Moving, archiving, and restoring candidates

Relevant for: Recruiters

How do I move candidates through my pipeline?

Drag a candidate card to another stage in the 'Pipeline' view, or open the application and click 'Move to another stage'. To reject a candidate or record a withdrawal, archive the application with a reason. To update several candidates at once, select them and click 'Change stage'.

Stage moves keep your pipeline accurate for the whole hiring team, and they can start the stage's automations, such as emails, tasks, or interview scheduling. Archiving closes an application with a clear outcome and reason, which feeds your reporting. If you made a mistake or want to reconsider someone, you can restore the application.

Every move, archive, and restore is logged in the candidate's activity, and the candidate status ('Active', 'Rejected', 'Withdrawn', or 'Hired') updates automatically.

Table of Contents:

• How do I move a candidate to another stage?
• How do I hire a candidate?
• How do I reject a candidate or record a withdrawal?
• How do I restore an archived application?
• How do I move or archive several candidates at once?
• How can I manage archive reasons?
• Who can move and archive candidates?

How do I move a candidate to another stage?

1. Go to 'Recruiting' > 'Candidates' > 'Pipeline' and drag the card to the target stage.
2. Or open the application and click 'Move to another stage'. The menu lists every stage of the evaluation process, marks the current stage, and highlights the next one.
3. Moves within the same bucket save right away. Moves to another bucket, e.g., from 'Application review' to 'Active', ask you to confirm, because they can change who has access and which automations run.

• Interviewers can also use 'Move to next stage' in the interview guide.
• If an interview template requires feedback, the application can't move forward until feedback is submitted. You can still click 'Move anyway', and the override is recorded in the activity.

How do I hire a candidate?

Drag the card onto 'Hired', or choose 'Hired' in 'Move to another stage', and confirm. If you can create employees, you can choose 'Move to hired & create employee' to add the new hire to the Leapsome HRIS. To learn more, see Handing new hires over to the Leapsome HRIS.

Note: You can only hire one candidate at a time. Hiring isn't available as a bulk action.

How do I reject a candidate or record a withdrawal?

To reject a candidate or record that they withdrew, you archive their application.

1. Open the application, click the '...' menu, and choose 'Archive application'. You can also drag the card onto 'Archived', or choose 'Rejected' or 'Withdrawn' in 'Move to another stage'. Both open the same dialog.
2. Choose an archive reason. Reasons are grouped under 'Rejected by organization' and 'Withdrawn by candidate'.
3. Add notes if helpful. Some reasons, e.g., 'Other', require notes.
4. Click 'Archive application'. The application moves to the 'Rejected' or 'Withdrawn' stage.

Please note:

• Archiving runs the automations of the 'Rejected' or 'Withdrawn' stage and of 'Archived (any reason)', e.g., a rejection email.
• You can't move or email an archived application, and most other actions are off until you restore it.
• Everyone who can see the application sees the archive reason and notes. Don't add sensitive personal data to notes.
• Applications can also be archived automatically, by an auto-reject activity or when a candidate is anonymized.

How do I restore an archived application?

Open the candidate, select the application under the archived applications, and click 'Restore'. The application returns to the last active stage it was in. If that stage no longer exists, it goes to the first active stage.

Restoring clears the archive reason and restarts the automations of the stage the application returns to. Steps that already ran, such as emails, run again.

To undo a hire, click 'Restore hired application'. The application goes back to its previous stage and no longer counts in hiring reports. A linked employee profile isn't changed.

How do I move or archive several candidates at once?

1. In 'Recruiting' > 'Candidates', select candidates, or a whole stage with the checkbox next to the stage name. The bar above the pipeline shows how many are selected. Click 'Select all' to include every application in the current bucket that matches your filters.
2. Click 'Change stage' and choose a stage. For 'Rejected' or 'Withdrawn', choose a reason and add notes if required.
3. The action runs in the background. 'Bulk action results' shows how many applications were updated and why any failed.

Please note:

• You can select up to 1,000 applications. To change their stage together, they must all use the same evaluation process.
• Applications you can't manage are left out.
• Check your stage activities before you archive many candidates, so you know which emails will be sent.
• To email the selected candidates, click 'Send email'. To learn more, see Emailing candidates.

How can I manage archive reasons?

Go to 'Settings' > 'Recruiting' > 'Recruiting fields' and open the 'Archive reasons' tab. There are separate lists for 'Rejected reasons' and 'Withdrawn reasons'. Click 'Add option' to add a reason, and reorder or deactivate reasons as needed.

• Predefined reasons are read-only, but you can reorder or deactivate them. You can rename your own reasons.
• Deactivated reasons stay on existing applications but can't be selected anymore.
• At least one reason must stay active for each outcome, otherwise archiving is blocked.

To learn more, see Configuring recruiting fields.

Who can move and archive candidates?

Moving, archiving, and restoring candidates requires permission to manage all candidates, or assigned candidates through a hiring team role on the job. By default, hiring managers, recruiters, coordinators, and sourcers have this. Managing archive reasons requires admin access to Recruiting settings.

For details, see Hiring team roles and permissions.

Note: Retention policies can anonymize candidates automatically a set number of days after all their applications are archived. To learn more, see Candidate data retention and privacy settings.