A Manual on How To Manage The Candidates

Invite your candidates, remind them, delete them, or check their status with this detailed guide.

This step-by-step guide explains to you how you can manage your candidates’ entire journey during the hiring process, starting from inviting the candidates to hiring them or rejecting them. This article is a great way for the Testlify users with the Owner, Recruiter, or Admin roles to learn everything!

A detailed breakdown of what you will be learning through this article -

Inviting candidates
- Inviting by Email
- Inviting by public link
Candidate Information
- Candidate Stage
Evaluating the results
Sharing the results
Rejecting the candidates
Deleting candidates
Commonly Asked Questions

Inviting Candidates

Once you are done with creating assessments, the next thing you would want to do is invite the candidates. With Testlify, you can do this using three methods -

Email - You can invite the candidates one at a time, or in bulk through Testlify’s email system.
Public Link - You can add a public link to your job posts wherever you have done it. This way, the candidates will be able to invite themselves and go straight to the assessment, thus saving a lot of time.
ATS - If you have any Applicant Tracking System integrated with us, you can use them to invite the candidates making the process more seamless.

When you choose to invite the candidates through email, it does not matter whether you choose a single invite or bulk invite, the candidates will be sent a personalized link to the assessment through the Testlify system. This option is available for all the plans. Once a candidate starts the assessment by clicking on the link, he/she will appear on the Candidate page. Keep in mind that if you use an ATS to invite a candidate, the email will be sent from their side and not ours.

Inviting by Email

Individual Invite

To start inviting a candidate, you need an active assessment, either a new one or an already created one. You can choose to invite one candidate at a time or a bulk of them, and both options are available for all plans. Once you have an assessment, here is what you need to do next -

On the Assessment page, click on the assessment that you want to invite candidates to.
You will be taken directly to the invitation page, where you will find the option to invite the candidates at the top.
Enter the candidate’s first name and last name along with the email address.
Click on Invite.

Bulk Invite

To invite a bulk of candidates, you will need a CSV file with the names and email addresses of all the candidates. Here is what you have to do -

On the Assessment page, click on the assessment that you want to invite candidates to.
You will be taken directly to the invitation page, where you will find the option to invite the candidates at the top.
Just below the invite candidates part, you will find the option for Bulk Invitation. Click on that.
Click on Select CSV File to upload the same from the device you are using. If you do not know how to create a CSV file, you will the template and the info to download right there.
Once you have uploaded the CSV file, click on Invite.

By Public Link

You can also add a public link to the test in your job posts to save time. Having a public link, you can expect a large number of applications on your job post, but will not be able to identify each candidate. Each assessment has one general public link that can be copied from the assessment and pasted directly on the job post.

When the candidates use the public link, they will be prompted to enter their names and email addresses. The Testlify system will then directly mail them an invitation to the assessment. Here is what you need to do to use a public invite link:

On the Assessment page, click on the assessment that you want to invite candidates to.
You will be taken directly to the invitation page, where you will find the option to invite the candidates at the top.
Just below the invite candidates part, you will find the option for Bulk Invitation. Click on that.
On the left side of the pop-up, you will find the option to generate a public link.
Click on the option and the public link will be copied to your clipboard.

Candidate Stage

The Candidate Stage option helps you in keeping the track of the candidates’ progress through the hiring process. You can manually verify and tweak this option on the Candidates page. This option is available for all the plans. There are 13 stages to choose from -

Not yet evaluated
Evaluated
Invited for Assessment
Enrolled for Assessment
Assessment Completed
Invited for Interview
Reference Verified
Offer Sent
Offer Declined
Candidate Withdrew
Candidate Unresponsive
Rejected
Hired

You can change the stage of assessment of a candidate on the Candidates page. Here is how you can do it -

Click on the candidate you want to change the status of. You will be redirected to a new page.
You will find the option to change the stage in the center. Click on it.
The drop-down menu will show all the options with Not Yet Evaluated being the default. Click on any stage and it will be saved with immediate effect.

You can also change the status of the candidates on the assessment page. Once you click on the assessment you want to verify, you will see the names of the candidates who have appeared for it. On the right side, you will find the stage of assessment, and you can select that from the same drop-down menu you saw on the candidate page.

