The Candidate Experience

Knowing exactly what your applicants see helps you design pipelines that feel polished and fair. This guide walks the journey from the candidate's side: the application form, their personal portal, assessments and interviews, and the emails Hivemind sends along the way.

The application form

Your pipeline's public link opens a company-branded page, with your logo up top, headed "{Job Title} Application", and the form you configured: name, email, and any fields you added, such as phone, LinkedIn, location, or screening questions. Required fields are marked with an asterisk.

Resume upload is drag-and-drop or click-to-browse, and accepts PDF files only, max 10MB. Candidates finish with Submit Application and see a confirmation: "We've received your application and will review it shortly."

The candidate portal

After applying, candidates land on their personal portal (you can also copy it anytime via Share portal link on their profile). It has two tabs:

• Overview: a "Welcome" banner with the role and company, a progress bar, a step-by-step checklist of their journey, and an action button for whatever's next: Continue, Schedule Interview, or Set Availability. Between steps they see friendly status screens like "Your resume is being reviewed."
• Messages: a two-way chat with your team, the same thread you see in Hivemind.

Whether the portal shows pipeline steps and assessment scores is controlled by your company preferences.

Taking assessments

An assessment opens with an overview: question count, estimated minutes, a Question Breakdown by type, and a Before You Start checklist noting that progress auto-saves and they can navigate freely. They click Start Assessment to begin.

While answering, a sidebar tracks progress and lets them mark questions for review, and timed questions show a Time Remaining countdown that auto-submits when it expires. Video questions keep the prompt hidden until the candidate presses Record: one spontaneous take, no retries. When done, they confirm via Submit Assessment; unanswered questions can't be submitted later.

Interviews and calls

Depending on how you configured the stage, candidates either:

• Book their own slot: a Book Your Interview calendar where they pick a date, time, and timezone, then Confirm Booking. They get a confirmation plus the meeting details by email.
• Set availability: a Set Your Availability grid; your team then picks the time.
• Start an AI phone interview: a Phone Call Interview screen where they enter their number, click Start Phone Interview, and receive a call from the AI interviewer shortly after. See AI Voice Interviews.

Emails along the way

With your mailbox connected (see Email Integration & Inbox), candidates receive automated emails at each step: assessment invitations with up to three reminders ("Final Reminder: Please Complete Your Assessment"), interview invitations with the date, a Join Meeting link, and a calendar invite, reschedule notices, offer signing links, and (if you enable it) a courteous not-moving-forward note. Emails you author in an email step support placeholders like the candidate's first name and your company name.

What's next

• Design the journey in Creating a Pipeline
• See what you receive on your side in Candidate Profiles
• Understand each step type in the Pipeline Nodes Reference
• Send the happy ending with Offers