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Recruiting glossary

Plain-language definitions of recruiting, hiring, and talent-acquisition terms that come up on AtBench and across the industry. 40 entries, alphabetical.

A

Active candidate: A person who is currently applying to jobs or visibly looking for a new role. Contrast with a passive candidate, who is not applying but would consider the right opportunity.
Applicant Tracking System (ATS)(also: ATS): Software used by employers and recruiters to collect, store, and move job applications through hiring stages. Most ATS tools also parse resumes, schedule interviews, and track offer status.
Attrition: The rate at which employees leave an organisation, whether voluntarily or involuntarily, over a given period. Typically reported as an annual percentage.

B

Background check: A verification process performed before a candidate joins, covering items such as prior employment, education credentials, criminal history, and identity. In India this is commonly run by third-party agencies against government and corporate records.
Behavioural interview: An interview in which candidates are asked about past situations to infer how they would behave in future ones. Commonly structured around the STAR framework: Situation, Task, Action, Result.
Boomerang hire: A former employee who returns to the same company after time away. Rehiring boomerangs typically shortens onboarding time because institutional knowledge is already in place.

C

Candidate experience: The sum of interactions a candidate has with a company during the hiring process, from first contact through offer or rejection. Strong candidate experience tends to correlate with offer-acceptance and employer-brand ratings.
Coding test(also: Coding assessment): An evaluation of a candidate's programming ability, usually administered online with a time limit. May be live-coded, take-home, or auto-graded via platforms such as HackerRank or Codility.
Cost per hire(also: CPH): The total cost an organisation incurs to fill a single role, divided by the number of hires. Usually includes recruiter salaries, sourcing fees, advertising, assessment tools, and internal referral bonuses.
Counteroffer: A revised offer made by a candidate's current employer to retain them after they have accepted or are considering an outside offer. Also used for candidate-to-employer negotiation in reverse.
CTC (Cost to Company): The total yearly amount an Indian employer spends on an employee — includes base pay, variable pay, benefits, PF contributions, and gratuity. The in-hand figure is lower than CTC after deductions.

D

Diversity hiring(also: DEI hiring): A set of hiring practices aimed at attracting and selecting candidates from under-represented groups while making decisions strictly on merit. Often paired with blind-resume screening or structured interviewing.

E

Employee referral: A candidate introduced to a company by an existing employee or network contact. Referral hires typically have higher retention and shorter time-to-fill than cold-sourced hires.
Employer brand: The perception of a company as a place to work, shaped by employee reviews, social presence, interview reputation, and hiring practices. Strong employer brand lowers cost-per-hire and increases offer acceptance.
ESOP (Employee Stock Ownership Plan): A compensation benefit that gives employees the right to purchase company shares at a predetermined price after a vesting schedule. Common in Indian start-ups as part of total compensation.

F

FTE (Full-time Employee): A worker engaged under a full-time employment contract with statutory benefits. Distinct from contract or freelance workers who are engaged on fixed-term or per-project bases.

G

Ghosting: When a candidate or employer stops responding during the hiring process without formally closing the conversation. Increasingly common at all stages — from application to post-offer — and a major cause of funnel drop-off.

H

Hiring manager: The internal team lead or department head who owns the decision for a specific open role. Usually distinct from the recruiter, who manages the process rather than the hire decision itself.

J

Job description (JD): A written summary of a role's responsibilities, required skills, compensation range, and location. The JD is what candidates read before applying and is typically indexed by job search engines.

L

Layoff: An involuntary termination driven by business conditions rather than performance. Usually accompanied by severance and a cooling-off period before the affected roles can be backfilled.
LPA (Lakhs per Annum): Annual salary in multiples of 100,000 Indian rupees. A role advertised as "12 LPA" pays ₹12,00,000 per year before deductions.

N

Notice period: The time an employee must continue working after resignation before their employment ends. In India, notice periods are typically 30 to 90 days for full-time roles.

O

Offer letter: A written document from an employer stating the role, start date, compensation, and conditions of employment. In India, an offer letter is distinct from the appointment letter issued on joining.
Onboarding: The structured process of integrating a new hire into an organisation — covering paperwork, tooling access, orientation, and role-specific training. Strong onboarding reduces early attrition.

P

Panel interview(also: Loop interview): A single interview session in which multiple interviewers evaluate a candidate together, or several back-to-back interviews with different interviewers on the same day. Panels are used to collect diverse signals quickly.
Passive candidate: A person who is not actively job-hunting but would consider the right opportunity. Sourcing passive candidates typically requires direct outreach rather than job-board advertising.
Pre-screening: A recruiter's initial assessment of whether a candidate meets the non-negotiable criteria for a role — usually skills, experience, location, notice period, and compensation expectations.

