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Guide For: HR, hiring managers

Candidates

Keep a record of everyone applying for work — their contact details and the role they're up for — move them through a hiring pipeline, log reference-check conversations, and turn a successful applicant into an employee account without re-typing anything.

Who can use it — Everything on this page, including adding candidates, editing them, recording reference checks, and converting a hire to an employee, needs "manage team" permission. If you can't see Candidates in the sidebar, you don't hold it. See Roles & Permissions for how access is set.

Where to find it — Workforce & HR → Candidates in the sidebar.

How to use it

The main list shows every candidate in your workspace with their Name, Email, Role, Status, a References count, Hired as (once converted), and when they were last Updated. Use the Status filter above the table to narrow the list to a particular pipeline stage.

Adding a candidate — click New Candidate and fill in:

  • Name (required).
  • Email.
  • Phone.
  • Role applied for.
  • Status — defaults to Screening.

That's the whole record — there's no resume upload or source field on the candidate itself; supporting documents belong on the reference checks (see below).

The recruitment pipeline

Candidates move through seven stages: Screening → Interviewing → Reference Check → Offered → Hired → Rejected/Withdrawn. Change a candidate's stage any time from Edit — just pick the new Status and save.

Hired is locked. You can't select Hired manually from the dropdown; it's only set automatically when you run the Convert to employee action (below). The status field's helper text says so directly. Rejected and Withdrawn are the two exit stages for applicants who don't proceed.

Reference checks

Open a candidate to record reference-check conversations on the Reference Checks tab. Each entry captures:

  • Referee name (required), Company / organisation, Relationship (e.g. "Former site supervisor"), and Contact (phone or email).
  • Date contacted (can't be in the future).
  • Outcome — Positive, Mixed, or Negative.
  • Notes from the conversation (required).
  • Attachments — up to 5 files (reference letters, email transcripts, scanned phone-note forms), PDF/Word/image/text, 10 MB each, stored privately.

The table lists every check with its date, referee, outcome badge, a preview of the notes, and a file count. Every reference check you record here is automatically copied into the new employee's HR/Management notes if you later convert the candidate — so it's worth logging them properly rather than jotting them elsewhere.

Converting a candidate to an employee

Once a candidate is a confirmed hire, open their record and use Convert to employee. This is a one-time action — it's unavailable once a candidate has already been converted.

The modal pre-fills:

  • Name and Email — from the candidate record; you can adjust them before provisioning.
  • Workspace role — defaults to the standard employee role.
  • Require onboarding review — on by default; sends the new employee through the onboarding wizard on first login.
  • Send access link now — on by default; emails the new employee a password-setup link.

On confirmation, Subgrade:

  • Provisions a new employee account in your workspace (or, if the email already belongs to a user elsewhere, adds them to this workspace — it will refuse if that email is already an employee in this workspace, or already has a pending invitation).
  • Copies every reference check on the candidate into the new employee's HR/Management notes timeline, each one citing the referee and date it was recorded, with attachments carried across.
  • Sets the candidate's status to Hired and records who converted them and when — visible in a Conversion panel on the candidate's page.
  • Takes you straight to the new Employee record.

Connected pages

  • Employee Records — where a converted candidate lands, HR/Management notes and all.
  • People — the team directory and invitations; Convert to employee provisions through the same underlying flow.
  • User Onboarding — what "Require onboarding review" and "Send access link" actually trigger for the new employee.
  • Roles & Permissions — how "manage team" permission is granted.

Tips & common mistakes

  • Can't find Candidates in the sidebar? You need "manage team" permission — the same permission that gates the People directory.
  • Status stuck, can't pick Hired? That's expected — Hired is only set by running Convert to employee, not by editing the status field directly.
  • Convert to employee button missing? Either you lack "manage team" permission, or the candidate has already been converted — check the Conversion panel on their page for who did it and when.
  • Email already taken? Conversion is blocked if that email already belongs to an employee in this workspace, or has a pending invitation — resolve the clash in People first.
  • Want reference-check evidence on the employee file? Log it as a reference check before converting — anything added afterwards won't be copied across, since conversion only runs once.