- What reaches them
- A headcount request, a budget line, a level and a band. No candidate exists at this gate, so none is in the file.
- What it means from there
- A funded requisition is an option rather than a spend: it can be published, paused or carried into the next quarter without a new approval.
- What happens next
- Fixes the band, the level and whether the role must be posted externally at all, and hands the requisition down as fields the rest of the funnel treats as given.
Requisition Approval & Public Posting
The gate that exists before any candidate does: headcount is authorised, the job description is written, and the requisition is published (or kept open) on careers pages and job boards.
Barrierbar.requisition_approval_public_postingStage: Before postingStep in the funnel: #1Evidence: strongly supported
📐 On the canonical path
Published with its terms on the page — The posting states the compensation band, the location rules, the stages the process has and roughly how long each takes. It comes down when the search ends.
This entry is one of the ways that commitment stops being kept.
What it looks like
Composite excerpts, written to be typical rather than copied. No particular message, company or person is quoted here.
Headcount: 1 · Funded from: platform budget, FY approved · Level: L4 · Band: 68–79k
Job description drafted by the hiring manager, edited by recruiting, published unchanged.
Requirements list carried over from the previous L5 search for the same team.
What to notice: This gate closes before the first candidate exists, and it fixes the level, the band and the requirements that everyone downstream will be measured against.
Barriers before this one
This is the first barrier in the funnel.
Mechanisms operating at this barrier (5)
- mech.bench_priority_fillBench-Priority FillnoneAn engineer already employed and between projects becomes available mid-search, and the seat the external candidate is interviewing for is filled from the bench.
- mech.inflated_requisition_requirements_vs_actual_team_needsInflated Requisition Requirements vs Actual Team NeedsintermediaryThe posting lists 10+ named technologies and a Staff-level bar for a role whose actual work is feature delivery.
- mech.pre_selected_internal_candidatePre-Selected Internal CandidatenoneRequisition was publicly advertised to satisfy corporate policy or legal compliance while an internal employee was already earmarked for the role.
- mech.speculative_sourcing_talent_pooling_without_openingSpeculative Sourcing / Talent Pooling Without OpeningnoneRecruiters open conversations and build candidate pools against headcount that has not been approved or funded.
- mech.stale_or_orphaned_job_requisitionStale or Orphaned Job RequisitionnoneJob posting remains active on careers page and aggregator portals despite the team having ceased active hiring or closed headcount.
Interventions targeting this barrier
- int.bench_availability_declared_at_each_stage_gateBench availability declared at each stage gateAt every advance the search states whether an already-employed engineer between projects could still take the seat, and an external candidate closed out by a bench fill is told so, with the date the availability appeared.
- int.internal_candidacy_stated_in_the_postingInternal Candidacy Stated in the PostingWhere a formal internal candidacy exists against a requisition at the moment it is published, the posting says so and says what the external loop decides.
- int.requirements_drawn_from_the_team_s_own_backlogRequirements Drawn From the Team's Own BacklogDraft the requisition's requirement list from the last two quarters of the team's actual work: every requirement the screen reads names a task it is required for, and anything without one is published in a separate section that is not screened on.
Reached without being linked
The relations above are one step. This is what the entry reaches only by walking through them — the shape of it, since the list runs long in a registry this cross-referenced.
- 11
- Barrier11
- 27
- Mechanism9Pattern4Loop2Intervention12
From each side
The same entry from inside each position that meets it: what reaches them, what it means from there, and what happens next given what they control.
- What reaches them
- The requisition form: a title, a level the grid allows, and a requirements list that can be carried over from the last search for this team.
- What it means from there
- The description is the one step where the bar is set in advance; everything after it is judging arrivals against a list already published.
- What happens next
- Writes the requirements into the fields the form has; what the form has no field for stays unwritten.
- What reaches them
- A published posting with a date on it. Whether the headcount behind it is funded, and at what level the assessment will run, are not part of what is published.
- What it means from there
- A live posting reads as a live search, and the requirements list reads as the bar.
- What happens next
- Applies against the list as published, and calibrates the ask to a level that was fixed before the posting went up.
Public policy and industry standards
- What reaches them
- The published posting, which is the only artefact of this gate that exists outside the company.
- What it means from there
- The posting is the enforceable surface: what it must state is reachable by rule, what stands behind it is not.
- What happens next
- Requires the band in the posting where transparency rules apply, and leaves the approved level and the funding status outside what any disclosure rule reaches.
ATS vendorNot visible from here
From this position the entry is not visible. That is not a gap in the atlas — it is the finding: the decision is made where nobody in this position can see it.
ClientNot visible from here
From this position the entry is not visible. That is not a gap in the atlas — it is the finding: the decision is made where nobody in this position can see it.
RecruiterNot visible from here
From this position the entry is not visible. That is not a gap in the atlas — it is the finding: the decision is made where nobody in this position can see it.
