The candidates list

Find, filter, sort and act on candidates from the Candidates page, and see what each role can see there.

The Candidates page lists the candidates you are allowed to see, 20 to a page, split across tabs. Open it from Candidates in the main menu. Every role has this page, but what appears in it depends on your role, as set out below.

The tabs

Active lists candidates who are not in the talent pool, plus any pooled candidate who still has an active application.
Talent Pool lists every candidate who has been moved to the talent pool, whether or not they also have an application. See Managing the talent pool.
Incomplete lists candidates whose only applications are unfinished (started but never submitted). These candidates are kept out of the Active tab until they submit.

Each tab has a count badge. The badge counts the rows on the page you are looking at, not the total. When another page exists it reads 20+. Your search, tag filter, sort order and page are kept in the address of the page, so a copied link opens the same view.

Search

The search box sits at the top of the table. It looks for a match in a candidate's first name, last name, email address, any of their tags, or an application reference such as APP-1A2B. Results update about a third of a second after you stop typing. Searches are limited to 200 characters.

If you type more than one word, every word must match something on the candidate, though the words can match different fields. "Priya nurse" finds Priya with the tag nurse. Search covers all tabs at once and returns you to page 1. Typing in the search box also unticks any rows you had selected.

Filters

Filter by Job (shows All Jobs until you choose one). Lists jobs of every status, shown as job title followed by department. It narrows the Active and Incomplete tabs to candidates with an application on that job. It does not apply to the Talent Pool tab.
Filter by Pipeline Stage (shows All Stages). It stays greyed out until you choose a job, because stages belong to a job. Changing the job clears the stage. It applies to the Active and Incomplete tabs.
Filter by Tag. Opens a searchable list of the tags in use. Pick one or more. A candidate matches if they carry any of the selected tags. The tag filter applies to every tab.

When a filter matches nobody, the table shows its empty message and the filters stay in place so you can change them.

Columns on the Active and Incomplete tabs

Candidate: the name, with a second line showing job title, company, and either their application reference or their location (the reference is used when they have one). If they have active applications, the second line ends with a stage badge.
Tags: each tag as a small capitalised label.
First application date: the date of their earliest application that you can see. It shows a dash for candidates with no application.

The stage badge shows the stage of the candidate's most recent active application. When a candidate has more than one active application, the badge also names the job, for example "Interview · Ward Sister", and "+1 more application" appears next to it. Hover over the badge to see how many active applications they have. Agency users see stages only if your organisation has allowed it.

A candidate who has started an application but not submitted it also shows an amber badge on their row, for example "1 incomplete application" or "2 incomplete applications". It appears on the Active and Incomplete tabs. Select it to open the candidate's most recent unsubmitted application.

Small icons next to a name show the schemes a candidate has told you about: Disability Confident scheme, Armed Forces Covenant and Care Leaver Friendly. Hover over an icon for its name.

Columns on the Talent Pool tab

The Talent Pool tab shows Name (with the email address underneath), Tags, Source, Previous Job, Reason (why they were moved to the pool), Added to Pool and Actions. Empty values show a dash. The Assign to Job button in the Actions column opens a list of published jobs; choose one and confirm to create an application for that candidate. The button is greyed out when you have no published jobs.

Sorting

Click a column heading to sort by it. The first click sorts ascending (A to Z, or oldest first), the next click reverses it. An arrow on the heading shows the current sort, and sorting returns you to page 1.

Active and Incomplete: Candidate and First application date.
Talent Pool: Name, Source and Added to Pool.

The other columns cannot be sorted. With no sort chosen, the newest candidates come first. Candidates with no first application date always sort to the end, in both directions. A sort on a column the current tab does not have is ignored on that tab.

Paging

Each page holds 20 candidates. When there is more than one page, the bottom of the table shows "Showing 1 to 20", Previous, the page number and Next. Each tab remembers its own page. Changing tab, filter or page clears any ticked rows.

