Think about the last time someone asked you to open a new role. How did that request reach you? An email, a Slack message, a conversation in the hallway.
That’s normal. It’s also why recruiters lose the first days of a search chasing information that should have arrived with the request. Is this a replacement or new headcount? Has the budget been signed off, and by whom?
We covered this in our recent workshop From ad hoc requests to a clear hiring process with our Customer Success Manager Janar Pääsik. Here’s what came out of it.
Recruitment doesn’t start when the project does
Most recruitment software treats hiring as something that begins when a project or job ad is created. In reality, it begins weeks earlier, when someone decides they need a person.
That early stage usually happens outside any system, which leaves the most ambiguous part of the process with the least structure. It tends to create three recurring problems:
- Incomplete requests. The recruiter pieces together the brief after the fact instead of receiving it.
- No record of approval. Six weeks later someone asks who signed off, and the answer is a screenshot of a Slack thread.
- Inconsistency across locations. The same role gets requested three different ways by three different people.
The last one is where things really break down. A department head in Sweden isn’t the right person to approve a role in Norway, and the finance director may need to see budget details that neither of them should. Many organisations end up choosing between a rigid central process that ignores local reality and no real process at all.
What a job requisition is
A job requisition is a formal request to open a role. Instead of a message, it’s a form.
It asks for the information your organisation needs, makes sure the important parts aren’t skipped, and goes through the right approvals before recruitment starts. Who asked, what they need, who approved it and when, all in one place.
How the updated Job Requisitions work
Job Requisitions in Teamdash bring three things together.
The information you collect. You decide once what every hiring request needs to include, such as department, location, employment type, budget or reason for hiring. From then on, every request arrives complete.
The request form. Hiring managers fill in a guided form that shows only what’s relevant to their request. That matters more than it sounds. Give a hiring manager a long, complicated form and they’ll message you instead, and you’re back where you started. A good form asks only what genuinely needs asking.
The approvals. Each request is routed to the right people automatically, based on what it contains. A simple setup might have one approver for one department. A more complex one can have several stages in sequence, with extra steps that only apply when needed, for example involving finance only above a certain budget.
Built for more than one location
For organisations hiring across countries, the approval logic can reflect how each location actually works. Say you hire in Sweden and Norway. Each has its own team lead and department head, and the finance director is shared. Rather than building and maintaining a separate process for every country, head office keeps one consistent process while each location keeps its own approvers.
Approvers also don’t all need to see the same thing. Budget details can be visible to the finance director and hidden from others reviewing the same request, so each person sees what their decision depends on.
What changes, by role
- Hiring managers get a short form and can follow the progress of their request without asking anyone.
- Recruiters get a complete brief instead of doing detective work, and an approved request becomes the starting point for the recruitment project.
- Approvers are asked only when genuinely needed, see only what matters to them, and can send a request back if something is missing.
- Leadership gets a clear record of who approved what and when.
Practical steps to improve your hiring approval process
Whatever tools you use, these steps help:
- Map how requests reach you today. Start with a conversation, not a software setup.
- Decide what information you actually need before a search can begin.
- Check whether different roles need different approvers. Some departments, locations or budget levels may.
- Start small. One request form and one approval step is already a big improvement.
- Pilot before rolling out. Try it with one team and one type of role, fix what doesn’t work, then expand.
You don’t need to map your entire organisation before this pays off. A simple, structured request already beats a message that arrives at lunch.
Final thoughts
The messy first step is so normal that most teams have stopped noticing it. But it sets the tone for everything after: the quality of the brief, the speed of the search, and whether anyone can explain six weeks later how a role was approved.
Structure at the start isn’t bureaucracy. It’s the difference between recruitment beginning with a complete picture and beginning with a guess.
Want to see it in action?
Register to receive a recording of our free workshop, or book a demo to see how Job Requisitions could fit your hiring process. Already a Teamdash customer? Your Customer Success Manager is happy to walk you through it.