Q

Quality of hire: A composite measure of how well new hires perform once onboard — commonly derived from first-year performance reviews, retention at 12 months, and hiring-manager satisfaction scores.

R

Recruiter: A professional responsible for sourcing, screening, and guiding candidates through a hiring process. May be an in-house (corporate) recruiter or an external agency recruiter working on a contingent or retained basis.
Reference check: A call or written inquiry with a candidate's former manager or colleague to verify claims on their resume and gauge working style. Performed late in the hiring process, usually after an offer is extended.
Referral bonus: A cash payment or equivalent reward given to an employee — or an outside referrer — when a candidate they introduced is successfully hired and completes a qualifying period. The bonus is typically paid in full or in tranches linked to the new hire's retention.
Remote work(also: WFH, work from home): An arrangement where an employee performs their job entirely from a location other than the employer's office — typically their home. Distinct from hybrid work, which mixes office and remote days.
Retention: The organisation's ability to keep employees over time, reported as the opposite of attrition. Measured by stay rate at defined intervals such as 90 days, 1 year, and 3 years.

S

Sourcing: The proactive identification and outreach to candidates for an open role, often before any job advertisement goes live. Sourcing focuses on passive candidates and is distinct from inbound applicant processing.
System design interview: A technical interview focused on how a candidate would architect a large-scale software system — covering trade-offs in storage, compute, latency, and reliability. Common at mid-level and senior engineering roles.

T

Take-home assignment: A coding or written task given to a candidate to complete on their own time and submit for evaluation. Typically used to assess skills that a live interview does not surface well, such as project structure or writing quality.
Talent acquisition (TA): A strategic, long-horizon approach to sourcing and hiring that includes workforce planning, employer branding, and pipeline building for roles not yet open. Often used interchangeably with recruiting.
Technical interview: An interview focused on technical ability, usually involving problem solving, coding, or system design. Depending on level, can take 45 minutes to several hours and may be live-coded, discussion-style, or design-focused.
Time to fill: The number of days between a role being opened and an offer being accepted. Differs from time-to-hire, which counts from first candidate contact, not role posting.
Time to hire: The number of days between a candidate first entering a hiring pipeline and accepting an offer. A tight time-to-hire usually indicates a disciplined process and available decision-makers.

Missing a term? Let us know — we keep this list practical, not exhaustive.

Recruiting glossary

Plain-language definitions of recruiting, hiring, and talent-acquisition terms that come up on AtBench and across the industry. 40 entries, alphabetical.

A

Active candidate: A person who is currently applying to jobs or visibly looking for a new role. Contrast with a passive candidate, who is not applying but would consider the right opportunity.
Applicant Tracking System (ATS)(also: ATS): Software used by employers and recruiters to collect, store, and move job applications through hiring stages. Most ATS tools also parse resumes, schedule interviews, and track offer status.
Attrition: The rate at which employees leave an organisation, whether voluntarily or involuntarily, over a given period. Typically reported as an annual percentage.

B

Background check: A verification process performed before a candidate joins, covering items such as prior employment, education credentials, criminal history, and identity. In India this is commonly run by third-party agencies against government and corporate records.
Behavioural interview: An interview in which candidates are asked about past situations to infer how they would behave in future ones. Commonly structured around the STAR framework: Situation, Task, Action, Result.
Boomerang hire: A former employee who returns to the same company after time away. Rehiring boomerangs typically shortens onboarding time because institutional knowledge is already in place.

C

Candidate experience: The sum of interactions a candidate has with a company during the hiring process, from first contact through offer or rejection. Strong candidate experience tends to correlate with offer-acceptance and employer-brand ratings.
Coding test(also: Coding assessment): An evaluation of a candidate's programming ability, usually administered online with a time limit. May be live-coded, take-home, or auto-graded via platforms such as HackerRank or Codility.
Cost per hire(also: CPH): The total cost an organisation incurs to fill a single role, divided by the number of hires. Usually includes recruiter salaries, sourcing fees, advertising, assessment tools, and internal referral bonuses.
Counteroffer: A revised offer made by a candidate's current employer to retain them after they have accepted or are considering an outside offer. Also used for candidate-to-employer negotiation in reverse.
CTC (Cost to Company): The total yearly amount an Indian employer spends on an employee — includes base pay, variable pay, benefits, PF contributions, and gratuity. The in-hand figure is lower than CTC after deductions.

D

Diversity hiring(also: DEI hiring): A set of hiring practices aimed at attracting and selecting candidates from under-represented groups while making decisions strictly on merit. Often paired with blind-resume screening or structured interviewing.

