Keeping your pipeline organized and up-to-date

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Available for Roles Super Admin, Admin, Team Member, Limited Team Member
Permissions • Manage profiles and view associated postings
Packages Lever Basic, LeverTRM, LeverTRM for Enterprise

Is your pipeline a mess? Are there old candidates sitting around in your account until you can "get around" to archiving them? Are you constantly unsure about your next steps? Are you letting candidates slip through the cracks? With a few simple best practices, you can keep your pipeline up-to-date and organized - and make sure your candidates receive the best possible experience.


KPI: Percentage of stale candidates

Here's a quick exercise to determine whether your pipeline is stale and in need of a clean-up:

1. Calculate the number of candidates in your pipeline

Navigate to your Candidates page. Make sure your filter in the ownership filter is set to 'All owners' and add up the total number of candidates in your Lead, Applicant and Interview sections.

Pipeline sections with total opportunity tallies outlined

In this example, there are 605 candidates in the active pipeline.

2. Apply a filter to find your stale candidates

Click the list icon in the candidate search bar and apply a 'Last interaction' filter to the pipeline. In this example, let's say it is June 1 and that candidates who have not received an interaction from my team in at least 3 months are considered stale.

Advanced filter modal with last interaction filter applied for March 1 through May 31.

3. Calculate the number of stale candidates in your pipeline

With the filter applied, add up the stale candidates in your Lead, Applicant and Interview pipeline sections.

Pipeline sections last interaction filter applied and total opportunity tallies outlined

In this example, there are 413 stale candidates.

4. Calculate the percentage

Divide the number of stale candidates in your active pipeline by the total number of candidates in your active pipeline to see what percentage of your pipeline is stale. In this example:

413 / 605 = 68.2% stale

 

Cleaning up your pipeline

Staring at a pipeline in need of a big clean up? Don't worry - follow our tips below and you will have a sparkling clean pipeline in a matter of minutes.

Clean up candidates for a role that has been closed

Filter the pipeline for candidate opportunities associated with closed postings and then perform a bulk archive. If there are candidates being considered for multiple roles among your selection, you can choose whether to archive them altogether - or just for that role. To learn more, refer to our help article on performing bulk actions.

Bulk archive opportunities modal

Clean up everyone who has not heard from you in awhile

Sometimes you just need a fresh start! If there are a lot of out-of-date candidates in your pipeline, and you are not sure about the nuances of each candidate or posting and just want to clean your entire pipeline up at once, we recommend bulk archiving all your stale candidates.

Simply apply your last interaction filter to find anyone who has not heard from your team in awhile. For more information on apply these filters, refer to our help article on filtering the candidate pipeline by last interaction. Check the 'Select All' checkbox and click the bulk archive button:

Candidate list filtered by last interaction 4 weeks ago; filter, select all checkbox and bulk archive button are highlighted.

 

If you have a large number of very stale candidates, you may want to create an appropriate email template apologizing for the late response. It's never too late to improve your candidates' experience, even if your follow-up is later than you would have wished.

Keep in mind, this workflow will only clean up one segment of your pipeline at a time (Lead, Applicant or Interview). Leads can often be nurtured over a very long period of time, or you may wish to clean up your unreviewed applicant pool without touching your interview pipeline. You have control over how much or how little cleanup you'd like to do!

Keeping your pipeline fresh

Smart recruiters save time by letting Lever do the heavy lifting for them! A few key features will transform your day-to-day task management.

Use Lever's call-to-action buttons to keep track of your next steps

If there's one single trick which separates "power users" from "casual users" of Lever, it's the call-to-action buttons on the right side of the Candidate list view.

Call to action buttons outlined next to opportunities in candidate list

These buttons let you see at a glance which candidates need to receive an interview invitation, which candidates have received an Easy Book link and need to decide on a time, which candidates are waiting on outstanding feedback from the rest of your team, and which candidates are ready to move forward in the process. To learn more, refer to our help article on call-to-action buttons.

Use the snooze function to generate email notifications when it is time to follow up

Snooze ending and recent activity reminder emails in Gmail inbox

Not the right time for a conversation? Prospect heading out of town for a few weeks? Don't just write a reminder on a Post-It and stick it to your monitor. Instead, snooze the candidate's opportunity. You can also include a note while snoozing a candidate, so you remember how to pick up where you left off. When time is up, the candidate will return to your pipeline and you will receive an email reminder to follow up.

Pop over extending from snooze button with reminder message in text field. Snoozing ending reminder email in Gmail with reminder message from previous image.

To learn more, refer to our help article on snoozing candidate opportunities.

Manage your passive candidates automatically with Lever Nurture

Finishing action configuration options in Nurture campaing editor.

Lever Nurture's automated campaigns will follow up with candidates at scheduled intervals until the candidate responds. If a campaign concludes without a response from the candidate, you can configure your campaign to move those candidates directly into your archive - no manual cleanup necessary. Read our help article on setting up Nurture campaigns to learn more.

Monitoring your pipeline freshness over time

Run your percentage of stale candidates periodically

Keep calculating your percentage of stale candidates (see above) on a regular basis. You can use this metric to set a KPI for your team this year. For example:

"Our team will maintain a pipeline which is at least 75% fresh throughout the year 20XX, to be measured at the end each month."

Use filters to identify which colleagues are letting their candidates grow stale

Is there one person on your team letting inactive candidates pile up in your pipeline? You can see who is responsible for your inactive candidates using the filter bars on the left side. Once you apply your 'Last interaction' filter, sort the posting filters by owners so you can easily see which posting owners have the largest number of stale candidates associated with their postings.

Sort menu with By owner option highlighted on hover

If multiple hiring managers are letting candidates grow stale, it may be time to invest in more dedicated recruiting staff to ensure your candidates are getting the best possible experience.

What's Next?

Now that you know how to clean up your pipeline, make sure you have rejection email templates to send to your candidates as you archive them. To learn how, check out our email templates help article.

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