Recruiter Lexikon.
The A-Z of recruitment BD terms every consultant should know.
11 terms defined. More added regularly.
Every term that matters on the BD desk.
Definitions built for working consultants, not textbooks.
Any observable event that indicates a company is likely to hire: a funding round, new executive hire, office expansion or headcount spike. The earlier you catch it, the better your angle.
A numeric ranking that tells you which accounts to prioritise. Scores combine ICP fit, signal recency, touch history and response likelihood into a single number.
Systematically cataloguing all potential client and candidate companies in a defined sector or geography. Used to find whitespace before competitors do.
A structured sequence of outreach touches across channels and time. Research shows it takes 5–8 touches to convert a cold account. A cadence keeps every prospect moving.
The end-to-end flow from cold account to placed candidate, tracked as stages: researched, contacted, meeting booked, brief taken, shortlist submitted, placed.
A closed list of agencies a company has pre-approved for recruiting. Winning a PSL slot secures recurring work. Targeting PSL-excluded accounts keeps your pipeline winnable.
Logic operators (AND, OR, NOT) applied to LinkedIn or CV databases to find candidates that match exact criteria. Still the fastest way to surface niche talent at scale.
Building a warm database of candidates before a role is live. Agencies with deep pools win briefs faster because they can put names on the table the same day.
The percentage of BD conversations that result in a signed brief or placed candidate. Improving win rate is usually more valuable than increasing outreach volume.
The timing and frequency of messages sent to a prospect. Cadences that combine email, LinkedIn and phone with 3-5 day gaps typically outperform single-channel blasts.
Aggregated data about a target company: org chart, hiring history, recent signals, decision-maker contacts and strategic context. More intelligence means a better opening angle.
See the full list of buying signals the agent detects across 10,000+ sources, 24 hours a day.
The agent applies your ICP, scans sources and pushes enriched leads to your CRM. No manual research.
Every BD term in this glossary maps to a task the agent can draft and queue for you to review.
boilr puts every concept in this lexikon to work automatically, without another tool to configure.
Boilr replaced five manual BD platforms with one workflow, helped me reach 50 qualified leads a day and created 2 major opportunities in month one.
Questions, answered.
How boilr puts these concepts to work.
What is the difference between a buying signal and a hiring signal?
A hiring signal is a specific category of buying signal: it indicates that a company is about to spend on recruitment, such as a new mandate, headcount spike or leadership vacancy. A buying signal is any event that suggests budget or intent, which includes hiring signals but also funding rounds, office expansions and contract wins.
How many touches does it take to convert a cold BD prospect?
Industry benchmarks put the figure at 5 to 8 touches across multiple channels before a cold account typically responds. A structured multi-touch cadence with email, LinkedIn and occasional phone, spaced 3 to 5 days apart, significantly outperforms a single cold email or connection request.
What makes an ICP definition useful rather than too broad?
A useful ICP is specific enough to filter out noise. It should name the industry verticals you specialise in, a headcount range, a geography, the funding stage most likely to match your billing level and the role disciplines you actually fill. Anything broader than that is a wish list, not a profile.
Why does win rate matter more than outreach volume?
Volume without quality inflates your activity metrics while burning contacts. A consultant sending 20 highly targeted, signal-led messages will typically place more candidates than one sending 200 generic ones. Win rate is the multiplier on everything else: better ICP, better timing and better angles all show up there first.
How does boilr use these concepts in practice?
boilr operationalises all of them. You define your ICP once; the agent scans for buying signals continuously; it scores and prioritises accounts by lead score; it builds account intelligence automatically; and it drafts outreach tasks timed to cadence rules. The Recruiter Lexikon explains the concepts. boilr does the work.
Stop researching. Start sending.
boilr puts every term in this lexikon to work automatically. One AI sales employee per consultant, reading signals and handing you finished outreach to verify and send.