Type @ followed by a name, then choose a colleague or record from the list.

Mentioning a colleague [a] sends an email notification and on-screen alert to that user.

Mentioning a record [b] creates a link to the related record.

Assign To Record [c] allows you to add the same journal to up to 10 additional records. The journal can then be viewed and edited from any of the assigned records.

Enable/Disable mention notifications

You can disable Mention notifications (email and on-screen alert) in [Settings > My Account > General].

Filter Journals by Mentioned Me

On a record’s Overview screen, click the Filter button (located next to New Journal) to show only journals where you are mentioned. If you also select one or more journal types, only mentions within those journal types will be shown.

Recent Mentions (dashboard widget)

Add the Recent Mentions dashboard widget, available on the Consultant View, to see who has mentioned you and in which journals.

• Filter by journal type – only journal types containing mentions of you will be shown.
• Click Show Message to view the journal entry.
• Click Quick Preview to preview the candidate’s record.

Candidate Matching helps you quickly find the most relevant candidates for a vacancy. Not just a generic AI search of your candidate CVs, it reads the vacancy details, extracts the key requirements, then searches candidate records for matching job titles, desired roles, CV skills, experience, qualifications, education, and previous roles.

The system produces a match score out of 100. This score combines AI relevance scoring with practical checks such as salary expectations, work type, location, industry, experience, and how recently the candidate record was updated. These checks can be included or excluded from Matching Settings if you want to broaden or narrow the results.

Each result includes a short explanation showing why the candidate may be a good fit, including strengths and any considerations. Candidates already on the vacancy pipeline, archived candidates, deleted records, and very weak matches are excluded from the main results.

Results are cached for speed, but you can re-match candidates at any time to refresh the shortlist.

On a vacancy record, click Matching [a] to initiate a search.

Matching Settings [b] allows you to customise the matching calculation by including or excluding:

• Industry (see below)
• Location
• Salary (candidate target salary)
• Work Type (candidate preference for full-time, part-time, perm and/or contract)
• Experience (Candidate employment history)

Results can be further filtered [c] by tag(s), candidate job title, minimum salary, when the candidate record was last updated and availability.

Results can also be filtered by candidate status and vacancy ranking (traffic light).

Use the score slider to widen or narrow the results shown.

To add a candidate to the vacancy, click the Add button.

Select records, and apply bulk actions [d].

Industry is available as a column in the vacancy and candidate grids.

Seniority

Candidate record: Employment History

Seniority levels are fixed (Junior, Mid-level, Senior, Leadership, Executive), and applied automatically for each position in a candidate’s employment history. You can review and change seniority if needed.

Seniority is not industry-specific, so just apply the level that best fits your particular sector.

Highlights

Candidate record: Employment History

Highlights are AI-generated summaries for each position on a candidate’s employment history. These can be reviewed and edited by editing the employment history entry.

Industry

Industry is assigned to both candidates and vacancies, and is used as part of the matching algorithm. It is intended as a broad classification to help improve matching accuracy, rather than as an exhaustive list of sectors.

Industry is available as a column on the Candidates and Vacancies grids, allowing you to sort and filter records by industry.

Industry is assigned automatically (see below), but can also be changed manually on:

• Candidate record: Details screen
• Vacancy record: Details screen

Industry is assigned automatically in the following situations:

• Parsing a CV in [Candidates > Add Candidate]
• Bulk importing candidates (either from a CSV file or a ZIP file containing original CVs)
• Forwarding a CV into your database using the MailDrop feature
• Adding a candidate from [Candidates > Web Import]
• Adding a vacancy by parsing a job description, or by pasting job description text into [Vacancies > Add Vacancy]
• Manually entering text into the vacancy’s Job Description (Private) field on the Details screen. NOte that sufficient text will need to be added for a more accurate result.

If preferred, Industry can be excluded from the matching criteria in the Matching settings.

