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Preparing Element

How to prepare Element for your first recruitment project

Maciej Michalewski avatar
Written by Maciej Michalewski
Updated this week

ADMINISTRATION PANEL

Before starting work on Element, it is worth taking a few steps that will allow you to manage recruitment processes and the candidate database more easily. For this purpose, a user with the administrator role should use the administration panel options. The administration panel is available after clicking on the gear in the lower left corner of the screen:

USERS

Add, remove, and editing users in the Users tab:

We have three types of users in the system:

  • Administrator - can see and can do anything.

  • Recruiter - has full access to own recruitment projects and system functions, except for some administrative options.

  • External user - has no access to most system functions, particularly no access to the candidate database and administration panel. He has access only to projects that have been made available to him. It is a role for Hiring Managers, for example.

The administrator may at any time add or remove a user or modify his data using the appropriate buttons:

Managed users in a hierarchical structure with the button:

What effect does setting up a superior have for the user? Superior can see all the projects of everyone below him in the hierarchy without sharing those projects. Users do not see superior's projects.

GDPR

There are two sections for GDPR settings in Admin Panel:

GDPR templates allow you to create sets of consents to process personal data and other consents that the candidate will see on the application form.

You can create a new template or edit or delete an existing one:

After clicking "CREATE A TEMPLATE", a form for creating a new template with consents will appear:

The "Template Name" will allow us to later identify a specific template with specific consents. It is useful if we have more than one template, e.g., one template for one company, one for the other, or one template for recruitment in country X and another in country Y.

The "Type of consent" field is expanded and gives us the option to choose first consent. We have three types of consent:

  1. Consent for the recruitment process

  2. Consent for future recruitment processes

  3. Other types of consent

While the first two consents are self-explanatory, you can use the Other Type of Consent to create consent that falls outside the first two categories.

The "Consent Name" field will allow us to distinguish one consent from another later easily.

The "Consent" field is obvious; here, we put everything the candidate is to read before selecting the consent.

At the end of the consent, there are two options: (1) Require consent from the candidate, and (2) allow contact with the candidate. First of all, consent to the recruitment process should be required. The "Allows contact with the candidate" option informs the system that the system can send automatic messages to the candidate. In most cases, it is also worth selecting this option.

After creating the first consent, we can add another one using the "ADD" button at the bottom of the form. This way, we will add a second consent to the template. After adding the second consent, we can add a third, and so on. At the end of the work, save the template with the "SAVE" button.

CANDIDATES ANONYMISATION

In GDPR Settings, we have the option to indicate after what period, counted in months, Element is to automatically delete the candidate's personal data (make anonymization). The automatic anonymization configuration is performed by completing the following two fields:

Anonymization of candidates with consent to a specific recruitment project (first field)

The first field indicates the date after which Element will automatically and without asking for user confirmation, delete from the system the personal data of the candidate who has consented to the processing of his personal data in a specific project and the project has been closed (project status "Archived"). After the project status is changed to Archived, the time limit specified in this field begins to run. If the deadline is 6 months, as in the example above, all candidates who have agreed to process their personal data only in this project, will be automatically anonymized after 6 months from the date of archiving this project.

Important:

  • If the field is left blank, automatic anonymization for these candidates (with consent for a specific project) will not be enabled.

  • If a value of 0 (zero) is entered in the field, the anonymization will take place at the end of the day on which the project was archived.

Anonymization of candidates with consent for future recruitment projects (second field)

The second field is similar to the first. We provide the date after which the candidate will be automatically anonymized in months. In this case, however, the deadline is counted not from the archiving of the project (there is no consent for a specific project here), but from the date of consent to future recruitment processes. Usually, this is the date of the candidates' application using the form on which the candidate has indicated such consent.

If the field is left blank or has the value 0 (zero), then anonymization will not be enabled for these candidates. Why doesn't the value 0, in this case, turn on anonymization? Because this would mean the candidate would have to be anonymized on the same day they applied, which doesn't make sense.

RECRUITMENT STAGES TEMPLATES

Before starting work on the system, we recommend creating templates for recruitment stages. There are two significant advantages to using stage templates. Firstly, it shortens the time needed to create recruitment processes, and secondly, it ensures proper reporting. Thanks to templates, we will avoid a situation where one recruitment project has the "New candidates" stage and the other has the "New CV" stage. The role of these steps is identical, but a different name will interfere with reporting. For the sake of order, stages that perform the same function should be named the same in all recruitment processes.

The principle of creating recruitment stage templates is similar to creating GDPR consent templates. In the Admin Panel, go to "Recruitment stages" and use the "ADD PROCESS" option there, or edit or delete existing templates:

Creating or editing stages in templates are as follows. After clicking "ADD PROCESS" a form for creating stages will appear:

The "Process Name" will allow users to distinguish one template from another. The name should tell users what template they should use. If we have only one template, we can call it, for example, "Standard template". If we have different stages for different job positions, then one template can be called e.g. "Production positions" and the other "Administrative positions".

Under the name of the process, there is a place to create the first stage or edit a previously created one. Each stage needs a name. In addition to the name, we have four options that we can select for a given stage. We will talk about this options below.

Application - key setting for every recruitment process

Application - choosing the 'Application' option ensures that all new CVs will be displayed at this stage. Every recruitment process should have one stage designated as 'Application'. If a recruitment process lacks an 'Application' stage, new CVs won't be shown within that process. While the candidates will still be visible in the candidate database, they won't appear in the project. That's why it's essential to designate one stage as the 'Application' stage

Employment - Candidates transferred to this stage will be considered hired candidates. This is important for reporting. As with the Application, each recruitment process and template should have one Employment stage.

Unreported - if there is a need to create a stage that should not be included in the reports, select the Unreported option for this stage. It is a helpful feature in such cases as, for example:

  • Creating a stage for storing candidates who have not yet agreed to participate in the process but whose profile corresponds to the process requirements.

  • Creating a stage that appears after hiring a candidate, e.g., onboarding, evaluation after a trial period, etc.

Activities at the unreported stages will not distort the indicators describing the recruitment processes.

Stage for Rejected Candidates? We Don’t Create One.

It is important to emphasize that in the Element, there is no need to create separate stages for rejected candidates. Every stage you create will always display both active and rejected candidates.

Below is an example showing three stages: candidates marked in gray are rejected candidates, while those in white are active candidates. At the top of each stage, you can see the number of active and rejected candidates for that stage.

Automatic Messages

You can (and in most cases should) set up a automatic messages sent to candidates and other people in different scenarios. We recommend reviewing the separate guide on creating these automatic messages. The instructions can be found in the article Automatic Messages.

General Application Link

The pattern for the general application link is as follows:

where the "DOMAIN" part should be replaced with the company name from the address you use to log into Element. Example: https://IBM.elementapp.ai/application/v2

Important - if you're using the general application form, in most cases, it's essential to display the appropriate GDPR consents in this form. However, in this case, we won't use the standard consent for participation in the recruitment process, as the general form doesn't pertain to any specific recruitment process. Therefore, consent for future recruitment processes should be applied.

To set the consent for the general application form, go to the GDPR Settings -> GDPR Consents in general application links option.

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