker will join your video call to ensure your interview is being transcribed.

Examples

“I can focus on the candidate instead of taking notes with Hireguide's AI notetaker. It’s like my personal assistant for interviews.”

DEFINITION

Onboarding refers to the process an employer takes when a new hire is being integrated into an organization.

Examples

Examples of onboarding include introducing the new hire to different departments, training them on company processes, or demonstrating how the company uses particular software.

DEFINITION

A panel interview refers to an interview with two or more hiring team members interviewing one candidate at the same time.

Examples

“My interview this week was a little intimidating. I didn't expect it to be a panel interview. There were four interviewers who took turns asking questions."

DEFINITION

A passive candidate is a candidate who is not actively seeking a new position and has not applied for a particular position, however, an employer or recruiter is considering them for the role.

Examples

“I think I found the perfect candidate for this position but they’re not actively looking. I’ll reach out anyways because they might be interested. I’ll note that they're a passive candidate.”

DEFINITION

A “purple squirrel” is a term used by hiring managers and recruiters to describe a rare candidate. This candidate possesses the perfect education, skills, experience, and qualifications for a particular position. It is used to demonstrate that the position has unrealistic demands, and/or calls for a candidate that will be incredibly difficult or even impossible to find.

Examples

“I found a purple squirrel for your role. She’s highly skilled, with the exact education, skillset, and experience we’re looking for. I hope she’s interested.”

DEFINITION

Quality of hire is a recruitment metric that measures the value a new hire brings to the company.

Examples

Some recruiters or hiring managers use performance reviews to measure quality of hire. However, this is highly dependent on the leader giving feedback, as performance reviews are very subjective.

DEFINITION

The recruiting funnel is a framework for attracting, evaluating and hiring candidates that usually includes five steps: awareness, consideration, interview, offer, and hire.

Examples

A recruitment funnel is important to have for HR, hiring managers, and recruiters. It helps to narrow down a large pool of applicants to ensure you hire the right ones for your organization.

DEFINITION

A recruitment management system (RMS) refers to a tool or software used by HR, hiring managers, and recruiters to facilitate a company’s hiring process. It is usually multifunctional and helps HR professionals post jobs, capture applications, keyword search resumes, schedule interviews, collect notes about candidates, and much more.

Examples

Examples of RMS's include: Zoho Recruit, Breezy HR, and Zip Recruiter.

DEFINITION

Situational questions present a candidate with a specific problem they may encounter if they were hired into the role and evaluates how they would respond. These types of questions reveal a candidate’s intentions and give insight into how they will behave in the future.

Examples

Here's an example of a situational question: In this role, you’ll need to develop different ideas for our social media channels. What steps would you take to come up with a social media strategy?

Interviewing

How to Formulate an Interview Question

DEFINITION

An informed candidate is a candidate that:
has done their research about your company’s culture and values,
is knowledgeable about the industry and their role,
and is prepared for the interview with the right questions and answers.

Examples

“Sharon was an informed candidate. She came to the interview with great industry forward insights and what her role would be in the future. She asked great questions about how we currently operate and ways she could transform the role."

DEFINITION

A structured interview is a method of interviewing that involves a set of practices that enhance the quality and fairness of interviewing outcomes. Structured interviews typically include skills-based questions that are asked in the same order to every candidate, reducing the potential for bias and ensuring that interviewers are screening for skill instead of likability.

Examples

A structured interview leads to more effective and accurate decisions since a standardized scoring approach is used, along with consistent, skills-based questions.

DEFINITION

In HR and talent acquisition, the term video interview refers to an interview process where the formal conversation, interview questions and answers are conducted on a video platform and not in person.

Examples

Most interviews are done on video platforms today, as it enables companies to interview more candidates and implement AI technology tools like transcription and live scoring. It also helps with interviewing candidates who aren’t located in the same area as your company.

Common video platforms include Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams. Hireguide also has a video platform tailored specifically for interviewing.

‍

Interviewing

10 Tips for Conducting Video Interviews

DEFINITION

There are generally two types of virtual interviews: synchronous virtual interviews (SVI; i.e., live through video conferencing) and asynchronous virtual interviews (AVI; i.e., one-way or on-demand).

Examples

Although similarities exist between types of virtual interviews, there are important differences. Both virtual interview types occur online, but AVI (asynchronous virtual interviews) are a completely online experience where the candidate records short video responses to interview questions.

DEFINITION

The WHO Method is a strategy for hiring created by Geoff Smart and Randy Street. It can be implemented in four steps: 1) scorecard, 2) source, 3) interview, and 4) select.

Examples

One of the most contested components of the WHO Method is the 'WHO interview' – an interview where the candidate is expected to elaborate on every piece of their job history in chronological order.