Merging duplicate candidate profiles

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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

In order to ensure good data hygiene, all of a candidate's opportunities should be linked to a single candidate profile. Lever automatically prevents duplication of candidate profiles if a candidate applies to multiple postings with the same email address. However, when candidates are manually added to Lever it is still possible to inadvertently create duplicate profiles.


The difference between candidate profiles and opportunities

The candidate profile consists of information specific to the candidate, regardless of the job(s) they apply for, such as their name, location, email addresses, telephone numbers, and external profile URLs (e.g. LinkedIn). Contact information in the candidate profile is cumulative, meaning it is pulled from all opportunities the candidate has been associated with. For example, if the same candidate had two different phone numbers input when separate opportunities were created, both phone numbers appear on their candidate profile.

An opportunity represents the consideration of a candidate for a specific job. The opportunity profile consists of information specific to the job they are being considered for such as the job title and their resumé, as well as the opportunity's stage, origin, and source.

Close up of candidate profile with candidate profile fields and opportunity profile fields circled.

In Lever, every candidate should have only one candidate profile. A single candidate profile can then be associated with multiple opportunities. For more information, refer to our help article on understanding the difference between candidate profiles and opportunities

How Lever identifies duplicate profiles

Lever checks for duplicate profile based on two criteria:

  1. Detection of the same email address on more than one candidate profile
  2. Detection of the same candidate name (including first name variations such as "Edward" and "Eddie") on more than one candidate profile

 

Blocklisted email addresses, middle initials, text fewer than three characters, and text between quotations or parentheses are exempt from these criteria.

To mitigate the risk of duplicate profiles existing in the same Lever environment, a notification banner will appear at the top of any candidate profile that Lever suspects might be a duplicate based on the above criteria.

Close up of candidate profile with notification banner.

Merging duplicate candidate profiles

To merge duplicate candidate profiles, click the Merge them? link in the notification banner. In the modal that appears, you can click the names of the candidates to open their profiles new tabs where you can review the information on each profile to verify if they are duplicates. If you find that they are not duplicates, simply close the modal and dismiss the banner. If you find that the profiles are in fact duplicates, proceed with the merging process:

  • Select the checkboxes next to the profiles you wish to merge and clicking the Next Step button.

Merge candidates modal with two candidate profiles selected.

  • Select a candidate profile that will take precedence in the merger. This is required because some fields on the candidate profile such as name and location can only have one value. Click the Next Step button to proceed.

Merge candidates modal with one profile selected to take precedence.

  • Preview the merged profile and click the Complete Merge button to finalize the process. Be sure to review each step of the merger process carefully as this action cannot be undone once the merger is complete.

Merge candidate modal showing preview of merged candidate profile.

You can also merge candidate profiles in bulk from the opportunity list. Simply select the checkboxes next to the opportunities associated with the candidate profiles you wish to merge and click the Merge button in the bulk action toolbar. The process for merging candidates is then the same as listed above.

Two opportunities selected in the opportunity list with arrow pointing to Merge button in bulk action toolbar.

 

If merged candidate profiles each contain an opportunity for the same job posting, those opportunities will not be merged once the candidate profile merger is complete.

Once candidate profiles have been merged, active opportunities associated with the merged profiles will be ordered by their progression in the pipeline, with the opportunity farthest along in the pipeline listed at the top. Active opportunities are followed by most recently hired opportunities, and finally opportunities that have most recently been archived.

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