HR Insights · Working aid
The Role Brief
Before you open the vacancy. Eight questions to align the hiring manager, interview panel and recruiter on what success looks like, before sourcing begins.
Most bad hires trace back to a brief nobody actually agreed on. A shared brief should explain what success looks like, which evidence matters, and who will make the decision — before anyone looks at a single CV.
Use this with the hiring manager and interview panel before sourcing begins. Where panel members disagree, resolve the difference now, not after the shortlist arrives.
Eight questions before you open the vacancy
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Where panel members disagree, resolve the difference before the search begins. Record the final brief and review it if business needs change.
Why this works
Skills are the easiest thing to test, and one of the least common reasons a hire fails. A brief that only lists qualifications hides the questions that actually matter: what this role must deliver, who decides, and what the trade-offs are when no candidate ticks every box.
Fifteen minutes with the hiring manager before a search begins catches disagreements a six-week search cannot fix afterwards.
This tool comes out of The Real Cost of a Bad Hire, and How to Avoid It, where we set out the evidence behind it.
Hiring for a role like this?
We help businesses across India get the brief right before the search starts, not after the shortlist disappoints.
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