Evaluating the results

After the candidates are done appearing for the test, or you have reached the deadline for evaluation, the next step would be to check how they have performed. You will have information on the Candidates page, and you just need to check the answers to the custom and qualifying questions. This option is available for all the plans. Here is how you can do that:

Go to the Candidates page and click on any candidate you want to verify or evaluate. You will be taken to a new page with all the options.
You will find all the information about the date and time of invitation and of the completion of the assessment, the total time taken by the candidate to complete the assessment, and others on the top.
Below these, you will find the checked answers to the skill tests and the percentile of score that the candidate has scored.
As you swipe down, you will find the answers to the custom and qualifying questions. Everything, starting from any file to audio and videos will be displayed there. You can check them.
You will also find the trust score and the captured snapshots on the right side.
You can then rate the candidate and give your opinion at the bottom.

Sharing the results

You can share the results of the candidates after they are done with the assessments. This will help them in getting an overall idea about how they performed in the assessment. Once you share the result with the candidates, they will only see the results of the assessments, not any other information about the rating or views that you have for them. This option is available for all the plans. They will not get any info related to the anti-cheating panel as well.

You can share the results with the candidates in two ways:

From the Candidates page
From the Assessment page

Share results from the Candidates page

To share the results from the Candidates page:

Click on the candidate you want to share the result with.
On the top right side, you will see an email logo. Click on it.
Finally, click Send on the pop-up menu that appears after verifying.

Share results from the Assessment page

To share the results from the Assessments page:

Click on the assessment you want to share the results of. You will be taken to a page with the names of the candidates that have completed the assessment.
Across the name of the candidates, you will find the three dots. Click on the dots. You will find the option to share the results from the drop-down menu.
Click Send on the pop-up menu that appears after verifying.

Rejecting The Candidates

When you are hiring for any job role, you will always have a lot of applicants. But you can’t select everyone. In such cases, sending a formal rejection email can be a great way to still maintain the confidence of the candidates. On Testlify, you just need to make a few clicks and a personalized and polite rejection email is sent to the candidates. This option is available for all the plans. You can do this in two ways:

Reject through the Candidates page
Reject through the assessment page

Reject through the Candidates page

Here are the steps to reject a candidate through the Candidates page -

Click on the candidate you want to reject.
On the top right side, you will see the Rejection logo just beside the email logo. Click on it.
You will get a pop-up asking you to confirm the rejection. Click on Confirm. The candidate will be rejected and a rejection mail will be sent to him/her automatically.

Reject through the Assessment page

Here are the steps to reject a candidate through the Assessment page -

Click on the assessment you want to see the results of. You will be taken to a page with the names of the candidates that have completed the assessment.
Across the name of the candidates, you will find the three dots. Click on the dots. You will find the option to reject from the drop-down menu.
Once you click on Reject, you will get a pop-up asking you to confirm the rejection. Click on Confirm. The candidate will be rejected and a rejection mail will be sent to him/her automatically.

Keep in mind that you have permission to decide if you want to send a rejection mail to the rejected candidates or not. If you do not want to send a mail, simply uncheck the box in the pop-up that says ‘a rejection mail will be sent to this candidate’.

Deleting a candidate

While carrying on the hiring process on Testlify, there might be certain cases where you make some mistakes. You might have entered the wrong details of a candidate like a wrong name or email address, or a candidate might also ask for his/her details to be removed from the website. In such cases, you can simply delete the candidate and all his/her details - their results, snapshots, anti-cheating information, etc. - from our database.

You can delete a candidate from the Assessment page. Below are the steps on how you can do it -

Click on the assessment you want to see the results of. You will be taken to a page with the names of the candidates that have completed the assessment.
Across the name of the candidate you want to delete, you will find the three dots. Click on the dots. You will find the option to delete him/her from the drop-down menu.
Click on Delete the candidate. Once you do so, you will get a pop-up asking you to confirm your choice. Click on Confirm to delete the candidate.

Once you delete a candidate from Testlify, it is a permanent process and none of the details can be recovered again. The candidates will not be informed that you have deleted them from the database. If such a candidate was yet to start an assessment or was in the process of completion, he/she will no more have the access to it. If you want, you can re-invite them to take the assessment again.

Commonly Asked Questions

1. Why can’t you see some of the candidates on the Candidates tab?

This might probably be because of two reasons. Either you do not have the access to the assessments that the candidates have taken, or the candidates have not yet started the assessments. In both these cases, the candidates will be missing from the Candidates tab.

2. Can you share a candidate’s results with someone other than him?

Yes, you can do so. You can download the CSV or Excel file of the result of the candidate and send it to anyone. You will find the download option on the top right side of the Assessments page once you click on any particular assessment.

3. Can a candidate reappear the assessment if he/she left it midway due to some issue or error?

No, it is not possible toreappear in any assessment that is left midway due to some issue or error. If any candidate faces such an issue, we recommend you delete the particular candidate and invite him/her again to appear for the assessment.