Recruiter Lexikon.

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.

boilr's shared memory layer for an agency: ICP, signals, account intelligence, pipeline state and candidate pools in one place, so the knowledge survives when a consultant leaves.

A commercial model where the client pays an upfront, often staged fee for an agency's exclusive commitment to a role, contrasted with contingency search where the fee follows placement only.

The window, commonly four to eight weeks, in which a client agrees to work with one agency only on a mandate, before opening it up to competing agencies or the open market.

An autonomous AI system that runs a recruitment consultant's business development motion end to end: finding companies, sourcing candidates, detecting signals, scoring against ICP and drafting outreach. The consultant only verifies and sends.

A recruitment fee model paid only on successful placement, usually without exclusivity, so several agencies, or the client's own applicants, can be working the same role at once.

A workflow design where AI handles the research and drafting, but a person reviews and authorises the final action, such as sending a message, before it happens.

A BD strategy that treats a defined list of high-value target accounts as individual markets, building tailored outreach for each rather than casting a wide net. Recruitment desks use it to win the whole account, not just one role.

A working professional who is not actively job-hunting but would consider the right opportunity if it reached them. By most estimates the majority of the workforce fits this description, which is why sourcing cannot stop at active applicants.

The formal request from a client company authorising an agency or consultant to work a specific vacancy, the unit business development ultimately converts into.

A category of AI-powered software that automates outbound prospecting, sequencing and cold email or LinkedIn outreach, usually as one shared tool across a sales team. boilr takes a different approach: one AI sales employee per consultant, working signal-led BD instead of mass sends.

AI systems that autonomously plan and execute multi-step work, such as research, scoring and drafting, rather than just responding to a single prompt. It is the technical concept behind boilr's own AI sales employee.

The large majority of a company's route to a hiring decision that happens where nobody outside can see it: peer conversations, internal debate, quiet research. By the time a job posts or a reply lands, most of the real decision already happened.

The signed agreement between agency and client that sets the fee percentage, guarantee period, rebate terms and payment terms. It has to be in place before a consultant can properly work, and invoice, a client.

Automatically appending the pieces a raw record is missing, firmographics, decision-maker details, verified contact info and recent signals, so a bare company or contact becomes an account you can actually work.

Building relationships with several stakeholders inside one target account instead of a single contact. It protects a deal from stalling when one person goes quiet, changes role or leaves.

Enterprise software, such as SAP Fieldglass or Beeline, that enterprise clients use to gate which staffing suppliers can submit candidates or contact hiring managers directly. Being off the panel means the requisition never reaches you.

An arrangement where two agencies collaborate on one placement and share the fee, one holding the candidate and the other the client relationship. It is set out in a split fee agreement signed before either side's details are exchanged.

A consultant who owns the full recruitment cycle themselves: business development, candidate sourcing and delivery to placement, rather than splitting BD and delivery across separate roles.

Behavioural signals, such as content consumption, website visits, search activity and review-site research, that show a company is starting to research hiring or growth moves before that intent becomes public. The quiet precursor layer that often comes before a formal buying signal.

The window after a placed candidate starts during which the agency must find a free replacement or issue a rebate if they leave. Commonly a few weeks up to three months, set out in the terms of business.

A BD approach where outreach is triggered by observed buying signals instead of a fixed volume list, so timing drives who gets contacted and when. It is how boilr's AI sales employee prioritises every account by default.

The person inside a target company who can actually release budget for your fee, as opposed to the hiring manager who champions you internally. Deals stall when outreach never reaches them.

Data about the technology a company runs, its CRM, ATS, cloud provider, languages and data platform, used to filter your ICP and to catch stack changes as an early buying signal.

A desk structure where one consultant runs business development and the client relationship while a second sources and delivers candidates for the same roles, also known as the 180 model.

When a candidate's current employer offers more money, a new title or other perks to keep them after they resign, threatening a placement that looked done. boilr tracks it as a live risk in the pipeline until the candidate actually starts.

A newly opened desk or territory with no existing clients or candidates to inherit. Every account is won from scratch through business development alone, unlike a warm desk that comes with an active book.

