Setting up evaluation processes and interview templates

Relevant for: Recruiters

What are evaluation processes and interview templates?

An evaluation process is your hiring pipeline: the stages candidates move through and the activities that happen in each one. Interview templates are reusable interviews you schedule on those stages. Set both up in 'Settings' > 'Recruiting'.

Together, they standardize hiring across jobs, so candidates for similar roles go through the same stages and get comparable, structured evaluations. You can create separate processes for different hiring tracks, e.g., engineering, sales, or graduate hiring.

Table of Contents:

• How do stages and stage groups work?
• How do I create an evaluation process?
• How do I manage evaluation processes?
• How do I create an interview template?
• How do I manage interview templates?
• Who can set these up?

How do stages and stage groups work?

Stages sit in six fixed stage groups in this order: 'Lead', 'Application review', 'Active', 'Offer', 'Hired', and 'Archived'. The groups keep the pipeline and reporting consistent across jobs, while each process has its own named stages.

• You can only add stages to 'Lead', 'Application review', 'Active', and 'Offer'. You can't drag a stage into another group.
• The system stages 'Hired', 'Rejected', and 'Withdrawn' are part of every process. You can't rename, move, or remove them.
• Applications from your career portal land in the first stage of 'Application review', marked "Inbound applications arrive here".
• Each stage can have default activities, such as sending an email, scheduling an interview, or an auto-reject rule. The 'Archived (any reason)' row runs its activities whenever an application is archived, whatever the reason.

How do I create an evaluation process?

1. Go to 'Settings' > 'Recruiting' > 'Evaluation processes' and click 'Create evaluation process'.
2. Enter a unique 'Process name' and an optional 'Description'.
3. Under 'Stages and activities', review the default stages. Click 'Add sub-stage' in a group to add a stage. You can rename, drag to reorder, duplicate, or delete stages.
4. Optional: click 'Add activities' on a stage to add default activities, e.g., a 'Schedule interview' step. To learn more, see Setting up automations on stages and job.
5. Click 'Save'.
6. Link the process to a job on the job's 'Evaluation process' tab. To learn more, see Creating a job profile.

Note: A process needs at least one sub-stage besides 'Hired', 'Rejected', and 'Withdrawn'.

Activities you set on the process are defaults. They're copied onto new jobs that use the process and stay editable on each job afterwards.

How do I manage evaluation processes?

In 'Settings' > 'Recruiting' > 'Evaluation processes', each process shows its number of stages, linked jobs, and jobs with activities. Open a process to edit it, or use the row menu to 'Duplicate' or 'Delete' it. Use 'Filter' to narrow the list, e.g., by creator, stage category, or number of stages.

Keep in mind when you edit a process:

• Jobs use the process directly instead of a copy. Renaming or adding stages applies right away to every job that uses it.
• A published job keeps the process it was published with. To choose another one, revert the job to draft.
• When you delete a stage, its active applications move to the next remaining stage (or the previous one) after you save. The move is recorded in the activity.
• You can't restore a deleted stage or its activities. Adding the stage again doesn't bring the activities back.
• You can't delete a process while an active job uses it. Unpublish or delete those jobs first.

How do I create an interview template?

1. Go to 'Settings' > 'Recruiting' > 'Interview templates' and click 'New interview template'.
2. On 'Overview', enter the 'Internal title' and the 'Candidate-facing title'. Optional: under 'Filter', add teams or work locations to make the template easier to find.
3. On 'Instructions', write the interview kit, e.g., sample questions, rubrics, and goals. Interviewers see this in the interview guide.
4. On 'Feedback form', turn on 'Collect feedback from interviewer?' and select a published feedback form. Optional: turn on 'Make feedback mandatory by default'.
5. Click 'Save and continue' to work through the tabs and activate the template, or 'Save as draft' to finish it later. Click 'Preview' to check the result.

Feedback form settings on an interview template:

• Candidates only see the candidate-facing title, e.g., on the booking page and in invitations. Internal titles and instructions stay internal.
• You need a candidate-facing title to activate a template.
• To activate a template that collects feedback, its feedback form must be published. To learn more, see Creating and managing feedback forms.
• When feedback is mandatory, candidates can't move to the next stage until the scorecard is submitted.

How do I manage interview templates?

Templates can be 'Draft', 'Active', or 'Archived'. Only active templates can be scheduled or used in stage activities. The list shows active templates by default; however, you can use the status filter to see the others.

• You can duplicate any template, archive an active one, delete a draft, or revert an archived template to draft.
• You can't archive a template that job activities still use; you will need to remove it from those jobs first.
• Templates are shared across the whole company. Team and location filters only help you find templates, they don't restrict access.

Who can set these up?

Creating, editing, and deleting evaluation processes, interview templates, and their default activities requires the 'Manage ATS templates' permission. People who can manage job profiles can pick a process for a job, but can't change it. Stage names are visible to everyone who can see candidates on jobs that use the process.

For details, see Hiring team roles and permissions.