{
  "registry_version": "1.0.0",
  "data": {
    "title": "Headcount & Executive Budget Approval",
    "status": "active",
    "evidence_ids": [
      "evidence.job_seekers_beware_of_ghost_jobs_clarify_capital_survey_of_hiring_managers"
    ],
    "content": "# Headcount & Executive Budget Approval\n\nFormal sign-off by department leadership, finance, and talent committee to commit budget for the written offer.\n\n### Pass Condition\nActive headcount requisition is formally certified and unblocked by financial leadership.",
    "aliases": [
      "B-010"
    ],
    "id": "bar.headcount_executive_budget_approval",
    "type": "barrier",
    "stage": "offer",
    "order": 12,
    "precedes": [
      "bar.reference_background_verification"
    ],
    "description": "Formal sign-off by department leadership, finance, and talent committee to commit budget for the written offer.",
    "pass_condition": "Active headcount requisition is formally certified and unblocked by financial leadership.",
    "evidence_level": "strongly_supported",
    "specimens": [
      {
        "kind": "ats",
        "label": "Approval chain",
        "lines": [
          {
            "at": "day 0",
            "text": "Hiring manager: approved",
            "tell": false
          },
          {
            "at": "day 2",
            "text": "Director: approved",
            "tell": false
          },
          {
            "at": "day 3",
            "text": "Finance: pending — quarterly review in progress",
            "tell": true
          },
          {
            "at": "day 3",
            "text": "Talent committee: blocked on finance",
            "tell": false
          },
          {
            "at": "day 3",
            "text": "Offer cannot be issued while any step is pending.",
            "tell": false
          }
        ],
        "reading": "Everyone the candidate met has already said yes. This gate is the reason a process can stop after a unanimous panel."
      }
    ],
    "perspectives": [
      {
        "actor": "actor.employer_policy",
        "sees": "A requisition in a quarterly review, alongside every other one. The rounds already run against it are not a field in that review.",
        "reads": "An approved requisition that can be held costs less than one that cannot, and pending is the state in which the option stays open.",
        "does": "Issues the certification on the cycle rather than on the loop already running. Nothing in that cycle is timed to a candidate's calendar."
      },
      {
        "actor": "actor.candidate",
        "sees": "A panel that went well, then an interval with no scheduled next step, then either an offer or a note about the role's direction.",
        "reads": "Silence after a round that went well reads as a verdict on the candidate, since the approval chain has never been shown to them.",
        "does": "Keeps the other processes running and sets a date past which they stop waiting. That date is the only part of this gate they set."
      },
      {
        "actor": "actor.recruiter",
        "sees": "The approval chain with one row pending, and no date on that row.",
        "reads": "The pipeline is stopped at a step outside their authority, and whether finance clears it this quarter is not among the things that reach them.",
        "does": "Cannot give a date, and is measured on time-to-fill rather than on time-to-clarity, so the candidate hears again when the row moves."
      }
    ]
  }
}