Candidates

People in your pipeline. Every applicant remains visible to recruiters.

The operational problem

Applicant pipelines get treated as a long dumping ground. Recruiters lose track of who's where. Applicants with real questions sit in a queue. Applicants who reach the interview stage hit scheduling headaches. The pipeline should be a working surface with an audit trail, not an inbox.

How Array HQ solves it

The recruiter pipeline shows every applicant to a job, with screening flags and stage history surfaced on each record. Recruiters advance or reject applicants through conversational chat or the pipeline UI. Every action is audited. Interview scheduling uses the recruiter's saved calendar link.

How it works

Candidate vs. applicant

A candidate is a person in the system. A candidate may exist without an active application (added manually or carried forward from a previous job).
An applicant is a candidate applying to a specific job. One candidate can be applicant to many jobs.

How candidates enter

Applicants primarily enter through job postings distributed by advertising. Recruiters can also add a candidate directly for cases where an application does not yet exist.

Pipeline stages

Each pipeline defines the sequence an applicant moves through. Array HQ ships two default pipelines:

High-Volume Frontline — Applied → Screened → Invited → Scheduled → Interviewed → Offered → Hired
Skilled Trades — Applied → Screened → Credential Check → Invited → Scheduled → Interviewed → Offered → Hired

What each stage means:

Stage	Description
Applied	Applicant submitted an application to the job.
Screened	The SMS Screening Agent completed screening. Screening flags are visible on the applicant record.
Credential Check (Skilled Trades only)	Required certifications, licenses, or credentials have been verified for the role.
Invited	Recruiter invited the applicant to schedule an interview.
Scheduled	The recruiter has advanced the applicant to Scheduled, typically after seeing the booking on their own calendar.
Interviewed	Interview has been completed and recorded.
Offered	An offer has been extended to the applicant.
Hired	Applicant accepted the offer. Recruiting workflow ends here.

Every stage transition creates an audit record noting who moved it, when, why, and by what method (agent-driven or manual).

Screening flags

Screening results are surfaced on each applicant record as flags (match, borderline, no-match) with the reason visible. Applicants are never auto-rejected or hidden based on screening. Recruiters read the flags and decide.

Interview scheduling

The recruiter saves their scheduling link (Calendly, Google, Outlook, and similar) in Array HQ. When a recruiter asks the agent to send an interview invite, the agent sends the applicant an SMS with the recruiter's link and records that the link was sent on the applicant record. The applicant books directly on the recruiter's calendar; Array HQ does not track the confirmed interview time today.

Recruiter actions

From the pipeline view or through chat, recruiters can:

Advance an applicant to the next stage.
Move an applicant back to an earlier stage.
Reject an applicant with a required reason.
Move a candidate to a different job.
Send an interview scheduling link to an applicant. Once sent, the SMS cannot be un-sent, though the applicant can be moved back to an earlier stage.

What you'll be able to do

See every applicant to a job in one pipeline view with screening flags visible.
Move applicants through pipeline stages with a full audit trail.
Send an interview scheduling link to an applicant over SMS.
Add a candidate to the system without an active application.

Key terms

Term	Meaning
Candidate	A person in the //Recruiting system. May or may not have an active application.
Applicant	A candidate applying to a specific job. One candidate can be applicant to many jobs.
Pipeline	A named sequence of stages an applicant moves through. Array HQ ships two default pipelines (High-Volume Frontline and Skilled Trades).
Pipeline stage	A named step within a pipeline (Applied, Screened, Invited, and so on).
Screening flag	The evaluation result surfaced on an applicant record after SMS screening.