1. Lever Support
  2. Lever Essentials
  3. Getting Started

Self Guided Implementation Plan

Follow
Avatar
Melody Tsukahara

Implementing Lever on your own is easy! To ensure you stay on track and get the most out of Lever we've created a project plan that will guide you through our recommended steps to help you see value quickly.

Feel free to copy the below plan and track your progress. Each action item is accompanied by details and links to helpful tutorials.

Before getting started, take note of two important resources: Lever Help Center, Lever Launchpad

Part 1: Your Implementation Tasks
Part 2: Data Migration
Part 3: Final Steps

Part 1: Your Implementation Tasks

Enable Lever's email & calendar sync

In order to get the most out of Lever each user will need to grant Lever permission to sync emails to candidates and access their calendar to schedule interviews. Take a look at the article below to learn more about how email sync works with Lever.

Determine your interview pipeline stages

Defining your process in Lever is one of the most critical steps of your implementation. Configuring your pipeline will allow you to customize your Lever account to match your company's ideal recruiting process, and give you visibility into where candidates are in your process. Take a moment to discuss your ideal unified pipeline and add it in a comment below. Here's an example a Lever interview pipeline:

Default layout:

  1. Lead tab: New Lead*, Reached Out*, Responded*
  2. Applicant tab: New Applicant*
  3. Interview tab: Recruiter Screen, Phone Interview, On-site Interview, Offer

Alternative example:

  1. Lead tab: New Lead*, Reached Out*, Responded*
  2. Applicant tab: New Applicant*, Contacted
  3. Interview tab: Recruiter Screen, Phone Interview, On-site Interview, On-site Interview 2, Reference Checks, Offer

* These stages are required and cannot be deleted.

Determine your candidate archive reasons

When you're no longer moving forward with your candidate you'll need to archive them. There are many reasons why candidates may no longer be active in your company's interview process and if you plan on sourcing candidates from your archive pipeline, you'll want to ensure these reasons are specific and clear.

You should be able to answer the following two questions based on the name of your archive reason without needing to dig into the candidate's profile:

  1. Why did you truly pass on this candidate? Was it because they're too junior? Did they not have relevant skills? Make those their own archive reasons!

  2. Would you want to reengage with this candidate in the future? Your archive is a goldmine full of warm leads that you can source from in the future! Knowing if you'd want to reengage with candidates in specific archive reasons will allow you to easily reach out to them in the future.

Here are some example archive reasons:

    1. Too junior
    2. Communication skills
    3. Skills not relevant to the role
    4. Better for another role
    5. Future opportunity / keep warm
    6. Timing
    7. Industry fit
    8. Comp expectations
    9. Location
    10. Withdrew
    11. Position filled
    12. Offer declined
    13. Unresponsive
    14. Hired

Create teams, locations, and work-types

Ensure that each of your job postings are properly organized by providing candidates with the posting’s Department, Team, Location, and Work Types. Categorizing your jobs will also allow you to grant access to specific groups of candidates to Lever users.

Navigate to your company settings page to create, rename, and delete options for each of these posting fields. Only Super admins and Admins can access this page, so your admins can maintain consistency in your job posting data across the company.

You will need to complete this step before you can create a job posting.

  • To access your department, team, and work-type settings, navigate to Lever > Settings > Company and click on the Department & Teams and Work Types tabs.

  • For instructions, refer to our help article on configuring company settings. 

Create your jobs in Lever

Now that you've created teams, locations, and work-types in Lever you can start creating your jobs. To get started, learn how to add job postings and better understand how your jobs will be structured in Lever. Refer to our help article on creating and managing job postings.

Navigate to your jobs dashboard in Lever to start adding your jobs. If you have a standardized opening or closing statement on your jobs use the link below to learn how to add them to Lever and access your job site settings.

  • To access your job postings, navigate to Lever > Jobs.

  • To access your job site setting, navigate to Lever > Settings > Job site > Posting Templates.

  • Learn about adding standardized opening and closing sections to your job postings in our help article on creating job posting templates.

Configure job site settings

There are a number of ways that you can customize your Lever-hosted job site, and they can all be found in your job site settings. You can set up links in the site’s header and footer, add a company logo, and change the color of your buttons.

Create email templates, interview feedback templates & forms

Interview feedback templates
The most effective way to streamline your recruiting process is to build your interview criteria into feedback templates. Feedback forms are the best way to capture relevant information about your interview with a candidate to help determine whether they should move forward. Take some time to read more about designing your interview process:

Email templates

Do you have an email that's really effective with new or potential candidates? Do you keep copying and pasting the same message over and over when reaching out to candidates? Creating email templates is a great way to save time when reaching out to candidates and create consistency in your communication. Use the guide below to get started!

If you aren't sure where to begin, simply customize the built-in templates with your company's information. Pro tip: adding a placeholder in the subject line is a great way to personalize your email and prevent unintentional threading.