A commercial arrangement where a client commits all of its recruitment spend in a defined area to a single agency, with no other agency invited to compete. Unlike a PSL, which is a closed list of several agencies, sole supplier status means zero competition within its scope.

A technique that cascades a contact or company record through multiple data providers in sequence until a verified email, phone number or direct dial is found. Pushes match rates well beyond what any single source delivers.

The total revenue you'd win if every workable account in your ICP scope became a client. It sizes the opportunity before market mapping catalogues the accounts inside it.

A lead that an AI system has already scored and enriched against your ICP before anyone on the desk looks at it. It is the output of lead scoring and account intelligence, not a raw name off a list.

The structured brief of skills, seniority, experience and must-haves that defines the candidate you are actually searching for, and the filter every sourced profile is matched against before it reaches you.

An AI assistant embedded in a workflow that drafts, summarises or suggests only when prompted, one request at a time, and does nothing on its own between prompts. boilr takes a different approach: an autonomous AI sales employee that runs the motion without waiting to be asked.

The elapsed time between a buying signal firing, or a lead entering the pipeline, and the first outreach touch going out. Urgency decays fast, so the shorter the gap, the higher the response and conversion rate.

An established desk or territory that comes with an active client base and a working pipeline already in motion, usually inherited from a predecessor. The direct opposite of a cold desk built from nothing.

UK tax legislation that decides whether a contractor is taxed as employed ("inside IR35") or self-employed ("outside IR35"), and which party in the recruitment chain carries the liability for getting it wrong.

The point at which so many buying-signal alerts arrive, especially low-quality or irrelevant ones, that a consultant stops trusting and acting on any of them. It is the failure mode signal-led BD must be scored and filtered against an ICP to avoid.

Company-level demographic data, industry, headcount, revenue, HQ location and ownership structure, used to filter and prioritise target accounts against your ICP.

A candidate who reached the final stages of a hiring process but wasn't hired, and is worth re-engaging the moment a matching role appears rather than sourced from scratch.

Querying a candidate or company database in plain English instead of Boolean operators. An AI system parses the intent and returns matching records ranked by fit.

The elapsed time from a job order opening to the placed candidate's start date. The number most clients watch to judge how efficiently an agency fills a vacancy.

The stakeholders inside a target company who jointly decide whether an agency gets hired, typically the hiring manager, an HR or TA lead and a budget holder. Reach only one of them and the mandate can stall long after your best pitch landed.

A pre-agreed schedule of bill rates by role, seniority and location that an agency and client fix in advance, so contract and temp engagements are priced against it instead of being renegotiated each time.

The recruitment software that stores and moves every candidate, job order and client record a desk works from. The term also covers the systems employers use to filter their own inbound applications, and a vendor switch there is itself a quiet hiring signal.

The unworked potential inside an account you already have a foothold in: other divisions, other roles and other hiring managers your desk has never approached. Different from market mapping, which finds accounts you have not touched at all.

An arrangement where a client outsources all or part of its hiring process to an external provider acting as an extension of its own team. For an agency desk, an account under RPO is effectively closed until the contract ends or comes up for renewal.

A job posting kept live with no genuine intent or budget to fill it, which makes a raw job-board listing an unreliable buying signal on its own. boilr corroborates every posting against other signals before it triggers outreach.

The revenue a consultant generates from placements and temp margin. The core performance number a recruitment desk is actually judged on, distinct from conversion metrics like win rate.

Combining multiple independent buying signals on the same account, such as a funding round, a new executive hire and a headcount spike, to raise confidence that it is in an active buying window rather than acting on any single signal alone.

How certain an AI system is about a single detection, a signal or a candidate match, expressed as a percentage or a high/low flag. It feeds lead scoring but never replaces it.

The fee and process for converting a temporary or contract placement into a permanent hire, typically charged on a scale that reduces the longer the worker has already been on assignment, since margin already collected offsets it.

Watching the people already in your network, past candidates, hiring managers and client champions, for job changes, so a move to a new company reopens a warm relationship instead of a cold one.

The portfolio of active clients and candidates a consultant owns and is judged on, built up over time and distinct from the desk or territory it grew inside.

