Pending candidates have not yet completely filled out their application form.
Staffing Referrals only notifies your recruiters when a new referral candidate is ready to be contacted. Any candidates who have started to fill out an application form, but haven’t yet completed all of the required fields go into the “pending" status.
You can find these leads under "Referrals" → “Candidates” → “Pending.”
To find out what information is missing, click “Provide Info” on the right-hand side.
If you know the missing information, you can enter it and then click “Update Details.” As soon as you do this, the candidate's status will move from “Pending” to “Follow Up.”
Note: While Staffing Referrals only emails recruiters when a new candidate is ready for follow-up, recruiters can still see their pending candidates in their dashboard.
What happens to pending candidates?
Pending candidates receive automated messages from your recruiters reminding them to finish their application form. You can find these under “Settings” → “Communication Templates” > "External Communication" > "Candidates." The workflow "Candidate Pending Auto-Qualification" contains a series of messages. Click “Preview” to view the messages. To edit them, click “Customize.”
How can I prevent candidates from going into pending status in the first place?
Some candidates will probably always end up pending. This is because there are myriad reasons people may start to fill out the form and then stop. But, there is one main way to minimize the number of candidates who land here: rethink your form fields.
One of the biggest mistakes we see is agencies treating their Staffing Referrals forms like full job applications. Too many fields at this stage can discourage even highly qualified candidates from completing the form – remember that they might not know the particulars of the job yet.
That’s why we recommend only asking for the information your recruiters need to move candidates to the next stage. To learn more about best practices for form fields, read our article “Form fields: What should you include?”
If you have any questions, comments, or feedback, please reach out to success@staffingreferrals.com.