| Available for | User roles | All users |
| Packages | Select Lever packages |
With this guide, you can: jump right into using Lever for most day-to-day tasks.
Welcome to Lever!
We're here to help your organization find and hire the right candidates quickly!
You may be heavily involved in the recruiting process, or you may be stepping in to help from time to time. Either way, there are a few things you'll want to know how to do:
- How to understand your pipeline
- How to find candidates
- How to learn about candidates
- How to add candidates
- How to communicate with candidates
- How to communicate with colleagues
- How to submit interview feedback
How to understand your pipeline
Meet your pipeline! All candidates who are actively being considered for an opportunity live somewhere in your pipeline. All candidates who aren't currently being considered for an opportunity are stored in your archive.
Lever offers a single, unified pipeline to help you keep your recruiting process consistent across your organization. A unified pipeline allows your team to generate consistent metrics - for instance, comparing the recruiting performance for one department to another. Your pipeline is broken into 3 pipeline segments: Lead (prospects you're reaching out to), Applicant (applicants who are reaching out to you) and Interview (candidates you're meeting with). Within each segment are your organization's pipeline stages. Candidates progress from stage to stage until they're either hired at your organization or moved into your archive.
Your Lever account is full of candidates who are associated with one or more opportunities. Candidates may be considered for multiple opportunities at the same time, in which case they'll show up in your pipeline multiple times.
How to search for candidates
It's easy to find candidates in Lever: simply begin typing their name into the search bar in the upper right corner! Lever's smart search will take nicknames into account.
If you're not sure which candidates you're looking for, simply start typing keywords into our search bar and hit enter to be taken to our search results page, which surfaces valuable information at-a-glance:
Lever will search through resumes, notes, even submitted feedback forms! You can use the filters on the left hand side to narrow down the results further.
How to learn about candidates
Every candidate has their own candidate profile, which is your single source of truth: all relevant information will be found here! The candidate's contact information will be found on the right side. The candidate's opportunities (job postings) will be listed in the top right corner, and details about whichever opportunity is selected in the corner will be displayed in the center of the screen: how far has this contact made it through your recruiting pipeline for this particular opportunity? how did you recruit them for this opportunity?
Scroll down to see a candidate's activity log:
Any notes, email conversations, resume information and interview history will be recorded on the candidate profile, organized by the relevant opportunity. We've even added a few shortcut buttons at the top so you can jump straight to the information you need.
How to add candidates
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Lever's Chrome extension imports candidates into your account seamlessly.
It's easy to add candidates to your account! Here are the most common ways to do so:
- Create a job posting and wait for candidates to fill out applications
- Make a referral from your network or share a social referral link with your networks
- Install Lever's Chrome extension to add candidates from LinkedIn, other websites, even Gmail threads
- Forward a candidate's resume from your work email address to applicant@hire.lever.co (New Applicant) or lead@hire.lever.co (New Lead)
- Click the "Add Candidate" button at the top black navigation bar and drag-and-drop the candidate's resume into the blank candidate profile
How to email candidates
Keep the rest of your team in the loop about your candidate conversations! Lever's opt-in email sync feature for G-suite and Office 365-based users will automatically import email threads between you and a candidate and add them to a candidate profile.
Start a new conversation by clicking the email icon in a candidate profile:
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Left: email button in profile, Right: email button in Chrome extension
You and the candidate can continue emailing back and forth through your email provider like usual - meanwhile, your conversation is magically syncing to the candidate profile automatically!
Recruiting often involves sending the same emails over and over again - interview invitations, confirmations, offer letters, rejections, etc. Save your team time and cut down on human error by creating your own custom email templates:
How to communicate with colleagues
If you need to get your colleague's attention, the best way to do so is to tag them in a note. Type the @ symbol, followed by your colleague's name, then include any notes you think are relevant:
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Lever will immediately send an email to your colleague's inbox. There's no need for your colleague to open up the candidate profile, as all the relevant resume information will be included in the email:
Your colleagues can respond by replying straight to the email from Lever - no need to leave their inbox. Their response will show up as a note on the candidate's profile instantly! At-mentions are a great way to communicate with your team quickly - even on mobile!
How to submit interview feedback
Lever makes it easy to prepare for interviews and submit interview feedback quickly - even when you're on the go. When you're scheduled for a candidate interview, you'll receive a calendar invitation containing a link to the candidate's feedback form and resume, which you can access in 3 different ways:
1) In the calendar event for your interview:
2) In the Interviews page of your Lever account:
This page also lists any outstanding feedback which still needs to be completed, as well as any feedback you've submitted within the past 60 days.
3) Clicking the "Complete Feedback" button in an interview reminder email:
Choosing any of the options above will bring you to the candidate's feedback form, resume and additional contact information:
In the even that you didn't attend an interview or didn't need to submit feedback for a specific interview you were scheduled for, you can dismiss feedback.
What's next?
Nice job getting up to speed on the basics!
You're ready to start exploring your candidate pipeline, getting to know your candidates and submitting feedback on your interviews.
Take a moment to adjust your notifications and update your avatar.
If you're an admin, continue on to How to get started with Lever as an admin. Otherwise, if you're going to be handling your own interview scheduling, continue on to our guide How to get started scheduling with Lever.