Resources/Glossary/Staffing and agencies
A job order is a client’s request for a staffing agency to fill a role. It records the job requirements, pay or bill rate, fee terms, timeline, interview process and client contacts so the agency can start recruiting.
In one line
A client's request for an agency to fill a role, with the requirements, pay and fee terms.
A job order is the agency version of an internal requisition. It usually lives in the agency’s ATS or CRM and drives everything that follows: who works it, what candidates get submitted, and how the placement is billed. If the job order is thin or wrong, everything downstream suffers, from the candidates sourced to the fee that gets billed. Take it on a call.
A complete job order covers the title and duties, must have skills, location and work arrangement, pay range or bill rate, contract or direct hire, start date, number of openings, interview steps, decision makers, and fee or markup terms. Contract roles also need hours, duration, overtime rules and any onsite requirements. Not every job order deserves equal effort. Recruiters qualify orders by how likely they are to fill: is the pay realistic, will the client give fast feedback, and is the agency competing with many others?
Agency recruiters have limited hours, and time spent on orders that never fill is lost revenue. A well taken job order, like a strong intake meeting, means better submittals and faster interviews. Qualifying orders and ranking them by chance to fill helps a desk focus on the roles that produce placements and lets the account manager push back on unrealistic ones early.
Fourteen open job orders are too many for one recruiter to work. She ranks each on pay against market, client feedback speed, exclusivity and urgency. Five score high. She spends 80% of her week on those five and makes three placements that month, compared with one the month before, when she spread her time evenly across all 14.
A requisition is the employer’s internal approval to hire. A job order is what the employer sends to a staffing agency to fill the role. One requisition can become job orders at several agencies.
Title, duties, must haves, location, pay or bill rate, contract or direct hire, start date, number of openings, interview process, decision makers and fee terms. Contract orders also need hours, duration and overtime rules.
By likelihood to fill and value. Exclusive orders, realistic pay, fast client feedback and urgent need score high. Orders shared with many agencies or priced below market score low.
Written by recruiters at Work Insiders. Part of the recruiting and HR tech glossary. Updated October 2026.