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Aptly is a Candidate Intelligence Platform for recruiters. You upload CVs, Aptly ranks them against your job spec, flags the best candidates, generates a ready-to-send email for every applicant, and produces a shareable shortlist for your client — all in under two minutes.

The three things Aptly solves

• Screening admin — ranked shortlist with evidence-based reasoning in under 2 minutes, no matter how many CVs.
• Client visibility — a live branded shortlist link your hiring manager can view and comment on, in real time.
• Candidate ghosting — every applicant gets a personalised, reasoned response. Nobody is ignored.

Basic workflow

1. Create a job (paste your spec or let AI build one for you)
2. Upload CVs — up to 50 at once, PDF or Word
3. Get a ranked shortlist with scores, reasons, and draft emails
4. Move candidates through the pipeline as the process progresses
5. Share the live shortlist link with your client

Aptly supports two workspace types, chosen at signup: recruitment agency and in-house talent team. The choice shapes the whole workspace.

An in-house workspace is organised around departments rather than clients. Anywhere an agency workspace refers to a client, yours refers to a department: jobs link to departments, contacts on a department are your hiring managers, and reporting groups hires by department. Create departments from the Departments page or directly from a job.

Shortlist sharing works the same way as for agencies. Generate a private review link on any job and send it to the hiring manager. They can review candidates, leave comments, and see scores and reasoning, while candidate contact details stay protected.

Your job board acts as a careers page. Publish open roles under your company name and logo, and applications arrive in your pipeline already scored.

Reporting for owners covers hires by department and team member, your hiring funnel, offer acceptance rate, and average days to fill. Fee, billing, and pipeline value figures do not appear in an in-house workspace, and agency-specific tools such as spec CVs are not shown.

The workspace type is set when the organisation is created. If you picked the wrong type at signup, contact hello@aptly.pro.

Every screening in Aptly lives inside a job. Jobs keep your candidates, pipeline, interview logs, and client share link all in one place.

Option 1: Use my own spec

Paste your existing job description, give the role a title, optionally link a client, optionally capture role details (location, work mode, employment type, hours, salary), and you're ready to screen. Takes about 20 seconds. If you paste your spec, the Review spec button under the job description gives you the same notes on your spec that the upload path shows.

Option 2: Build with AI

Answer a short questionnaire (role title, seniority, role details, must-haves, optional context) and Aptly writes a complete, professional job spec. It also flags any issues — unrealistic requirements, conflicting criteria, missing information — before you screen a single CV. This produces noticeably better screening accuracy than a rough paste.

Option 3: Upload a document

Upload your job spec as a PDF or docx and Aptly reads it, fills in the role title, client, location and other details it can find, and places the full text in the job description for you to review. Nothing is created until you choose Create job, and every field stays editable. If Aptly spots anything worth fixing before you advertise, such as contradictory requirements, experience demands that are not realistic, or a missing salary, it shows notes above the form. You can dismiss the notes at any time. Uploading and reviewing are free and do not use a scan.

You can edit the title, job specification, client context, and client priorities sliders on any open job by opening the Job details tab and editing the relevant fields. Save changes to apply.

When you edit job specification, client context, or client priorities, candidates who were scored against the previous version of the spec will show a "Scored before update" chip next to their score. Hover the chip to see the dates.

To get a fresh score against the current spec, click the re-screen button on the candidate row. Each re-screen uses 1 scan. The new score replaces the old one.

Title edits do not trigger the re-screen warning because title is not used by the scoring engine.

Your jobs list can be sorted to suit how you want to work. By default it opens grouped by status with open jobs at the top, so the roles you are actively working sit first.

Use the Sort control next to the filter tabs to reorder the list. The options are:

• Status (open first), the default, with open jobs above on-hold and filled
• Title A-Z, alphabetical by job title
• Most candidates, the roles with the largest pipelines first
• Last updated, the most recently active jobs first
• Date created, the newest jobs first

Sorting works together with the filter tabs and the search box. Narrow to a status or search for a title or client first, and the order you picked still applies to whatever is left on screen.

One scan = one CV processed against a job spec. If you upload 10 CVs, that costs 10 scans. Scans are used at the point of screening — not when you create a job or view results.