The available industries are intentionally broad. If selecting manually, choose the option that best suites the candidate’s or vacancy’s primary sector.

Note: is not possible to add your own industry sectors.

• + means must have (like AND )
• – means exclude (like NOT )
• A space (no symbol) is treated as either/or (like OR )

This guide provides examples that compare traditional Boolean searches with their equivalents in the Search Builder.

Special Characters

Boolean ignores special characters such as &, #, +. To include a word or phrase that has special characters, add a Contains or Does Not Contain as shown below:

• Searches (save and load searches) [1]
• Column selection [2]
• Column filter [3]
• Advanced Search Builder [4]
• CV Search [5]
• Clear [6]
• Actions [7]
• Quick Searching [8]
• User Rating [9]
• Quick Preview [10]
• Postcode and Postcode Radius
• Tag searching
• Unique to each Grid (Candidates, Clients, Contacts)

The Main Grids let you customise your columns, along with sorting, filtering and grid preferences [a] and [b]. You can also add search criteria – allowing you to save [1] your preferred layouts and searches, set a default view, and quickly load saved searches whenever needed.

• [a] Choose to show or hide archived records.
• [b] Choose how many records to display on each page.

Also see our video tutorials.

[1] Searches

Save columns and searches – set a default layout and load searches whenever you need them.

[2] Columns

Choose a maximum of 10 columns to display in the grid.

[3] Current Filters

See which column filters are active, and remove column filters.

[4] Search Builder

Create complex searches for all data (even if not selected as a column).

Also see CV Searching.

[5] CV Searching

Searches candidate CVs marked as ‘Searchable’. This is set by default when a CV is parsed into the database. You can change which document is searchable by editing it from the Docs screen on the candidate’s record.

The Quick Search looks across all columns. A space acts as an AND, so you can find a name from one column and a job title from another in the same search. It also returns partial matches – for example, searching for birm will return results like Birmingham.

[9] User Rating

Each user can rate candidates individually. Ratings are user-specific, meaning a candidate’s rating may vary between users. For example, one user might rate a candidate as green, while another might rate the same candidate as amber.

Use the column filter to find candidates based on their rating – for example, to display only candidates rated as green or amber. You can also sort candidates by rating by clicking the column header.

The user rating is also displayed, and can be changed in the Quick Preview, the candidate’s record, and the Vacancy Pipeline. It is also shown as read only on the Dashboard Pipeline.

To clear all user ratings, select “Clear All Ratings” from the Actions menu.

[10] Quick Preview

Quick Preview [a] allows you to see and update a candidate’s record without leaving the grid – useful for working through a list of results.

Choose which page to view [d]. CV is selected by default. If you choose a different page [b], your selection is remembered when viewing different records, until you refresh or leave the Candidates Grid.

• Overview: Key information from the record’s Overview screen
• Journals: You can add a new journal via the ‘Quick Journal‘ option.
• Vacancies: Also shows interviews for the candidate.
• CV: Shows a preview, and will highlight search criteria following a CV Search.
• Notes: View and edit the record’s notes – simply type in the text field and save.
• Docs: See a list of documents on each candidate’s record.

Perform a range of actions [c] (email, text, add to vacancy, add to group and more).

Close the preview [e].

Your user rating can be changed directly in the Quick Preview panel [f].

Postcode and Postcode Radius

Ensure ‘Postcode’ has been added to the grid, and click on the column filter [a] to access the Postcode Search. You can search using a full, or partial postcode, for example B15. To filter by a specific postcode, simply leave the distance field empty.

Choose between UK postcodes or US ZIP codes [b]

Tags

Add Tags to the Grid and click the column filter [a]. If no categories are selected, all tags [c] will be listed, or find tags by category [b].

Choose the Boolean logic [d] for your search: OR returns records with any of the selected tags. AND returns records whose tags include all the selected tags.

