Appendix C. Sources and Caveats
| Prioritisation | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Priority | When to choose | Example | |||
| P0 | High risk to candidates, compliance, offers, business-critical roles | Consent risk, final-stage candidate silence | |||
| P1 | Recurring bottleneck with clear action | Hiring manager SLA for feedback | |||
| P2 | Quality improvement with medium impact | Better source taxonomy | |||
| P3 | Nice-to-have criteria training or formatting | Dashboard shortcuts, template polish |
| Rhythm | Participants | Focus | Artifact | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Quarterly talent review | HRD, leadership | Capacity, internal mobility, succession | Workforce / hiring priorities |
10. Where to use and where not to use
operational rhythm
Use Do not use as
Regular hiring with multiple active vacancies Replacing actual recruiter work
Agency work with a client that has SLA for feedback Formal reporting for reporting's sake
Team with multiple recruiters or interviewers Public shaming board
High-growth or high-change environment Endless meeting series without decisions
Implementing AI workflows A way to automate a weak process
Working with personal data and warm pipeline Ignoring legal / HR policy
If the team has one vacancy and one hiring manager, the rhythm can be light: weekly 15-
minute check-in, action log, and final retrospective. If the team has 20 vacancies, the rhythm must be stricter:
protected weekly meeting, monthly audit, QA samples, and leadership escalation rules.
11. Cases: how to fix the rhythm when it breaks
Case 1. Weekly meeting became a status rehash
Post-Mortem
Situation At the weekly meeting each recruiter recounts all vacancies,
the meeting runs for 90 minutes, and decisions are not recorded.
Risk The team burns out, important blockers are lost, leadership stops
seeing the value of the rhythm.
What to check Are statuses updated before the meeting? Is there an agenda? Are only exceptions discussed? Is there an action log? Are previous actions checked?
Recommended action Introduce a pre-read: vacancy report and SLA report before the meeting.
At the meeting, discuss only priority roles, breaches, blockers, and offer risks.
How to document "Weekly meeting relaunched: no status rehash. Mandatory output: action, owner, deadline,
verification metric. First review in 2 weeks."
Metric / next step Meeting duration, action closure rate, recurring blockers, SLA breach trend.
Case 2. Monthly audit shows the same problem for the third month
Post-Mortem
Situation Feedback latency remains the main bottleneck for three months running.
Risk The team normalises the problem and continues discussing it without systemic change.
What to check Was there an action owner? Do hiring manager incentives interfere? Are there protected debrief slots? Was the business owner escalated? Was policy updated?
Recommended action Move the problem to an improvement project with HRD sponsorship: debrief slots, escalation rule, hiring manager SLA assessed in the monthly business review.
How to document "Recurring bottleneck P1: hiring manager feedback delay. Sponsor HRD. Policy change: feedback SLA and backup owner. Metric check in 30 days."
Metric / next step Feedback latency, SLA breach by owner, candidate declines due to delay.
Case 3. New recruiter closes actions quickly but notes are weak
Post-Mortem
Situation The new recruiter closes many actions, but candidate summaries contain general impressions and few assessment facts.
| Field | Post-Mortem |
|---|---|
| Risk | Hiring managers re-screen, decisions are unsupported, analytics weakens. |
| What to check | Was there onboarding on the CV template? Did the recruiter see examples? Is there buddy review? What feedback do they receive? |
| Recommended action | Introduce 2-week QA sampling: 5 CVs per week, feedback on assessment facts, motivation, risks, missing data. |
| How to document | "Onboarding QA: CV quality gap. Buddy reviewed 10 examples, lead approves independent screening after pass." |
| Metric / next step | CV share passing QA without remarks, manager re-screening complaints, missing data share. |
| Case 4. AI prompts sped up work but degraded quality | |
| Field | Post-Mortem |
| Situation | Recruiters started inserting AI-generated CV summaries into the ATS without verification. |
| Risk | Unverified claims enter the decision log; potential bias and privacy issues. |
| What to check | AI usage policy, source materials, human verification checklist, audit notes, examples of unverified claims. |
| Recommended action | Introduce the rule: AI output is draft only — every claim must be verified against a source, and the reviewer signs off before use. Calibrate with 5 examples. |
| How to document | "AI QA: in 5 of 12 CVs there were unverified claims. New mandatory field: reviewer + unverified claims removed." |
| Metric / next step | AI CVs verified, unverified claims removed, bias/privacy escalations. |
| Case 5. Agency client does not give feedback but demands more candidates | |
| Field | Post-Mortem |
| Situation | The client asks to expand the shortlist but provides no feedback on submitted candidates. |
| Risk | The agency increases volume without a learning cycle, quality drops, candidate trust suffers. |
| What to check | Client feedback SLA, shortlist definition, reasons for rejected candidates, decision owner, contractual expectations. |
| Recommended action | Hold a calibration session with the client: 3 strong and 3 weak profiles, mandatory feedback format, pause search expansion until criteria are clarified. |
| How to document | "Client blocker: no feedback on 7 profiles. Action: calibration meeting; do not expand volume until criteria and reasons are confirmed." |
| Field | Post-Mortem | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Metric / next step | Client feedback latency, shortlist-to-interview conversion, rejected-with-reason share. | ||
| Case 6. Regulations became outdated after a process change | |||
| Field | Post-Mortem | ||
| Situation | The team changed stages and the AI process, but the SOP and onboarding materials remained old. | ||
| Risk | Newcomers learn the old process, QA checks the wrong things, managers argue with recruiters. | ||
| What to check | Change log, SOP owner, effective date, team communication, training update. | ||
| Recommended action | Introduce a quarterly SOP review and change log: every process change has an owner, date, affected templates, and a training note. | ||
| How to document | "SOP drift found. Updated stages, AI review checklist, onboarding day 4 task. Effective date and owner recorded." | ||
| Metric / next step | Regulation drift instances found, onboarding errors, number of outdated templates. |
12. SOP and regulation fragments
SOP: recruitment operational rhythm
Field Process description
Purpose Maintain manageability of active hiring through weekly decisions, monthly learning, QA loops, and documented actions.
