The vocabulary of specialist recruitment.

ATS

Applicant Tracking System. Software for storing candidates, jobs and the activity between them.

Recruitment CRM

A CRM purpose-built for recruitment agencies, combining contact, pipeline and (usually) ATS workflow.

Passive sourcing

Identifying and engaging candidates who are not actively applying for roles.

Boolean search

Building search queries with AND, OR, NOT and quoted phrases to narrow candidate lists.

Candidate experience

The end-to-end perception a candidate forms of you and the role you represent.

Specialist recruiter

A recruiter whose edge is depth in one niche, not breadth across many.

Niche

The defined market a specialist recruiter focuses on.

Source attribution

The visible line that says where a piece of context came from.

Draft

A proposed first message Holi (or any drafting tool) prepares for you to approve.

Tone presets

Named writing styles a drafting tool can switch between (Balanced, Punchier, Friendlier, Corporate, Outlook-Safe).

Signal

A meaningful piece of context outside the CRM that should influence a recruiter's next move.

Memory

The compounding store of context a recruiter (or a partner like Holi) holds about people, niches and outcomes.

Today list

The prioritised set of moves Holi suggests you act on today, with the source for each.

Shortlist

The curated set of candidates you present to a client for a specific role.

Mandate

A defined recruitment brief, often retained, with agreed scope and timeline.

Retained search

A search billed in stages (typically thirds) rather than on placement.

Placement fee

The fee a client pays when a recruiter places a candidate successfully.

RPO

Recruitment Process Outsourcing. A model where an external team runs part or all of a company's hiring.

Outreach

Proactively contacting passive or warm candidates with a specific message.

IC

Individual Contributor. An engineer (or other professional) on the technical track, not a management one.

Technical recruiting

Recruiting for engineering, ML, infrastructure and similar technical disciplines.

Executive search

The recruitment of senior leadership, typically retained and conducted with long horizons.

Credentialing

The verification of professional qualifications and registrations, common in healthcare recruitment.

KPI

Key Performance Indicator. A measured signal of desk or team performance.

Recruitment automation

Using software to handle repetitive steps in a recruiting workflow while keeping judgement human.

Market intelligence

The continuous reading of market signals that affect hiring and placement.

Business development

The work of finding, winning and keeping client relationships.

Agency growth

Scaling a recruitment agency without losing the specialist edge that made it valuable.