E

Employee referral: A candidate introduced to a company by an existing employee or network contact. Referral hires typically have higher retention and shorter time-to-fill than cold-sourced hires.
Employer brand: The perception of a company as a place to work, shaped by employee reviews, social presence, interview reputation, and hiring practices. Strong employer brand lowers cost-per-hire and increases offer acceptance.
ESOP (Employee Stock Ownership Plan): A compensation benefit that gives employees the right to purchase company shares at a predetermined price after a vesting schedule. Common in Indian start-ups as part of total compensation.

F

FTE (Full-time Employee): A worker engaged under a full-time employment contract with statutory benefits. Distinct from contract or freelance workers who are engaged on fixed-term or per-project bases.

G

Ghosting: When a candidate or employer stops responding during the hiring process without formally closing the conversation. Increasingly common at all stages — from application to post-offer — and a major cause of funnel drop-off.

H

Hiring manager: The internal team lead or department head who owns the decision for a specific open role. Usually distinct from the recruiter, who manages the process rather than the hire decision itself.

J

Job description (JD): A written summary of a role's responsibilities, required skills, compensation range, and location. The JD is what candidates read before applying and is typically indexed by job search engines.

L

Layoff: An involuntary termination driven by business conditions rather than performance. Usually accompanied by severance and a cooling-off period before the affected roles can be backfilled.
LPA (Lakhs per Annum): Annual salary in multiples of 100,000 Indian rupees. A role advertised as "12 LPA" pays ₹12,00,000 per year before deductions.

N

Notice period: The time an employee must continue working after resignation before their employment ends. In India, notice periods are typically 30 to 90 days for full-time roles.

O

Offer letter: A written document from an employer stating the role, start date, compensation, and conditions of employment. In India, an offer letter is distinct from the appointment letter issued on joining.
Onboarding: The structured process of integrating a new hire into an organisation — covering paperwork, tooling access, orientation, and role-specific training. Strong onboarding reduces early attrition.

P

Panel interview(also: Loop interview): A single interview session in which multiple interviewers evaluate a candidate together, or several back-to-back interviews with different interviewers on the same day. Panels are used to collect diverse signals quickly.
Passive candidate: A person who is not actively job-hunting but would consider the right opportunity. Sourcing passive candidates typically requires direct outreach rather than job-board advertising.
Pre-screening: A recruiter's initial assessment of whether a candidate meets the non-negotiable criteria for a role — usually skills, experience, location, notice period, and compensation expectations.

Q

Quality of hire: A composite measure of how well new hires perform once onboard — commonly derived from first-year performance reviews, retention at 12 months, and hiring-manager satisfaction scores.

R

Recruiter: A professional responsible for sourcing, screening, and guiding candidates through a hiring process. May be an in-house (corporate) recruiter or an external agency recruiter working on a contingent or retained basis.
Reference check: A call or written inquiry with a candidate's former manager or colleague to verify claims on their resume and gauge working style. Performed late in the hiring process, usually after an offer is extended.
Referral bonus: A cash payment or equivalent reward given to an employee — or an outside referrer — when a candidate they introduced is successfully hired and completes a qualifying period. The bonus is typically paid in full or in tranches linked to the new hire's retention.
Remote work(also: WFH, work from home): An arrangement where an employee performs their job entirely from a location other than the employer's office — typically their home. Distinct from hybrid work, which mixes office and remote days.
Retention: The organisation's ability to keep employees over time, reported as the opposite of attrition. Measured by stay rate at defined intervals such as 90 days, 1 year, and 3 years.

S

Sourcing: The proactive identification and outreach to candidates for an open role, often before any job advertisement goes live. Sourcing focuses on passive candidates and is distinct from inbound applicant processing.
System design interview: A technical interview focused on how a candidate would architect a large-scale software system — covering trade-offs in storage, compute, latency, and reliability. Common at mid-level and senior engineering roles.

T

Take-home assignment: A coding or written task given to a candidate to complete on their own time and submit for evaluation. Typically used to assess skills that a live interview does not surface well, such as project structure or writing quality.
Talent acquisition (TA): A strategic, long-horizon approach to sourcing and hiring that includes workforce planning, employer branding, and pipeline building for roles not yet open. Often used interchangeably with recruiting.
Technical interview: An interview focused on technical ability, usually involving problem solving, coding, or system design. Depending on level, can take 45 minutes to several hours and may be live-coded, discussion-style, or design-focused.
Time to fill: The number of days between a role being opened and an offer being accepted. Differs from time-to-hire, which counts from first candidate contact, not role posting.
Time to hire: The number of days between a candidate first entering a hiring pipeline and accepting an offer. A tight time-to-hire usually indicates a disciplined process and available decision-makers.

Missing a term? Let us know — we keep this list practical, not exhaustive.

Recruiting glossary

A

B

C

D

E

F

G

H

J

L

N

O

P

Q

R

S

T

Related pages

Recruiting glossary

A

B

C

D

E

F

G

H

J

L

N

O

P

Q

R

S

T

Related pages