You have been given an account so that you can look at and comment on candidates for your team. In Element this is the external user role, and it is deliberately narrow: you see what somebody shared with you, and nothing else.
First login
After logging in you land on the dashboard. It shows only the projects you have access to.
An external user's dashboard: one shared project
Look at the left edge of the screen. You have two icons and a log-out button there, the dashboard and the project list. That is your entire navigation. A recruiter has the candidate database, reports and settings in the same place; you do not have those icons, and no URL will get you to them.
What you see
The projects shared with you — a recruiter shares either a whole project or selected stages. If nothing has been shared with you, you will see an empty screen after logging in. That is not a fault.
The recruitment board with candidates on their stages, if you were given access to the whole project.
The candidate profile, their CV and the activity timeline.
Public notes — the ones marked as visible to all users.
A shared project's board as the hiring manager sees it
What you do not see
The candidate database — you do not browse other people's recruitments or past applications.
Reports and settings — those screens do not appear for you at all.
Notes marked "Recruiters only" — the recruitment team has somewhere to put internal remarks, and you will not see them.
The Projects, Files and Settings tabs on a candidate profile — they are greyed out. You are left with Profile and Actions.
Application form answers — not by default. A company can switch this on, so if you can see the answer sheet, your administrator deliberately opened it up for external roles.
How to score a candidate
Each candidate has three scoring buttons: Recommend, I'm not ready to evaluate and Do not recommend. The recruiter sees your score next to the candidate and on the board, so this is the fastest way to say what you think. The score counters are visible on the dashboard already, next to the name. The article on scoring a candidate covers the detail.
On the board, click the "Rate this candidate" star on the card and pick a score from the menu.
You can also add a note. Your notes are always public — you have no visibility switch, so the whole team working on the recruitment will see them. Write them as if a client were reading, because in practice a recruiter is.
On the candidate profile, the "Add a note" icon in the top right corner opens the note window.
What you cannot do
add a candidate or change their data — that stays with the recruiter,
delete a candidate from the system,
create a project,
edit tags — you see them, but read-only.
Inside a shared project, however, you can move candidates between stages and reject them. This surprises more than one administrator, so it is worth knowing on both sides: access to a project is access to working on it, not merely to viewing it. If you want a hiring manager to comment only, share individual stages with them rather than the whole project — the sharing article explains how.
If you need more
Ask your administrator to change your role or widen your project access. There is no way to do it yourself.