When Is It Time to Rethink a Hiring Brief?

A clear and realistic hiring brief gives a recruitment process the strongest possible foundation. It helps employers attract relevant candidates, enables Recruiters to focus the search and provides an objective framework for assessing suitability.

However, a brief should not always remain fixed throughout the process. When the right candidates are proving difficult to identify, applications are consistently missing the mark or strong individuals are being discounted for similar reasons, it may be time to review whether the original requirements still reflect what the business genuinely needs.

What should be included in a hiring brief?

A hiring brief sets out the responsibilities, experience, skills and personal qualities required for a vacancy. It should also provide important context about the team, working environment, reporting lines, salary, location, working arrangements and longer-term expectations of the role.

The strongest briefs distinguish between essential requirements and attributes that would simply be advantageous. This allows employers to maintain appropriate standards without unnecessarily restricting the candidate pool.

Signs that a hiring brief may need to be reviewed

The search is producing very few suitable candidates

A limited response does not automatically mean the brief is wrong. Some positions are genuinely specialist, and the relevant talent may not be actively applying for roles.

However, if targeted research, direct candidate approaches and advertising are all producing a very small pool, it is worth considering whether the brief combines too many narrow requirements.

For example, an employer may request highly specific sector experience, an exact job title, knowledge of particular systems and a particular career background. Each requirement may appear reasonable individually, but together they can create a candidate profile that is exceptionally rare.

Candidates meet most requirements but are repeatedly rejected

If several strong candidates are being discounted because they lack one particular element, the importance of that requirement should be revisited.

The key question is whether the missing experience is genuinely essential from the first day or whether it could be learned with appropriate support. Employers may find that broader functional experience, strong judgement or evidence of rapid learning is more valuable than an exact match on paper.

This does not mean compromising on quality. It means assessing which qualities are most likely to determine success in the role.

The responsibilities do not align with the salary

Salary misalignment can make even a well-defined role difficult to recruit.

A position may have grown over time to include additional responsibilities, greater stakeholder exposure or more specialist knowledge without the remuneration being adjusted accordingly. Employers can then find themselves competing for candidates whose expectations sit above the available budget.

Current market insight can help determine whether the salary is realistic for the experience and scope required. Where budgets cannot move, the responsibilities or seniority of the appointment may need to be reconsidered.

The role is trying to solve too many problems

Occasionally, a hiring brief develops into a wish list created by several stakeholders. The resulting position may combine responsibilities that would not usually sit together or require someone to operate at both strategic and highly administrative levels.

Before continuing the search, it can be helpful to identify the immediate business priority. Employers can then decide whether one individual can realistically meet the need or whether responsibilities should be reallocated across the wider team.

Interview feedback is inconsistent

If different interviewers are assessing candidates against different expectations, the issue may not be the candidate pool.

A hiring brief should provide a shared understanding of the role and the criteria against which candidates will be evaluated. Conflicting feedback may indicate that stakeholders need to revisit the responsibilities, reporting structure or level of the appointment before further interviews take place.

Which requirements should employers reconsider?

A useful review does not require the entire brief to be rewritten. Instead, employers can separate the criteria into three categories:

Essential: Requirements without which the person could not perform the role effectively.

Learnable: Knowledge or systems experience that could reasonably be developed after joining.

Preferable: Attributes that would add value but should not automatically exclude an otherwise strong candidate.

Sector experience is one area that often benefits from closer consideration. For certain specialist or regulated positions, it may be essential. In other cases, candidates from adjacent industries may bring highly relevant transferable skills, fresh perspectives and experience of comparable working environments.

Using market evidence to refine the brief

A recruitment consultancy should do more than present candidates against the original specification. It should also provide honest feedback about the availability of talent, typical salary expectations and how candidates are responding to the opportunity.

At VWA, our Consultants work closely with our in-house Research Division to test the market through database searches, professional networks, targeted market mapping and direct approaches to passive candidates.

This provides evidence that can help employers distinguish between a difficult but achievable search and a brief that would benefit from adjustment.

A stronger brief can lead to a stronger appointment

Reviewing a hiring brief should not be seen as lowering expectations. In many cases, it enables employers to focus more clearly on the experience, capabilities and motivations that will have the greatest impact.

By remaining open to market feedback while protecting the genuinely essential elements of the role, employers can access a broader and better-aligned talent pool and make more confident hiring decisions.

VWA supports employers with permanent, temporary and contract recruitment across business support, HR, investor relations, finance, operations, marketing and other specialist functions. Speak to our team for tailored advice on your hiring brief and the current candidate market.

Article shared by: Nick Coleridge-Watts, Managing Director