Managing your applicants

Here's a video on moving your applicants through your hiring process:

In this article:

• Using the applicant status tabs
• Filtering applicants by job or location
• Using advanced filters
• Sorting applicants
• Reviewing new applicants
• Marking an applicant as a favorite
• Deactivating an applicant and sending a rejection letter
• Moving an applicant to your hiring pipeline
• Transferring an applicant to another job
• Sharing an applicant
• Searching for an applicant
• Working with multiple applicants at once

Using the applicant status tabs

The applicant status tabs at the top of your Applicants page allow you to filter your applicant view by the applicant's status (as defined below).

• All: Lists all of your applicants regardless of status. 
• Active: Lists applicants who you have not deactivated and/or rejected.
  • You can further filter Active applicants by clicking the Active drop-down arrow and selecting:
    • New: Lists applicants you have not taken any action on.
    • In Progress: Lists applicants you have moved forward in your hiring process.
• Disqualified: Lists applicants who responded to at least one of your prescreen questions with a disqualifying answer.
• Hired: Lists applicants you have hired.
• Pipeline: Lists applicants you or your team have moved to the pipeline, meaning you are considering them for a future opportunity.
• Inactive: Lists applicants you have marked as inactive and are no longer considering for a position.

Filtering applicants by job or location

Use the Jobs and Locations drop-down menus in the upper right corner of your Applicants page to filter applicants by specific jobs and/or specific locations. You can select (or deselect) multiple jobs or locations from their respective drop-down menu.

When you apply a filter, a grey bubble with the job or location name will appear below the applicant status tabs on your Applicants page. To remove any active filters, click the "X" on the right edge of the bubble.

Using advanced filters

The Filters drawer on the left side of the screen can be opened by clicking the Hide Filters icon.

This drawer offers access to an advanced set of filters that you can apply to your Applicants page, such as viewing Fast Track or Favorite applicants, or only those applicants who have completed assessments.

When any filter is applied, you will see a gray bubble with the name of the filter below the Job and Location drop-down menus indicating that those filters are active. To remove any of these filters, click the "X" on the right edge of the bubble.

To clear all filters at once, click the Reset All link at the top of the Filters drawer.

Advanced filters allow you to narrow your applicant view according to a variety of measures:

Filtering applicants by hiring step

To view all applicants at a certain step in your hiring process, click the Hiring Step drop-down arrow in the Filters drawer and select the hiring step(s) according to which you want to filter. If your account uses multiple hiring processes, you’ll see them all here. You can filter by as many hiring steps as you select from the drop-down menu.

Filtering applicants by prescreen score

To filter applicants according to their prescreen scores, adjust the Prescreen Scores slider to match your specified scores. This filter will display only applicants with prescreen scores that fall within your specified range.

Filtering applicants marked as Favorites

To view only applicants marked as Favorites, click the Show Favorites Only checkbox in the Filters drawer.

Filtering applicants who have finished assessments

To view only applicants who have completed assessments, click the Assessment Status drop-down arrow in the Filters drawer and select Assessments Complete. This will display only applicants who have completed all assessments required for the job to which they applied.

Sorting applicants

To change the sort order of applicants, click the Sorting drop-down menu (set to Date Applied by default) and select one of the following criteria from the menu:

• Date Applied: By default, applicants will be sorted from most recent to oldest.
• Last Name: By default, applicants will be sorted according to the first letter of their last name in reverse alphabetical order.
• Applied For: By default, applicants will be sorted according to the name of the job they applied for in reverse alphabetical order.
• Prescreen Score: By default, applicants will be sorted according to their prescreen scores, from highest to lowest. Applicants without prescreen scores will appear at the bottom.

Selecting an option from the sorting drop-down menu immediately re-sorts applicants according to that criteria. To reverse the sort order, click the blue Sort order icon to the right of the Sorting drop-down menu.

Your sorting options remain in place even if you navigate away from the Applicants page. However, when you log out of CareerPlug, your Applicants page will revert to defaults.

Reviewing new applicants

When you have new applicants to review, you'll notice a green banner at the top of your Applicants page. Click the Start Review button to view each new applicant’s resume as well as their answers to prescreen questions. This allows you to quickly review your new applicants and decide whether to move them forward in your hiring process or reject them.

After you review each applicant's resume and answers to prescreen questions, you'll take one of two actions on each applicant:

• Thumbs up - Advances the applicant to the next step in the hiring process
• Thumbs down - Deactivates the applicant and gives you the option to send them a rejection letter (we recommended always sending a rejection letter)

Marking an applicant as a favorite

You can quickly mark applicants that you want to keep track of throughout the hiring process by clicking the star icon to the left of the applicant's name, which will add them as a Favorite.

You can also mark the applicant as a favorite on their applicant profile page.

To view all of your favorited applicants in one place, open the advanced filters drawer on the left side of the Applicants page and select the Show Favorites Only checkbox.

Deactivating an applicant and sending a rejection letter

As soon as you decide you don't want to move forward with an applicant, we recommend deactivating them to avoid cluttering up your Applicants page.

Find the applicant and click the red thumbs down icon next to their name. After you make a candidate inactive, you can send a pre-written rejection email to them.

You can view inactive applicants by clicking the Inactive tab at the top of the Applicants page.

Moving an applicant to your hiring pipeline

Moving an applicant to your pipeline means you don't want to consider them now, but you would like to consider them for a future job opening. Move an applicant to the pipeline by clicking the three dots icon to the right of the screen. You can then select Move to Pipeline from the drop-down menu.

To view the applicant in the future, click the Pipeline tab at the top of your Applicants page.

Transferring an applicant to another job

If you want to consider an applicant for a job besides the one to which they applied, you can transfer them to another job. Click the three dots icon at the far right of the applicant’s name and then click Transfer to another job.

Learn more about how to transfer an applicant to another job.

Sharing an applicant

To share an applicant via email with a coworker or another hiring manager, click the three dots icon and then click Share.

In the drawer that opens on the right side of the screen, you can type the email addresses of those who you would like to share this applicant with.

Searching for an applicant

To search for a specific applicant, type the applicant’s name in the search bar in the top right corner of the Applicants page.

You can either select the applicant from the drop-down menu that appears below the search bar when a partial name is entered or type the applicant's name and hit Enter on your keyboard to view the full search results. Clicking on the applicant's name from either the drop-down menu or the search results will open their applicant profile page.

Here are the categories of information by which you can search:

• First and last name
• Phone number
• Email address

If you don’t see who you’re looking for immediately, hit Enter on your keyboard. This will display all of your potential matches.

Working with multiple applicants at once

With CareerPlug, you can easily take action on multiple applicants at once on your Applicants page. When you click the checkboxes to the left of multiple applicants' names, a drawer will open from the left side of the screen.

In this drawer, select what you'd like to do with the applicants. Your options are:

• Deactivate (make the applicants inactive and send them an optional rejection letter - highly recommended!)
• Transfer to another job
• Invite them to a phone screen or interview (you can only use these options if the all applicants selected are in the same step of a hiring process)

Here's more guidance on working with multiple applicants.