PRD Template for HR Tech Products

Example: "Time-to-hire averages 42 days, with 60% of that time consumed by administrative tasks: scheduling interviews (avg 3.5 hours per candidate), collecting and routing approvals (avg 2 days per approval), and manual reference checking (avg 4 hours per hire). 28% of offer letters contain errors in compensation, title, or start date due to manual data entry between ATS and HRIS. Each error requires an average of 3 days to correct, and 12% of candidates report reduced confidence in the company due to offer letter mistakes."

Example: "Primary: Reduce time-to-hire from 42 days to 28 days by automating scheduling, approvals, and offer generation. Quality: Reduce offer letter errors from 28% to under 2%. Candidate experience: Achieve 4.5/5 candidate satisfaction score for the interview process. Compliance: 100% of required EEO and OFCCP data captured automatically at the correct process stage. Adoption: 90% of hiring managers using the platform for all open roles within 90 days."

Example: "As a hiring manager who uses the ATS once per quarter, I want to open a new requisition by selecting a job template and approver chain so that I can submit a fully compliant req in under 5 minutes without remembering the process. Acceptance criteria: role templates pre-populate title, level, compensation band, and required approvers; manager only fills in unique details (team, location, justification); approval chain auto-routes based on organizational hierarchy; manager receives email notification at each approval stage."

Example: "FR-1: Applicant tracking must support configurable hiring pipelines with custom stages, automated stage transitions based on scoring criteria, and parallel interview scheduling with calendar integration (Google Calendar, Outlook). FR-2: Offer letter generation from approved templates with merge fields (name, title, compensation, start date, equity, benefits) and e-signature via DocuSign or HelloSign integration. FR-3: Onboarding workflow engine with task assignment, document collection (I-9, W-4, direct deposit, emergency contacts), and provisioning triggers to IT systems (Okta, Google Workspace). FR-4: Employee record must support multi-country employment data: country-specific fields for tax, social security, work authorization."

Example: "CR-1: EEO compliance — collect voluntary self-identification data (race, gender, veteran status, disability) at application stage; data stored separately from candidate evaluation data; accessible only to authorized EEO compliance officers. CR-2: GDPR compliance for EU employees: explicit consent for data processing, right to access, right to deletion (with exceptions for legal retention requirements), data processing agreement with customers. CR-3: ADA/accessibility — all candidate-facing interfaces must meet WCAG 2.1 AA; reasonable accommodation request workflow integrated into application process. CR-4: Ban-the-box compliance: do not ask about criminal history before conditional offer in applicable jurisdictions."

Example: "Efficiency: Time-to-hire. Baseline: 42 days. Target: 28 days. Quality: Offer letter error rate. Baseline: 28%. Target: under 2%. Experience: Candidate satisfaction score. Target: 4.5/5. Adoption: Hiring manager platform usage. Target: 90% within 90 days. Compliance: EEO data capture completeness. Target: 95% of applicants. Data accuracy: Employee record accuracy rate. Target: 99.5% (verified via quarterly audit)."

Example: "Phase 1 (Weeks 1-4): Core ATS with job posting, application intake, and pipeline management. Milestone: 10 test requisitions processed end-to-end. Phase 2 (Weeks 5-8): Interview scheduling, scorecards, and offer generation. Milestone: Calendar integration working with Google and Outlook. Phase 3 (Weeks 9-12): HRIS core: employee profiles, org chart, document management. Milestone: 100 employee records migrated from legacy system. Phase 4 (Weeks 13-16): Compliance features: EEO tracking, I-9 workflow, audit reporting. Milestone: Compliance review by employment counsel complete. Phase 5 (Weeks 17-20): Pilot with 3 departments. Milestone: All hiring activity running through the platform."

Example: "Risk: Employee data breach exposes PII (SSN, compensation, health data) of all employees. Likelihood: Low. Impact: Critical (regulatory fines, lawsuits, reputational damage). Mitigation: AES-256 encryption at rest; role-based access control with principle of least privilege; SSN and compensation data accessible only to HR admins and the employee themselves; SOC 2 Type II certification before enterprise sales. Risk: Hiring manager adoption fails because the tool adds steps to their hiring process. Likelihood: Medium. Impact: High. Mitigation: Target 3-click workflows for common actions; integrate into existing tools (Slack notifications, email approval); pilot with 3 champion hiring managers before broader rollout."

Example: "Integration 1: Payroll — ADP, Gusto, Rippling API for employee data sync and payroll processing. Bidirectional: new hire data pushes to payroll; compensation changes sync back. Integration 2: SSO — Okta, Azure AD, Google Workspace for employee authentication and provisioning. Integration 3: Calendar — Google Calendar, Outlook for interview scheduling with availability detection. Integration 4: Background checks — Checkr API for automated background check initiation and status tracking. Integration 5: Job boards — Indeed, LinkedIn, Greenhouse job distribution via API."

Example: "Q1: Should we build ATS-first and expand to full HRIS, or launch with both? ATS-first is faster to market but requires integration with existing HRIS. Decision owner: Head of Product. Needed by: Week 1. Q2: Should AI resume screening be a feature? Efficiency gains are significant but legal and bias risks are growing (NYC Local Law 144, EU AI Act). Decision owner: CEO + Legal. Needed by: Week 3. Q3: Do we support multi-country employment from launch? Adds significant compliance complexity but expands TAM to global companies. Decision owner: Head of Product. Needed by: Week 2."