Tags with the Advanced Search Builder

Although the column filter (above) should be your primary method for tag searching, you can further refine your tag search with the Advanced Search Builder. The example, below, will return records where a tag includes ‘Adobe’.

In the example, below, either ‘Adobe Photoshop’ or ‘Adobe Illustrator’ will be returned.

Selecting Records

Select All Records (Actions menu [7]): Select all records returned with current filters and search criteria applied. Excludes archived records if the filter is set to ‘hide archived’.

Select records per page: Records can be selected per page.

Unique To Each Grid

Candidates Grid

Clients Grid

Postcode (Sites)
Perform a geographical search based on any of the client’s site addresses.

Tags (Sites)
Search clients by tags applied to their sites. For example, find clients with sites tagged HR Management.

Email Main or All Contacts
When emailing selected clients, choose whether to email only the main contact or all contacts linked to those clients.

Bulk Actions
Update Status, Source, Managing Consultant, Business Area, and toggle the Do Not Contact (DNC) setting. If DNC is enabled on a client, none of its contacts can be emailed or sent SMS messages—even if their individual DNC setting is disabled.

Contacts Grid

Business Area (Client)
Search contacts by the tags applied to their associated client. For example, find contacts belonging to clients tagged with Engineering.

Consultant (Client)
Filter contacts based on the managing consultant assigned to the client (contacts themselves don’t have a management consultant).

Status (Client)
Search contacts by the status of the client, for example, clients with a status of Active.

Tags (Client Sites)
Find contacts based on tags applied to the site they’re linked to.

Tags (Client)
Search contacts by tags assigned to their associated client.

Using this tool, you can send an email to a selection of candidates and allow them to provide you with information by clicking a button in the email and then choosing between 2 possible responses. For example, you may wish to send an email asking each candidate if they would like to continue to be emailed by you with job opportunities, and you could provide the responses “Yes” and “No”. Each candidate’s response is recorded on their record and you can also specify actions that should be automatically performed based on their response.

Insert the {response button} merge field in the email body where you wish the button to be shown. The text shown on the button is set in the Response Button Text field. For example, you could set this to “Click here to respond”.

Check that your email settings are correct and that you can successfully send email from the system before you create a new info request. You must also be sure that your email provider will allow you to send the quantity of emails that you wish to. You can change your hourly email throttle setting under [Settings > My Account > Email Settings].

You can specify these actions to be automatically performed once a candidate responds:

• Add a journal or tag to the candidate
• Change their status
• Set ‘Do Not Contact’ – This will prevent emails and SMS messages from being sent to the candidate in the future

The Request Text is the text that will be shown to the candidate once they click the button in the email. For example, this could be “May we continue to email you with job opportunities?”.

The Success Message is what the candidate will see once they have selected a response.

Once the Expiry Date is reached, no further responses will be accepted from the candidates. The expiry date can be up to 12 months from when you send it, but usually you would want to set this to a much shorter period such as 1 week or 1 month to give candidates long enough to respond before you take any action. Once an info request is expired, you can then perform further actions on the candidates by viewing the info request.

Make sure that you click the Send Preview Email button which will send an email to your address so that you can check the email looks correct before sending it to the candidates.

After you’ve sent a request, check your email outbox [Dashboard > Email > Outbox] to verify that the emails have been sent.

Under each candidate’s record, the Info Requests screen will list all of the requests that have been sent to that candidate along with their responses.

When you have the same person who is both a candidate and a contact then you can link the two records in Recruit So Simple. They will still exist as two distinct records, but you will easily be able to see that they are linked when viewing either of the records in the system.

To link a candidate and contact, just head into either of the records and click the Link With Candidate/Contact button at the top of the Overview screen. You will then be able to specify an existing record or create a new one to link with.

When a candidate and contact are linked, a banner will be shown at the top of the Overview screen on both records letting you know. Inside the banner, there is a checkbox that toggles the showing of journals and tasks from the linked record. Having this option enabled will allow you to see the tasks and journals for both the candidate and contact when viewing either of the records, ensuring you don’t miss any vital information.

