Opener sends each applicant one email after screening. It tells them their application has been read and asks a few questions about what their application left open. Their answers come back into the conversation and count towards their score. Opener is off until you switch it on for a job.
Step 1: On for this job
The badge shows whether Opener is on for this job. It is set job by job.
Step 2: The switch
Email applicants a few questions automatically. Once it is on, the card reminds you what will happen: one email after scoring, one reminder, then nothing more.
Step 3: Goals
Optional. Anything else a first conversation should find out for this role. The questions come from each applicant's own gaps, so Opener works without goals.
Turn Opener on for a job
- Go to Jobs, open the job and select Screening. When you create a job, the same card is in step 2 of the wizard, Screening.
- Switch on Email applicants a few questions automatically.
- If you like, write goals under Anything else a first conversation should find out?. When the wizard suggests some, Use AI suggested goals fills them in for you to edit.
- Select Save first questions.
To stop, switch it off and save. Turning Opener off always works.
Owners, Admins and Recruiters can change Opener for a job.
Who gets an Opener
After an application is scored, Opener writes to the applicant when:
- Opener is on for the job,
- the application got past your screening questions, and
- nobody has rejected or hired the candidate, and they haven't withdrawn.
That includes applicants the AI scored as a Low match. Opener is a first contact, not a decision, and it can surface evidence the CV missed.
Each applicant gets one Opener round, once. If you switch Opener on for a job that already has scored applicants, they get their Opener the next time their application is scored, for example when you re-run screening.
The questions
Opener asks at most three questions, chosen from the requirements the applicant's scorecard could not back with evidence, in this order:
- must-have requirements with no evidence,
- must-haves only partly evidenced,
- preferred requirements with no evidence,
- preferred ones only partly evidenced,
- requirements that were found, but only weakly.
Nice-to-have requirements are never asked about. An applicant whose application already evidences everything simply gets the thank-you, with no questions.
The email is written in the job's language, or the company's when the job has none, and comes from your company with the conversation's own reply address.
Honest about being AI
Every Opener email ends with a line telling the candidate that it was prepared with AI assistance on behalf of your company, and that a person reviews every application and makes all hiring decisions. In the candidate's Conversation the message carries an AI label, so your team sees the same thing.
One reminder, then silence
If the applicant doesn't reply, Opener sends exactly one reminder three days later. It tells them they can ignore it and that it won't count against them. If there is still no answer four days after the reminder, the round is closed. Nobody gets a chain of emails, and not replying never rejects anyone.
If an email can't be sent, Opener tries again, up to three times in all.
Replies re-score the candidate
When the applicant answers, their reply lands in their email thread, the round is marked answered, and the application is scored again with the conversation read as evidence. A strong candidate whose CV undersold them can move up on their own answers.
The line at the top of the Conversation, First questions, shows where the round is:
| Status | Meaning |
|---|---|
| queued | About to be sent |
| sent, waiting for a reply | The questions went out |
| reminded once, still waiting | The single reminder went out |
| answered | The candidate replied, and they are being scored again |
| thanked, nothing to ask | Their application covered everything |
| no reply, we stopped asking | No answer after the reminder |
| could not be sent | Sending failed |
A candidate who was only thanked and writes back anyway is scored again with what they wrote, too. So is every later reply: the round closes on the first answer, but each new message from the candidate re-scores them again. An out-of-office reply does not count as an answer. A candidate already rejected, hired or withdrawn is never re-scored.
See Email threads with candidates for the thread itself, Rescoring for re-scoring, and the Experience tab in Analytics for how your Opener rounds end. See Velocity, quality, experience and roles.