Forms
Forms are a way to capture structured administrative data such as competitive offer information, offer declined, or reference check information. 

Source potential candidates

Download the Lever chrome extension

The Lever Chrome Extension is a great way to up your sourcing game! You can view the help articles to learn more about the Chrome Extension too! Use the subtasks below to mark off the articles as you read them. Don't forget to install it using the link below.

Source a candidate

Now that you've downloaded the chrome extension it's time to put it's power to use. Read the below article to see the chrome extension in action then try it yourself.

Test drive your candidate workflow

Before inviting the rest of your organization to begin using Lever, make sure you feel comfortable and proficient with all aspects of the candidate lifecycle. This is also an opportunity to make sure you've configured everything correctly and that Lever responds in the ways you'd expect.

Launch your new job site

Now is the time to make your new careers page live! Tell your developers to add a link to your Lever hosted job site into production on your company's website. The URL to your Lever job site can be found in job site settings.

  • To access your job site setting, navigate to Lever > Settings > Job site > Posting Templates.

Once you are able to access your new careers page from your website and candidates are able to apply for jobs mark this task as complete. If you would like to build a custom job site you can use the resources below at any time.

Post your jobs on external sites

Now it's time to tell the world you're hiring! Start by clicking the link to the integrations tab and enabling Lever's job board integrations. Use the guides below to expand your reach to candidates by enabling other job board. Be sure to pay special attention to the custom URL's to ensure accurate reporting in where candidates are coming from so you can focus on the job boards that bring you top talent!

Enable Lever's integrations

Lever is one of many essential tools in your HR tech stack. It’s about time that those tools talked to each other. Eliminate the back and forth, the manual data entry, and the inefficient processes. From sourcing to offer generation, we’re committed to streamlining the way you work. Take a look at the links below to see which integrations Lever offers and how to access them.

  • To access your integration settings, navigate to Lever > Settings > Integrations and API.
  • Learn more about our full list of integrations in Lever's Integration Ecosystem.

Part 2: Data Migration

Transform your data to the Lever expected format

It's time to import your historic candidate data into Lever. In order do import your data you'll need to transform it into the Lever expected format. Download this template CSV. Read on for an explanation of each column.

  1. Lever Profile ID - leave this field blank
  2. Full Name - this is the candidates first and last name
  3. Email - this is highly recommended as Lever will merge duplicated based on email
  4. Data added - the date the candidate was created
  5. Stage - the Lever pipeline stage the candidate should be in after import
  6. Archive reason - the archive reason your candidate should be in after import
  7. Sources - LinkedIn, AngelList, etc. You can comma separate multiple sources.
  8. Origin - This must be Applied, Sources, Referral, Agency, University.
  9. Tags - comma separated tags for that candidate
  10. Phone - candidate phone number
  11. Location - candidate location
  12. Links - URLs such as a LinkedIn profile for that candidate. Multiple links can be added by comma separating them.
  13. Referrer - leave this empty
  14. Resume Filename - candidate resume file. ex: resume.pdf
  15. Company - comma separated list of candidate's previous companies
  16. Owner - candidate owner in Lever
  17. Lever Posting URL - the URL for the job in Lever this candidate should be attached to. ex: https://jobs.lever.co/lever/7f673706-37a2-4386-bee5-bd2892bc0cfc/
  18. Posting owner - leave blank
  19. Posting hiring manager - leave blank
  20. DateNote-0 - date when note was added to the candidate's profile
  21. UserNote-0 - user who added the note
  22. IsSecretNote-0 - "yes" or "no"
  23. Note-0 - the actual note

The note fields can be repeated as many times as needed by incrementing the number at the end. Once your data is ready for import let our Support team know and we will import it!

Submit your data for upload

Once your data has been transformed into the Lever expected format send it to our Support Team for it to be imported in to your account.

Part 3: Final Steps

Welcome your team to Lever

Now that all your hard work is done it's time to create accounts for your team so they can start using Lever! Use the templates below to welcome the team to Lever prior to creating their accounts.

We strongly encourage you to integrate signing into Lever as part of your onboarding process for new employees. This way, everyone can learn about Lever from the get-go -- encourage the entire team to join in on recruiting efforts.

Make sure they have the right level of access to Lever and candidate information. Take a look at the resources below to get started and for more information about the different access roles in Lever.

NOTE: If you would like to bulk invite several users at once sent me a list in the format of "email,name,accessRole" and our Support team can upload them to the system for you.

Continued support post implementation

Post implementation you'll have access to the Lever support team for assistance. They support team can be accessed via live chat by mousing over your avatar in the top right and clicking "contact support".

Additional Resources

Below you'll find helpful resources to train and onboard new team members to Lever and tips & tricks to streamline your recruiting process.

Was this article helpful?
0 out of 0 found this helpful