To unlink a candidate and contact, simply click Unlink From Candidate/Contact at the top of the Overview screen from either record.

You can merge two records into one in Recruit So Simple. The most common reason for doing this would be in the case of duplicate records being added to the system. For example, you may have multiple candidate records who are actually the same person, but have been mistakenly added to the system more than once.

To merge two records, view either of the records and click the Merge button at the top of the Overview screen. You will then be asked to specify the record you wish to merge with.

The next screen will ask you which of the two records should be kept and explain which information will be merged and which will be discarded.

If you are merging duplicate clients and they also have duplicate contacts, you should merge the contacts one at a time first, before merging the clients.

Which Record To Keep?

At the end of the merging process, one of the records will remain and the other will be deleted. The remaining record will contain the merged data.

The Merge screen shows the list of information that will be merged or discarded. It is important to note that not all of the information on each record will be merged.

Generally, you should choose to keep the record with the most up to date and complete information. The important thing to consider is the information that will be discarded. Look at the list of information that is going to be discarded and decide if you need to manually add this to the record that is going to be kept, before merging.

Additional Information

By default, all documents from both records will be kept and will exist on the final merged record. Any documents that came from the discarded record will have a note added, “(From merged record)“. If you know that the documents on both records are the same, you should select the option Discard Doucments which will ensure that only the documents from the record that you’re keeping will exist on the final merged record.

When merging candidates, the two cannot both be listed for the same vacancy. If they are, you must remove one of them from the relevant vacancy’s pipeline before doing the merge. This is because each of the pipeline listings contains data that can’t be combined automatically. The merge tool will list any such vacancies so you can do this.

Merging Rules

There are rules that the system uses when merging certain information between the records, the following list explains these. If any of the information below is listed on both of the records that you’re merging, then we recommend that you’re aware of these rules.

Candidates:

• Employment history – If an entry on both candidates has an identical Date, Company and Job Title then it is considered to be the same entry and is ignored, i.e. none of the fields in the entry will be updated.
• Employment history – If both candidates have an entry that is set as Current then the entry on the candidate that is being discarded must have a newer From Date for this to be set as Current on the final merged record. Note that even if this isn’t the case, the entry will still be merged but will just not be set as Current.
• References – Only the Name field is used to decide if an entry is the same on both candidates.
• CVs – If the option to Discard Documents is not set, all of the documents on both records will exist on the final merged candidate. However, if the candidate being kept already has a CV of the same type (i.e. original or agency) that also exists on the candidate being discarded then the original/agency CV flag will be unset on the document from the discarded candidate.

Clients:

• Sites –  These will be treated as the same on both clients if the Name, Address Line 1 and Phone are identical (or blank on the client that is being discarded). Sites that are the same will not be merged, but if these sites have any contacts or vacancies assigned to them then these will be re-assigned to the corresponding site on the client being kept. Because of this, it is recommended to double-check the sites on both clients beforehand to ensure that the details are not identical if the sites are actually different. Otherwise, you may end up with contacts or vacancies on the final merged client that are assigned to incorrect sites.
• Contacts – The contacts from both client records will exist on the final merged client (even if they are are duplicates and have the same names). If you are merging duplicate clients and they also have duplicate contacts, you should merge the contacts one at a time first, before merging the clients.

Contacts:

• Vacancies – If the contact being discarded has any vacancies that are assigned to it, they will be re-assigned to the contact being kept, but only if both contacts are from the same client. Otherwise, the vacancies that were assigned to the contact being discarded will have their Contact field unset.

Using this feature, you can update a candidate’s record with new information by uploading a newer CV.

1. Select a new CV file to upload
2. Make sure to choose the type of CV you’re providing, usually this will be the original CV (the version provided by the candidate containing their contact details)
3. Click the ‘Upload and Parse’ button

Once the CV has been parsed, the new information will be displayed in the relevant sections:

Update Details

If any of the new information is different from the current information then there will automatically be a tick in the ‘Update’ column for those fields. Only fields that are selected to be updated will be changed on the candidate’s record.

