Pipeline & Stages

This guide covers the visual pipeline board and the stages that make it up.

Purpose

The pipeline is the board that shows, at a glance, exactly where every candidate for a job opening currently stands. Stages are the steps that make up that board. Together they answer: "Where is this candidate right now, and what happens next?"

The Pipeline Board

• Each job opening has its own board, laid out as columns — one per stage — with a card for every candidate in that stage.
• Candidates move between stages by dragging their card to a new column, or by selecting several candidates at once and moving them together in bulk.
• The board can be viewed as cards or as a compact list, and each stage shows a live count of how many candidates are sitting in it.
• The board can be searched and filtered to quickly find a candidate or narrow down to a particular opening.

Stages

• Every new job opening automatically starts with two stages already in place — Applied and Initial — created the moment the opening is created, so there's always somewhere for new candidates to land.
• Recruitment managers add as many further stages as the hiring process needs, in whatever order makes sense (screening call, test, interview rounds, offer, and so on).
• Each stage has a type — Initial, Applied, Test, Interview, Cancelled, or Hired — that tells the system what the stage represents. This is what powers the automatic behavior below; a stage's name can be anything, but its type is what the system acts on.
• Each stage has its own stage managers — the people responsible for candidates sitting at that step.
• Stages can be renamed, reordered, or removed at any time as a hiring process is refined.

What Happens When a Candidate Moves Stage

• The system checks that whoever moved the card is allowed to: a manager of any stage on that opening, the opening's recruitment manager, or an administrator.
• Moving a candidate into a stage typed Hired automatically marks them as hired; moving them into a stage typed Cancelled automatically marks them as canceled — there's no separate "mark as hired" step.
• When a candidate lands in a Hired stage, the system checks whether the opening's vacancies are now fully filled and flags it, so recruiters know when to stop moving people into that stage.
• If a candidate is moved back to a stage they were in before (for example, pulled back for a second round), any interview or schedule date previously recorded for that stage is automatically restored.
• The stage's managers are notified whenever a new candidate arrives on their stage.

What Each User Sees

Action	Employee	Stage Manager	Recruitment Manager	HR Administrator / Recruiter
View a pipeline board	—	✅ (openings where they manage a stage)	✅ (their opening)	✅
Move candidates between stages	—	✅ (anywhere on that opening's board)	✅ (their opening)	✅
Create, rename, reorder, or delete stages	—	—	✅ (their opening)	✅
Assign stage managers	—	—	✅ (their opening)	✅

How Visibility Is Decided

1. Permissions. Broad permissions grant full access to view or manage stages and pipelines across every opening.
2. Being a stage manager on that opening. Managing even one stage grants the ability to move candidates anywhere across that opening's whole board — access isn't limited to just the one stage formally assigned (see User Roles & Access).
3. Being the opening's recruitment manager. Full control over that opening's pipeline and stages, without needing the general permission.
4. Company. Pipelines and stages belong to a company, so users only see boards for the company currently selected.

Customization Options

• Design however many stages an opening needs, in any order.
• Assign one or more stage managers to each stage.
• Choose each stage's type to hook into automatic hired/cancelled marking and vacancy-filled alerts.
• Switch the board between card and list layouts.
• Move multiple candidates at once instead of one at a time.

Good to Know

• The Applied and Initial stages aren't optional starting points to configure — they're created automatically with every opening, though more stages can be added around them.
• A stage manager's reach is opening-wide, not stage-specific: managing one stage on an opening is enough to move candidates across that entire opening's board.
• Moving a candidate back and forth between stages doesn't lose information — a previously recorded schedule date for a stage comes back automatically if they return to it.
• Reaching "Hired" flags when vacancies are filled but doesn't lock the board — recruiters still decide when to actually close the opening (see Job Requisitions & Open Jobs).

One board, every next step.