Our standards: how Req Desk is written and corrected

Req Desk is a reference site for people who fill roles: in-house recruiters, agency staff and hiring managers who run searches alongside their day jobs. These are the rules every page is held to.

The reader we have in mind

Someone with a req open and a decision to make this week. A page should work for a first-time hiring manager and still repay the time of an experienced recruiter. A term gets defined once, and then we point to the recruiting glossary instead of explaining it again.

A page, start to finish

1. It begins with a task, such as briefing an agency or scoring a candidate.
2. It lays out the steps in the order you would take them.
3. It names the limits: where the advice stops working and who to ask next.
4. It links to related pages here, and to primary sources when they help.

What a page assumes about your company

Company size, industry and region change what works in hiring. A startup with one recruiter and a manufacturer hiring forty operators in a month need different advice. When a page depends on that kind of difference, it states the setting it has in mind, so you can see when it does not match yours.

Where we look first

Government agencies and regulators publish their own guidance, and so do the vendors whose tools we describe. We read those documents before we read anyone’s summary of them, and we try to say which version we read. Opinion pieces and recruiter folklore can suggest a question to ask. They do not count as a source for a claim.

Fees, timelines and costs

Pay, fees, time to fill and cost vary by market, role, company and contract. A figure becomes a market standard on this site only when a primary source publishes it, and then we link to that source. When a page needs a calculation, it gives the formula in words and lets you enter your own numbers. Examples are labeled as examples.

Hiring law

Employment law differs by state and country, and it keeps changing. Anything touching it is general information. It does not replace your counsel or your HR team, who have the final word. When we point to a rule, we link to the agency that publishes it, such as the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

Claims we do not make

You will not find invented statistics, testimonials, client counts or credentials here. Nobody is presented as an expert or an author. Pages are credited to the Req Desk editors as a group, and the editors answer for what is on the page.

Sending a correction

Resource pages show a publication date and, once changed, an updated date. A meaningful change in advice means the page itself changes. We do not leave the old version standing with a new one beside it.

To report a mistake, write to the editors at team@thereqdesk.com:

• Name the page.
• Quote the line that is wrong, and say what it should be.
• Leave out candidate names and personal details.

We check the claim, fix the page and move the date.