Add Employment History

New employment history entries will be shown here. Only new entries can be added, existing ones can’t be modified. If the candidate already has employment history then new entries will only be shown if they are more recent. If you add a new entry that is set as “current” and the candidate already has one, then the existing one will be unset as “current”.

Add Tags

If any of the tags you’ve created are found within the CV text then they will be shown, unless they are already assigned to the candidate.

Select the Delete Old CV option to have the old version of this CV (either Agency or Original depending on the type you’re uploading) deleted. If you don’t select this, the old version of the CV will be renamed to include “(Old)” at the end of the file name.

20GB of document storage as standard – enough for around 400,000 average sized CVs and documents (based on 50KB files).

Easily upload and store important files against any record type. Examples include candidate CVs, compliance certificates, driving licences, right-to-work documents, and contracts. Each document is securely stored and can be viewed, managed, and tracked in one place.

A record’s Docs screen:

[a] Denotes this document is used for Boolean CV Searches.

[b] This document has an expiry reminder task, and email reminder set.

[c] Orange colour denotes document is expiring, and red for expired.

[d] Document actions:

• Edit to change document type, make a CV searchable, set or edit an expiry date, add notes and additional details.
• Email the document.
• Delete the document.

Uploading documents

You can bulk upload up to 10 files at a time [e]

Document Types

Choose what type of file(s) you are uploading [f]:

Original CV
The candidate’s unedited original CV.

Agency CV
Your branded version of the CV.
Whenever you use an Email CV option, only the Agency CV is sent. If no Agency CV is present, you’ll see a warning message.

Other
For certificates, contracts, driving licences, and other compliance-related documents. Expiry dates and reminders can be set where applicable (see next section).

Notes
Add a short note [h] for each document, this will be shown on the Docs screen

Make Searchable
When selecting either Original CV and Agency CV, you’ll have the option to Make Searchable [g]. This parses the contents of the CV so it can be used when searching candidates by CV text. Only one document can be made searchable per candidate.

Compliance

Add an expiry date for a document [i].

Expiry reminders

Enabling Expiry Reminder [j] will automatically create a task on the record when the selected reminder threshold is reached [l].

A follow-up reminder is also set for 7 days after the threshold date.

• The task is assigned to the managing consultant of the record.
• For contact records, the task is assigned to the managing consultant of the client.

Emailing the candidate

Enabling Email Candidate [k] will automatically send an email to the candidate notifying them that a document is about to expire.

The email:

• Includes the document name and expiry date
• Asks the candidate to provide an updated version of the document

Important notes

• An Expiry Reminder task is only created if the record (or client record, for contacts) has an active managing consultant.
• If the managing consultant has been archived when the expiry date is reached, no task can be created.
• An expiry email to the candidate or contact will not be sent if any of the following apply:
  • Do Not Contact is enabled
  • The record does not have a valid email address
    (alternative email addresses are not used)
  • The record’s status is Archived
  • There is no managing consultant, or the managing consultant has been archived

On-screen notifications

On-screen warning messages [k] are always displayed and are independent of expiry reminder tasks and email notifications.

This ensures that any system user viewing the record’s Overview screen can see when a document is expiring or has already expired, regardless of other settings.

Document Storage

You can view your document storage usage in [Settings > System Settings > Company Details].

A warning will be shown to administrators on the Dashboard once 95% is used. If 100% is used then no more documents can be uploaded to the account.

Additional storage space can be purchased by opening a support ticket from [Dashboard > Help & Support]. Please check the Pricing page on our website for costs.

• Lists vacancies and interviews for this candidate.
• Add notes.
• See a history for the candidate as they progress from ‘shortlisted’ to ‘placed’.
• Show open or closed vacancies.