Job order form fields every staffing firm needs

Published 6 October 2026. Updated 6 October 2026.

A job order form is a promise that everything needed to recruit for a role is in one place. Most forms fail in one of two ways: too few required fields, so recruiters submit candidates without knowing the pay, or so many that people fill them with guesses to get past the screen. This guide lists the fields worth requiring, groups them, and explains how to keep a field honest.

What a required field is for

A field should be required if a missing value would stop you submitting a candidate, or would force a phone call to the client after the candidate is already in the process. It should not be required because it is nice to know.

A useful test: take the last three searches that went badly and ask which missing fact caused the problem. Those facts are your required fields. Everything else is optional.

The core fields

These belong on almost every form, whether the role is permanent or contract.

Fields that deserve a closer look

Must-haves and nice-to-haves

Keep two separate fields. If everything lands in one box, a preference becomes a hard filter, and good candidates are screened out because they lack a "nice to have" that the client would have waived. The search then runs dry for no good reason.

Pay as a range with a period

Record "$75,000 to $85,000 a year" as a range with its period. Do not average it into one number, and do not drop the period: an hourly figure and an annual figure look alike in a spreadsheet until someone quotes the wrong one to a candidate.

Bill rate and pay rate

For contract roles, the bill rate is what the client pays and the pay rate is what the worker earns. Keep both fields and do not guess one from the other. The difference depends on your markup, employer costs and the engagement type, and those vary by firm and by deal. Check your own terms.

Start date

Clients say "as soon as possible", "after the budget closes" or "mid next month". Store the client's words exactly. If you convert them to a calendar date, you are inventing a fact, and the candidate may plan around it.

Submission deadline

This field is easy to leave blank. Clients do not always say when they want first submittals, and recruiters do not always ask. Make it required, and when it is missing, treat the missing value as a question for the client instead of picking a date yourself.

Work location and eligibility

Ask whether the role is on site, hybrid or remote, and whether the client restricts where the person may live or work. Do not assume eligibility rules; confirm them with the client.

Fields for the terms of the search

If your ATS or form also holds search terms, these are worth capturing at intake:

• Fee percentage or markup applied to this search.
• Guarantee period.
• Whether the search is exclusive.
• Invoice contact.

Check your contract before copying these from an old order. Terms change, and a field copied from a previous search can be wrong without anyone noticing.

Keeping a field honest

A field that can be filled with a guess will be. Three habits help.

1. Allow an explicit "not given". If the only way to proceed is to type something, people type something. A clear "not given" option, or an empty value with an open flag, is better than a plausible fake.
2. Record where each value came from. A note such as "email, line 4" or "call, March 3" turns an assertion into something you can check. When a client disputes the pay range, you can point to the source.
3. Turn every open field into a question. The goal is not an empty field; it is a message to the client that gets it filled. Draft the question at the time you spot the gap, and keep it short and specific.

A quick audit of your own form

Pick five recent job orders and for each one answer:

• Which required fields were filled with something the client never said?
• Which fields were blank when the first candidate was submitted?
• Which values were later corrected, and what did the correction cost?

If the same field shows up in more than one answer, tighten it first. This is also a good time to read what to ask on a job order intake call, since most missing fields trace back to a question nobody asked.

How ReqDrop checks fields

ReqDrop checks a client's job-order email against a list of required fields. You can upload your own list as a .csv or .txt with one field name per line. Names it does not read are reported to you. Without a list, it uses a default job-order list.

Each value in the checked job order comes with the email line it was taken from. A field the email does not state is marked missing and left blank; it is never filled with a guess. The reply it drafts to the client asks only about what is missing or unclear. Pay is kept as a range with its period, and nice-to-haves are kept apart from must-haves.

The output is a JSON and CSV job order, a checklist with sources and a draft reply. ReqDrop does not write into Crelate or JobAdder, so you paste the draft into your ATS yourself. A second, stronger AI model reviews every result and lists what is left for you to decide. One job order is 12 credits, no subscription. Sign up to run your own field list on a real email.

Questions

How many required fields should a job order form have?

As few as it takes to submit a candidate without calling the client back. Start with the fields in this guide, and add one only after a missing value has cost you a search.

Should pay rate and bill rate be one field?

No. Keep them as separate fields. The pay rate is what the worker earns and the bill rate is what the client pays, and a single combined field makes it easy to quote one when you mean the other.

What should a recruiter enter when the client did not say?

Leave the field empty and mark it as open, with a note on who will answer and by when. A guessed value looks identical to a confirmed one on the screen and is later treated as a fact.