What recruiting is, for a team without a recruiter
Recruiting is not posting a job and waiting. It is four pieces of work: defining the role, finding people, evaluating them against that definition, and making a decision the candidate hears. On a small team, those pieces are usually scattered across a founder and a manager, which is why roles stay open.
The four jobs inside recruiting
Definition comes first. If two people on the team disagree about the role, every later step argues about candidates instead of the work. Finding people is sourcing and inbound. Evaluation is the screen and the interview, scored against the definition. The decision is an offer or a no, sent while the candidate still cares.
Tools sit underneath those jobs. An applicant tracking system remembers the state. It does not do the jobs.
Who does the work when nobody’s title is recruiter
The hiring manager owns the definition and the final judgment. Someone has to own sourcing and scheduling or they will not happen. At an early company that someone is often the founder, until hiring crowds out the product.
Training a new hiring manager is mostly practice on the scorecard. Sit in one screen together, score separately, and compare notes. A shared rubric teaches faster than a workshop about “talent mindset.”
What to hand to software
Hand off the repeatable parts: searching, the first screen against the rubric, the follow-up email, the calendar hold. Keep the judgment on the finalists. That split is what an AI recruiter is for. Ava runs the repeatable parts in Slack and leaves the hiring decision with the team.
If you want the longer version of how those tools differ from an ATS, the research notes on AI hiring platforms and AI recruiting assistants go further than this page.
Common questions
- What is recruiting?
- Recruiting is defining a role, finding people for it, evaluating them, and communicating a decision. Posting a job is only one input to that work.
- What is the difference between recruiting and an ATS?
- Recruiting is the work. An applicant tracking system stores the work. You can have a full ATS and still not be recruiting if nobody is sourcing or deciding.
- How do you train someone to hire?
- Give them a scorecard, have them score a real screen beside you, and compare where you disagreed. Repeat that on the next role.