Opening a candidate

Click anywhere on a row, or the candidate's name, to open their profile. See Viewing a candidate profile. Clicking the tick box, a scheme icon, the incomplete applications badge or the Duplicate badge does not open the profile in the usual way.

Duplicate badge

An amber Duplicate badge appears beside a name when Recruit has found another record with the same name or the same phone number. Email address is not used, because two candidates cannot share one.

Select the badge to open Duplicate Candidates Detected. It lists the matching records, and you choose which one to keep as the Primary record. Then select Merge, which shows how many records will be merged. The primary record is kept, tags, work history and interviews are combined, missing details such as phone and LinkedIn are filled in from the others, and the other records are removed.

If two of the records have an active application on the same job, the merge fails with a message telling you to withdraw or reject one application first. If no other record matches any more, the dialog says the flag is out of date and clears itself the next time the candidate is checked. Full steps are in Merging duplicate candidate records.

Adding candidates

Admin and HR users see a Create Candidate button at the right of the filter bar on every tab. It opens the form described in Adding a candidate manually. Members and agency users do not see it.

Bulk actions

Tick the box on any row, or the box in the heading to tick every row on the current page. A bar appears above the tabs showing how many candidates are selected, with Clear to untick everything. The actions are grouped under three menus, Move, Communicate and Manage, with Reject and Withdraw as separate buttons.

Move: Copy to Job, Move Stage, and Move to Pool (Active tab only).
Communicate: Send Email, and Send SMS if your organisation has the SMS add-on.
Manage: Download documents, Download documents (redacted, Admin and HR only), Add Tags and Reopen Form.

Copy to Job, Send Email and Send SMS can be used by Admin and HR only. Each action's steps and results are in Using bulk actions and tags.

The list has no bulk action for moving an application from one job to another. To do that, open the candidate and choose Reassign to another job from the Actions menu on their profile.

Move Stage, Reject and Withdraw are greyed out if you cannot move candidates on any job. Hover over the button or menu item to see why. If you can move candidates on at least one job, the buttons stay available, and with a mixed selection Recruit answers for each candidate, so some may be refused. See Moving candidates through pipeline stages for who can move candidates.

What each role sees

System Admin and HR see every candidate in the organisation. An HR user who has been limited to certain locations sees candidates with no applications at all (typically talent pool candidates), plus candidates with an application on a job at one of their locations or on a job with no location. An HR user with no location access sees no candidates.
Member sees only candidates who have an application on a job where they are the hiring lead or a member of the job team. Talent pool candidates who have no application on one of those jobs do not appear for a Member, and neither does anyone else outside their jobs.
Agency users see only the candidates their agency submitted. They get the Candidates and Jobs pages only. Their search matches application references only, and their rows carry the reference instead of a name.

The search and the job and stage filters only ever return candidates inside that limit. See Understanding roles and permissions for the full role list.

Hidden personal details

Where a candidate's details are protected, the row shows "Candidate" followed by the application reference instead of the name, with no email address, title, company, location or tags. Search finds these candidates only by their reference, not by name, email or tag.

On a job with confidential shortlisting, details stay hidden until the application is revealed. This applies to Members and to anyone who is a hiring manager or interviewer on that job, including Admin and HR users. Recruiters on the job are hidden too. Otherwise Admin, HR and recruiters see full details.

A candidate submitted by an agency with their details hidden appears as "Agency Candidate" to everyone except the submitting agency until an Admin reveals them. If a candidate has several applications, the row shows full details as soon as any application you can access allows it.

Empty states

A brand new organisation with no candidates, and no search or filter applied, shows "No candidates yet." with the line "Add candidates manually or wait for applications." Admin and HR users also get a Create Candidate button.

Once a search or filter is applied, or you reach an empty page, the table shows "No active candidates found." on Active, "No candidates in talent pool." on Talent Pool, and "No candidates with only incomplete applications." on Incomplete. If a list looks shorter than you expect, check the search box, the job, stage and tag filters, and whether the candidate is on the other tab. Members should also check that they are on the job team.