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:

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

We have three types of users in the system:

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:
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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.

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:

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.

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:

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:

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.

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 - 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:

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

Requires a rejection reason - this means that rejecting a candidate at this stage will necessitate adding a note with the reasons for the candidate's rejection.

It's worth emphasizing here that in the Element system, there's no need to create separate stages for rejected candidates. Every stage we create will always accommodate both active candidates and rejected ones. Below is an example showcasing three stages. Candidates marked in gray are the rejected ones, while those in white are active candidates. At the top of each stage, we can see the number of active and rejected candidates at the respective stages.

Adding an action allows you to create an email message that will be sent by Element to the candidate who is moved to the stage where the action was added. First, we'll show how to add an action, and then demonstrate how it works in practice. The ADD ACTION button

After clicking the button, an action creation form will appear:

The first selection field is 'Type of Action'. Choose the option 'Send Message' there.

In the 'Action Type' field, choose whether the action should be executed (message sent) after moving the candidate to this stage, or after rejecting the candidate at this stage.

In the subsequent fields, we can add other recipients in the CC or BCC fields, e.g., hiring managers, so they know that a new candidate has appeared in the stages shared with them.

At this point, you can select to automatically send the message (in BCC) to individuals who have access to this stage (e.g., hiring managers):

If we've added the first stage, the next one can be added using the ADD STAGE button:

What to remember when using stage templates:

If you make a change to the stage template, this change will not affect existing recruitment processes. If you want the existing recruitment processes to be updated to the latest version of the template, you need to reselect the updated template in the editing window of the given recruitment process. Simply choose the specific template for the stages to be updated:

Updating to a new template will fail if there are already candidates in the project. In such a case, you can, for example, manually add the missing stage or change the name of the existing stage where candidates are located. Deleting a stage in an existing project is only possible when there are no candidates at that stage.

Stage actions are used to automate message sending in relation to a candidate's stage change or their rejection.

There is an exception to the above rule: if we add an action to send a 'Candidate Position Change' message at the 'Application' stage, then all candidates applying to this recruitment process will automatically receive this message as a thank you for submitting their application. This will replace the general application thank you set for the entire system in the 'Automatic Messages' section, which I describe below.

Automatic messages allow you to utilize three types of automated email messages sent to candidates. These automated emails are sent from the system and do not require connection to the user's mailbox.

Click on 'Automatic Messages' to access their settings.

We have three types of automatic messages available:

Thank You for Your Application

GDPR consent expiration

Candidate anonymization

and you can edit each message.

The automatic 'Thank You for Your Application' message will be sent automatically to every individual who uses any application form. This means that the message will be automatically dispatched to candidates applying for any recruitment process. Therefore, there's no need to create more than one 'Thank You for Your Application' message.

Important: If you create more than one 'Thank You for Your Application' message, every applying candidate will receive all such messages.

For each recruitment project, you can create a separate thank you message for the application. However, this is not done in the system settings but in the configuration of a specific recruitment process or in the configuration of process templates. I discussed this above, so if you want to see the instructions, you can scroll up or simply click here.

This message will be sent automatically to every candidate whose data will be anonymized in the system. The message will be dispatched both when the anonymization is performed manually and automatically.

This message will be sent automatically to every candidate whose GDPR consent validity period is ending. It serves to request the candidate to extend their GDPR consent.

Important - the message will only be sent if, in the GDPR settings (we discussed GDPR settings above), we used the Duration and Anonymization function because that's where the validity period of GDPR consents is set.

In the GDPR Consent Expiry message form, there is a field titled 'Number of days before consent ends'. If we enter the value 14 in this field (as in the example below), then 14 days before the automatic data anonymization of the candidate, Element will send the prepared message.

The pattern for the general application link is as follows:

https://DOMAIN.elementapp.ai/application/v2

where the "DOMAIN" part should be replaced with the company name from the address you use to log into Element.

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.