Back to Basics Series
Back to Basics, Vol. 1: Vocab, JDs & Comp
with Desiree Goldey & Ashley King
About This Episode
In this episode, Desiree and Ashley ditch the guest chair and go one-on-one for a back-to-basics refresher — the terminology, habits, and blind spots that trip up even experienced recruiters. After a suitably unhinged icebreaker (where would you not want to die?), they dig into three fundamentals:
- The real difference between a prospect, an applicant, a candidate, and a new hire — and why mixing these up costs you money with vendors and credibility with hiring managers
- How to actually vet a job description before it touches a sourcing tool, including how to spot an unedited AI-generated JD and the "Frankenstein role" problem (rockstar, ninja, unicorn)
- A full walkthrough of how to build a comp business case with real, named data sources instead of a gut feeling
Ashley closes with a Talent Outside the Box segment on research showing how gendered language in job descriptions changes who applies. They ran out of time before hitting two more topics — when to challenge a hiring manager, and what to do the moment a req lands on your desk — so consider this Part 1.
In This Episode:
- 0:00 — Cold open: the "where would you haunt after you died" icebreaker
- 3:14 — Why they're doing a two-host, no-guest basics episode
- 4:02 — Prospect vs. applicant vs. candidate vs. new hire, defined for real
- 18:26 — The case for training recruiters instead of blaming them
- 22:07 — Did a hiring manager let AI write this JD?
- 23:40 — The "Frankenstein role" and why rockstar/ninja/unicorn JDs backfire
- 33:01 — Vague JDs create legal and operational liability, not just bad candidates
- 38:07 — Comp 101: BLS, Salary.com, LinkedIn, O*NET, and internal ATS data
- 44:14 — How to actually negotiate comp with a hiring manager who won't budge
- 48:56 — Talent Outside the Box: gendered language and who applies
- 52:26 — Where to find them + fall event schedule
Resources & Links Mentioned:
- BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (Bureau of Labor Statistics)
- O*NET
- Salary.com · LinkedIn (salary insights) · Glassdoor · Radford
- Kat Kidman (Kat Kibben) — job description writing expert
- Dr. Amanda Diekman — research on gendered language in job descriptions
- HR Data Labs — Desiree's consulting engagement
- Erin Risco — recommended follow for BLS/comp content
- Steve Levy — referenced for his "6/9/12 month" hiring manager question
- RecFest USA 2026 and HR Tech Conference — where to catch them this fall
Episode Transcript
Full conversation — searchable and screen-reader friendly
Desiree: Well, well, we're back.
Ashley: I have a question.
Desiree: And we are into year two of the show and I have to say thanks for hanging out for anybody that pushed us to get this done and all the support. But today we thought we'd do something a little wonky — a year and two days in, we decide to go back to the basics and really start from like what we don't — we think we know what we don't know really sometimes in recruiting, and I think that's exciting times. I love to talk the basics. How about you Ash?
Ashley: I mean, yeah, but I was supposed to ask you a random question. Here was the question of the day. It's a little morbid actually now that I'm thinking about it. What is a place that if you died there, you would just be pissed? Like you would haunt it. For me, it is any toilet. Like if I died on a toilet, please understand.
Desiree: I was gonna tell you New Jersey. No offense to anybody in New Jersey, but I'm a Philly girl. The toilet would be horrible.