An open requisition, commonly shortened to "open req," is a job position that has been formally approved by the relevant business and finance stakeholders but has not yet been filled with a hire. It is the official authorisation to recruit: the role exists in the budget, the hiring manager is assigned, and the recruiting team has been tasked with finding and hiring a qualified candidate.
The lifecycle of a requisition begins with a request: a hiring manager submits a request for headcount, which is reviewed and either approved or rejected by the relevant approvers. Once approved, the requisition becomes open. It remains open until one of three outcomes: a candidate is hired and the requisition is closed as filled, the requisition is cancelled due to changed priorities or a hiring freeze, or the requisition is paused pending further review.
The total count of open requisitions across an organisation is a direct measure of near-term hiring demand and recruiting team workload. HR leaders use this count to plan recruiter capacity, identify departments where the pace of opening reqs suggests rapid growth, and flag roles that have been open significantly longer than the average time-to-fill benchmark. A requisition that ages beyond 90 days without a hire is a signal of problems: either the sourcing strategy is ineffective, the compensation is uncompetitive, or the role specification is unrealistic.
Managing open reqs without an ATS is one of the clearest indicators that a company has outgrown its recruiting infrastructure. When reqs live in spreadsheets and email threads, it becomes difficult to audit how many roles are truly active, who owns each one, and what the current stage is for each associated pipeline. An ATS creates a structured record for each requisition and links it to every candidate, interview, and communication action associated with it. Published in March 2025, this definition reflects current HR operations and ATS practice.
Key Points: Open Requisition
- Approved but unfilled: An open req has cleared the approval process and represents a real, budgeted hiring need that has not yet been met.
- Distinct from a job posting: A requisition is an internal document; a job posting is the external advertisement derived from it. They can exist independently.
- Req load affects recruiter performance: The number of open reqs per recruiter directly impacts how much attention each role receives and therefore time-to-fill outcomes.
- Aging reqs signal problems: Any requisition open significantly beyond the average time-to-fill benchmark warrants a diagnostic review of sourcing, compensation, and job spec quality.
- Closed vs. cancelled: A closed requisition was filled; a cancelled requisition was withdrawn. The distinction matters for historical reporting and headcount planning accuracy.
How Open Requisition Works in Treegarden
Open Requisition in Treegarden
Treegarden's job management module gives every open requisition a dedicated record that tracks its approval status, associated pipeline, posting status across connected job boards, time-to-open, and days open. Requisitions move through a configurable approval workflow before becoming active, ensuring that every open req has the correct stakeholder sign-off on record. HR leadership can view all open reqs across the organisation in a single dashboard, filtered by department, recruiter, or days open, with AI screening active from the moment a requisition goes live on any job board.
Related HR Glossary Terms
Frequently Asked Questions About Open Requisition
A job requisition is an internal document: the formal approval to hire for a specific role. An open requisition is one where that approval has been granted but the role is not yet filled. A job posting is the external-facing advertisement created from the requisition and distributed to job boards and careers pages. A requisition can exist in an approved state before it is posted externally, and a posting can be taken down without the requisition being closed if, for example, the role is paused pending a hiring freeze.
In organisations without dedicated ATS software, open reqs are typically tracked in spreadsheets that list role title, department, hiring manager, open date, and current status. This approach breaks down quickly when more than ten to fifteen reqs are open simultaneously, as the spreadsheet becomes a version control problem and status updates require manual effort. An ATS tracks every open requisition in a structured database, with each req linked to its associated pipeline, job posting, and approval history.
Req load is the number of open requisitions assigned to a single recruiter at one time. Industry benchmarks suggest that a recruiter managing complex, senior roles should carry no more than 15 to 20 open reqs simultaneously, while a recruiter focused on high-volume, entry-level hiring may manage 30 to 40. Req load directly affects time-to-fill: as load increases, each individual role receives less attention, sourcing quality drops, and candidates move through the pipeline more slowly. Monitoring recruiter req load is a key operational metric for HR leadership.
The requisition should be updated in the ATS to reflect the new hiring manager. This matters because hiring manager details govern notification routing, interview scheduling, and approval workflows. An outdated hiring manager assignment can cause interview feedback to be sent to the wrong person and approvals to stall at an inbox that is no longer monitored. ATS platforms that support role-based permissions make it straightforward to transfer requisition ownership without disrupting the candidate pipeline.