Buyer's Guide
The HR Tech RFP Template That Doesn't Reward Vendor Theatre
October 30, 2025 · 7 min read
Most RFPs reward the vendor with the biggest pre-sales team, not the best product. A 30-question RFP that lets actual product quality win.
What's wrong with the standard RFP
Three hundred questions, every vendor answers 'yes' to everything, nobody validates. The exercise selects for the vendor with the most pre-sales bandwidth, not the best fit.
The 30-question rewrite
Five hard differentiators (data model, permissions, API depth, audit trail, mobile). Ten workflow walk-throughs ('show me how a hiring manager rejects a candidate with feedback'). Ten reference questions. Five commercial. Done in 90 minutes.
The actual decision-driver
Run a 30-day pilot with 2-3 finalists on real data and real workflows. The pilot beats any RFP answer.