Job Requisition
A formal, approved request to fill a position — the record an ATS is built around, distinct from the job posting a candidate actually sees.
A job requisition is the formal, approved internal request to fill a position — who approved it, the budget, the reporting manager, and the headcount it's tied to — distinct from the job posting a candidate actually sees.
A requisition typically moves through its own short approval workflow before it ever becomes a public posting: a hiring manager submits the need (role, headcount, budget, justification), a finance or HR approver signs off, and only then does the requisition open for sourcing and get turned into one or more external postings. Everything downstream in the ATS — applicants, interview stages, offers — attaches to the requisition record, not to the posting, which is why one requisition can have several postings (different job boards, different titles) all rolling up to the same underlying opening, headcount, and approval.
One requisition, three postings
A warehouse manager submits a requisition for 5 forklift operators, approved with a budget and start date. That single requisition gets posted as three separate listings — one on a general job board, one on a niche logistics board, and one shared internally for employee referrals — all under different headlines. All 90 applicants across the three postings land in one shared pipeline tied to the same requisition, so the manager can track fill progress against the original 5-person target regardless of which posting each applicant came through.
In staffing & high-volume hiring
In an ATS, the requisition is the record everything else attaches to: applicants, interview stages, and the offer all live under a specific requisition, not just under a job title. That's also why the requisition's open date, not the posting date, is the standard start point for time to fill — a requisition can be approved internally days or weeks before the posting actually goes live externally.
Common mistakes
- Using the external posting's go-live date as the requisition's open date for metrics like time to fill, which understates how long the role was actually open once internal approval delays are counted.
- Creating a new requisition for every job-board posting instead of one requisition with multiple linked postings, which fragments the applicant pipeline and headcount tracking across duplicate records.
- Leaving a requisition open in the system after the headcount is actually filled, which distorts open-requisition counts and time-to-fill averages for reporting.
Related terms & reading
Job Requisition FAQ
What's the difference between a job requisition and a job posting?
A requisition is the internal, approved authorization to hire for a role, including budget and headcount sign-off; a job posting is the external, candidate-facing advertisement for that same opening. One requisition can have multiple postings (different job boards, different titles for the same role) but they all roll up to it.
Who typically approves a job requisition?
It varies by organization, but commonly a hiring manager submits it and a finance, HR, or department-head approver signs off on the headcount and budget before it's allowed to open for sourcing.
Can a requisition be reopened after it's filled?
Yes — if a hire falls through or a similar need comes up again, many teams reopen or clone the original requisition rather than creating one from scratch, since the approved budget, headcount, and role details are already on record.
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