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Adding notes to a candidate

Post team-only or global notes on a candidate, mention colleagues, and pin the note everyone should see first.

Post team-only or global notes on a candidate, mention colleagues, and pin the note everyone should see first.

Notes let you and your colleagues record context against a candidate: interview impressions, reminders, anything worth keeping with their profile. Every note belongs to one application, so the same candidate can carry different notes for each vacancy they have applied to. Notes belong to the application shown at the top of the profile. To add a note on a different job, switch application first.

Who can add notes

You can post a note on a job if you are a System Admin, an HR user, or a member of that job's team (recruiter, hiring manager or interviewer). Anyone else sees the message "Only admins or members assigned to this job can add candidate notes." in place of the note box.

The visibility you can choose depends on your role. System Admin, HR, and recruiters or hiring managers on the job can post Team only or Global notes. Interviewers on the job can post Team only notes. The Visibility menu does not appear for them, and every note they post is team only.

Add a note

  1. Open the candidate's profile and select the Notes & Feedback tab. The notes shown are for the application selected at the top of the profile. If the candidate has more than one application, use Switch application to pick the job you want.
  2. Type your note in the Add a note about this candidate... box. A note can be up to 10,000 characters.
  3. If the Visibility menu is showing, choose Team only or Global. The default is Team only.
  4. Select Add Note. The button stays greyed out until you have typed something.

If the note fails to save you will see an error message saying "Failed to add note". Try again. The note appears in the list with your name, the date, and its visibility. Each note also creates a Note Added entry on the candidate's Timeline tab.

If you switch application with text in the note box that you have not added, Recruit treats it as unsaved and asks Discard unsaved changes? before it moves you.

On an Incomplete application, one the candidate has started but not submitted, you can read notes but not add or pin them.

Team only and Global notes

A Team only note is visible to the people on that job's team, plus System Admin and HR users. It is also visible to anyone you mention in it, even if they are not on the team. A Global note is visible to anyone who can open the candidate, including people who are not on the job's team.

What you see in the list follows from that. Admin, HR and the job's team see every note for the application. Everyone else sees only Global notes and the notes that mention them. An application with no notes yet shows "No notes for this application yet."

Mention a colleague

  1. Type @ in the note box, at the start of the note or after a space.
  2. Start typing a name in the Search team members... list, or scroll to find the person, then select them.
  3. Finish the note and select Add Note.

You can only mention people on the job's team. The list shows their job role beside each name. The mention is highlighted in the note. You can mention up to 50 people in one note, and mentioning yourself does nothing.

Each person you mention receives an email saying you mentioned them in a candidate note, with a link to the candidate. Users can turn these emails off under Note mentions in their notification settings, so a mention will not always produce an email. The mention still gives that person access to read the note.

Pin a note

Pinning keeps an important note at the top of the list. Select the pin icon on a note to pin it, and select the crossed-out pin icon on a pinned note to unpin it. A pinned note carries a Pinned label and the line "Pinned by" followed by the person's name and the date.

Any System Admin, HR user or member of the job's team can pin or unpin any note, not only the author. Each application has its own pinned note, and only one note can be pinned on an application at a time. Pinning another note replaces the current one. Unpinned notes are listed newest first below it.

Edit or delete a note

Notes cannot be edited or deleted once posted. If you post something wrong, add a follow-up note with the correction. Check the visibility before you select Add Note, because it cannot be changed afterwards.

Candidates with no applications

The notes panel appears only for candidates who have applied to at least one job. A candidate added to the talent pool with no job has no panel. If a note was entered when the candidate was created, it shows on the same tab as a plain, read-only entry that nobody can add to.

Notes and interview feedback

Notes and interview feedback are separate. Interview feedback is recorded separately from notes and is shown in the Interview Feedback card at the top of the Notes & Feedback tab. Each entry shows the interviewer, a recommendation (Strong hire, Hire, Maybe, No hire or Strong no hire), any comments, the date, the job and the stage. The card appears only for System Admin and HR users, and only once feedback exists. Other users see a message saying they cannot view feedback.

Writing a note does not create feedback, and feedback does not appear in the notes list. Use notes for informal context and reminders.