This guide covers how to set up and use a project to create and track a talent pool you're not actively interviewing.

Projects are available on all plans:

Confidential Projects are only available on the Plus, Legacy Plus, and Enterprise plans:

Projects help you keep track of talent that you're not actively considering for any particular role you currently have open. Navigate to Sourcing > Projects  to get started.

To set up a project:

Once you have set up a project, you can add candidates to that project from the Chrome Extension. Click the + icon in the Projects section of the Chrome extension, then select the project from the list. The candidate is then added to the selected project.

You can also add a candidate to a project from their candidate profile via the More tab and the Add to Project option.

You can also add candidates to a project in bulk on the Candidate Search page. You can read more about filtering candidates at Candidate Search.

Find candidates that meet your criteria by setting up filters as needed, then check the checkboxes next to the candidates you'd like to add to your project.

Click Add to Project and select the project in question. Click Start to kick off the process of adding candidates to your project.

You have options to complete individual and bulk actions for candidates in projects including emailing, enrolling in sequences, and adding them to job considerations. Either check the checkbox next to each candidate or use the Select All option to select all candidates in the project, then use the buttons to take action.

Consider for Job: Consider all selected candidates in the project for a role.

Add to Another Project: Add all selected candidates to another project you've configured.

Remove from Project: Remove all of the selected candidates from the project.

Archive: Archive selected candidates from a job consideration.

Set Tags: Add tags to selected candidates.

Email: Send an email to all selected candidates in the project.

Enroll in Sequence: Enroll all selected candidates in a specific sequence.

Request Review: Request a candidate review. More on this at Candidate Reviews.

Transfer: Transfer selected candidate job considerations from one job to another. More on this at Can I transfer a candidate’s job consideration to another job or interview plan?.

Anonymize: Anonymize the selected candidates (more on this at Anonymizing and Deleting Candidates).

Delete: Delete the selected candidates (more on this at Anonymizing and Deleting Candidates).

Mark as Do Not Contact: Mark the candidate as Do Not Contact (more on this at Can I mark a candidate as Do Not Contact?).

Once you determine the candidate records and the action to be taken on them, the bulk action wizard opens so you can confirm the bulk action.

In the Selection section, you can see the criteria you've set for this bulk action and the number of records that match. Be sure to take time to review this information.

With any other bulk actions, if you are taking the action on 24 candidates or more, you see the inline prompt to confirm your bulk action before it is performed.

If you close the bulk action wizard while bulk actions are being processed, you can see the progress in a minimized version of the wizard.

To open the wizard, click Restore bulk action pullout.

Once the bulk action is complete, you can view a log of all the changes on the confirmation page. Click Close to close the bulk action wizard when you're done.

Candidate, Job, and Project Custom Fields can be configured on the Legacy Plus, Plus, and Enterprise plans:

For a full guide on creating and completing custom fields for projects, check out Creating custom fields: Project custom fields.

To add information to the custom fields on a project:

To filter by a project custom field:

Confidential Projects are only available on the Plus, Legacy Plus, and Enterprise plans:

You can set a project as confidential either when creating a project or when viewing the list of candidates in a project.

Click New to create a new project and on the following screen, you can set the project as confidential by checking the Is Confidential? checkbox on the creation tab.

When editing a project, you can either click on the Access tab in the left-hand navigation bar, or click More, then Access.

A pop-up then gives you the option to make the project confidential.

Once the project has been made confidential, you have the option to allow other users access via the Access List drop-down or set the project back to public via the Make Public button. Only users with Elevated Access and above can be added to a confidential project.

Users who do not have access to the project cannot see it on their list of projects when logging in. They also cannot see if a candidate has been added to a confidential project.

Once a new user is given access, you can provide them with one of two roles: Member or Admin.

Member: This user has full access to the project but can't manage access permissions.

Admin: This user has full access to the project including being able to amend access permissions.

You can view the visibility settings for all your projects on the Projects  page, as an additional Is Confidential? column can be added to the Results table.

To mark a project as Archived:

To archive projects in bulk, select projects on the Sourcing > Projects page using the checkboxes to the left of each project title. After you select the projects you'd like to archive, click Archive Projects.

If a project is archived, you can restore its status to Active. To do this:

To restore projects in bulk, select projects on the Sourcing > Projects page using the checkboxes to the left of each project title. After you select the projects you'd like to restore, click Restore Projects.

If you have Elevated Access permissions, you are able to view all shared projects but can only view or add leads to projects if they are considered for a job or jobs you have access to. You are also able to view or add any leads to the project if they have not been considered for a role yet.

You need Elevated Access and to be added to a confidential project to have access to it. You can only view or add leads to the project if they have been considered for jobs you have access to, or if they haven't been considered for a job yet.

When a candidate is linked only to a confidential project (and no job considerations), the candidate's profile does not appear or is not accessible to other users. This level of privacy ensures that high-profile candidates or candidates linked to sensitive roles are only accessible on a need-to-know basis, which can be achieved by granting access to others for the confidential project.

You can. On the Permissions tab of the user's profile on the Employees page, there is a Can See and Manage All Confidential Jobs and Projects field. Here you can determine whether the Organization Admin has access to all confidential roles and projects or not.

Only outreach sent or logged directly in Ashby counts toward Last Outbound Activity. This includes one-off emails, sequences, and any communication logged as outreach. Synced emails sent outside of Ashby do not count.