Scoring new target accounts by how closely they resemble the clients an agency has already won, using firmographics, technographics, hiring patterns and signal history rather than a hand-written rule set.

A financing arrangement where a staffing agency sells its unpaid client invoices to a factoring company for immediate cash at a discount, instead of waiting out a 30 to 60 day payment term. Common on temp and contract desks that fund contractor payroll weekly.

A candidate's CV sent to a company with no advertised vacancy, pitching a standout hire before the role exists. It turns a strong candidate into the reason a cold account starts talking to you.

The percentage an agency adds to a contractor's pay rate to arrive at the client bill rate. The core margin mechanic of temp and contract desks, distinct from a permanent-placement fee percentage.

When a candidate who was actively engaged in a process, replying, interviewing, discussing terms, suddenly stops responding without formally withdrawing. Distinct from a ghost job: this is candidate behaviour, not an employer posting with no real intent to hire.

The overarching, often multi-year contract that sets liability, data handling, payment terms and SLAs between an agency and a large enterprise client. Individual statements of work and job orders sit underneath it.

A commitment, usually written into terms of business, that an agency will not poach a client's own staff for a defined period, sometimes paired with a client commitment not to hire an introduced candidate directly.

AI tools used inside an agency, personal ChatGPT accounts, browser extensions, unapproved copilots, that nobody has reviewed or signed off on. It creates data-leakage, compliance and quality-control risk that a governed system is built to remove.

The screening layer between a BD consultant and the actual decision-maker: an EA, a receptionist or a junior HR contact. Getting past one without burning the relationship is a skill in its own right.

When a generative AI system produces a plausible-sounding fact, signal or data point that is false or unverifiable, rather than admitting it does not know. In AI-drafted recruiter outreach it is a trust risk unless caught by confidence scoring, verified data sources and a human review step before anything sends.

The organisation an enterprise client hires to run its contingent workforce programme: it owns the VMS relationship, manages the supplier panel and often competes on it as a staffing supplier itself.

A candidate or former employee who left, either a company or a search, and later re-enters the market, rejoining a past employer or reconnecting with the consultant who worked with them before. Distinct from a silver medalist, who never actually left.

A competitive pitch process where a client invites several recruitment agencies to compete for one mandate or the whole account before choosing a winner. Sometimes called a beauty contest or agency pitch.

When a client builds and hires from its own internal talent pipeline instead of briefing a recruitment agency. It is the quiet way an account disappears from the market rather than being lost to a competitor.

The rules, scope limits and human checkpoints, such as requiring review before anything sends or restricting an AI system to an approved ICP, that bound what it may do on its own. They are what let autonomy scale without the risk scaling with it.

The retained-search practice focused on senior and C-suite mandates: discreet, relationship-led sourcing of passive candidates who are not looking, rather than a high-volume contingency approach.

A contract that prices a discrete piece of work, a project, a deliverable or an embedded engagement, by scope, deliverables and milestones rather than by headcount or hours worked. Usually sits underneath a Master Service Agreement, referencing its liability and payment terms rather than re-negotiating them.

A candidate or employee showing a high probability of leaving their role soon, spotted from tenure patterns, career triggers and recent activity. It cuts two ways: a sourcing opportunity if it is someone else's employee, a due-diligence check if it is your own candidate heading toward a start date.

The system that holds client companies, contacts and the sales pipeline stage between a cold account and a signed job order. Distinct from the ATS, which tracks candidates, and from the Company Brain, which layers ICP fit and signal history on top.

The time a candidate must keep working for their current employer after resigning before they can start a new role, from a week or two up to several months depending on seniority and jurisdiction. boilr logs it against every candidate profile so start-date forecasts run off the real date, not the offer date.

The review step where a consultant checks and authorises an AI-drafted email, message or task before it sends. It is what lets an AI sales employee run at full speed while a human keeps the final call.

A buying-signal subtype triggered by layoffs, restructuring or redundancy announcements at a target company. It surfaces displaced candidates worth sourcing now, and often precedes a rehiring wave that becomes a fresh mandate months later.