A vacancy can accumulate useful information before anybody has clearly confirmed that recruitment should begin. A draft role profile, an indicative salary, a proposed reporting line and an informal request to start looking can easily be mistaken for one approved instruction.
A vacancy approval handover creates a clear operational boundary. It identifies which details are authorised for active recruitment, which remain provisional and who owns the unresolved decisions.
Identify the vacancy and approval owner
Record the role, hiring area and the person or function responsible for confirming that recruitment can proceed. Do not infer approval merely because several people have discussed the vacancy.
If the organisation uses a defined internal approval route, keep the recruitment record aligned with that process.
Separate approved requirements from working drafts
Bring together the role information that has actually been confirmed and mark draft or unresolved details separately. This may include responsibilities, location, working pattern, salary information and other instructions supplied by the hiring team.
The handover should not silently turn a proposal into an approved requirement.
Confirm the recruitment route
Record what the hiring team has authorised the recruiter to do next, such as preparing an advert, beginning a search or approaching an agreed candidate pool. Keep the operational instruction within the scope actually given.
This avoids activity starting simply because the recruiter has enough information to act.
Flag dependencies that still block launch
Some vacancy details can remain open without preventing every preparation task, while others make candidate-facing activity premature. Identify the decisions that genuinely block launch and assign an owner to each.
A short blocker list is more useful than treating every unfinished detail as equally urgent.
Control changes after approval
If the hiring team changes a material role requirement after the vacancy is approved, route that change through the team's current vacancy-change process rather than editing the original approval silently.
This preserves the distinction between the approved starting point and later instructions.
Give the active vacancy one current source
Once approval is confirmed, make sure consultants working on the role can identify the current vacancy record and are not relying on earlier draft messages or attachments.
Obsolete working versions should be clearly superseded according to the team's normal controls.
Close the handover with explicit next ownership
Record who now owns sourcing, advertising, candidate management or other authorised next actions. Keep unresolved hiring-team decisions visible alongside the active work where they still matter.
A controlled vacancy approval handover gives recruitment teams a reliable point at which planning becomes authorised activity. It reduces the chance of candidates being approached against requirements that were never actually finalised.