Scan limits by plan

• Free — 50 scans total, 3 active jobs
• Starter — 500 scans/month, unlimited jobs
• Growth — 2,500 scans/month, unlimited jobs
• Team — 6,000 scans/month, unlimited jobs
• Enterprise — from 12,000 scans/month, unlimited everything

Monthly scans reset on your billing renewal date. You can see your usage and reset date on the Home screen and in My Profile.

Top-up packs

If you need extra scans without upgrading, you can buy a one-time top-up pack from My Profile → Personal tab → Plan & billing. Two sizes are available: 100 scans for $29 or 500 scans for $99. Top-up scans never expire and carry over indefinitely. They are drawn on only after your monthly plan allowance is exhausted.

Not every CV needs a job. When you have a folder of CVs, from a previous system, an old inbox, or candidates you want on file for later, you can load them straight into your database. Click Upload CVs on the Candidates page, or use the Upload CVs tile on your home dashboard.

How it works

Drop in up to 20 files at a time, PDF or Word (.docx). Aptly reads each CV and fills in the candidate's details: name, contact details, current role, location, skills, and their dated work history. The original document is stored, so View CV works on these candidates the same as on screened ones, and each candidate is made searchable straight away, which means database search and the matches panel on new jobs can find them.

No screening runs and no scans are used. When you later want to consider an uploaded candidate for a role, add them to the job and screen them there, which uses one scan like any other screening.

Duplicates

Candidates are matched by email. If a CV belongs to someone already in your database, their record is updated: details they were missing are filled in, and the stored CV, work history, and searchable text are replaced with the newer document. A CV with no readable email address still creates the candidate, and the upload summary lists these files so you can check for duplicates by hand.

Recording a lawful basis

Because you are loading people's personal information, the upload asks you to record the lawful basis on which you hold them and where the CVs came from, the same as a CSV import. This is recorded against every candidate in the batch.

Aptly gives your organisation a private email address. Any CV sent to it as an attachment is read and added for you, so a CV sitting in your inbox never needs downloading and re-uploading.

Your two addresses

Your organisation address adds candidates to your database, the same as the Upload CVs button. Find it in My Profile, Company tab, under Email CVs to your database. Every open job also has its own address, shown behind the Email CVs button in the job header. CVs sent to a job address arrive on that job as applicants, ready to screen, and you are notified the same way as a job board application.

How it works

Forward an email with the CV attached, or send a new one. Attachments can be PDF or Word, up to 10 MB each and 20 per email. Aptly reads each CV, creates the candidate, and stores the original so View CV works. No scans are used; screening a job applicant uses one scan when you choose to screen them, the same as any applicant. Nothing is sent to the person who emailed you.

Duplicates

Candidates are matched by email address, the same as an upload. An existing candidate is updated rather than duplicated, and their stored CV is replaced with the newer document.

Your lawful basis

Because CVs arrive without a form, you choose one lawful basis in advance, on the Company tab, and it is recorded on every candidate received by email. The default is legitimate interest.

Keep the address private

Anyone who has the address can add candidates to your database. Treat it like a key: share it with your team, not publicly. If it leaks, the organisation owner can regenerate it from the Company tab, which changes the address for the database and every job at once, and the old address stops working immediately.

Aptly builds your candidate database automatically from everyone you screen. If you are coming from another system, or you already hold a list of candidates, you can load them in directly from a CSV rather than waiting for them to accumulate. Open the Candidates page and click Import candidates.

How to prepare your file

Click Download template to get a CSV with the right columns. The columns are email, name, phone, role, company, skills, notes, and cv_text. Email and name are required on every row. The rest are optional. Column order does not matter, and any extra columns you leave in are ignored.

Candidates are matched on email. If you import a candidate whose email is already in your database, their details are updated rather than added a second time, so you can re-import a refreshed list without creating duplicates. A row missing an email or a name is reported back to you as rejected rather than imported.

What gets imported, and what does not

The fields in the template are stored on the candidate. Anything you put in the cv_text column is stored and made searchable, so a candidate imported with cv_text can be found by database search and screened against a job later.

Import does not build a structured work history. If you include past roles, put them as plain text in the cv_text column. They become searchable, but they do not populate the dated employment history you get when you screen an actual CV file. If your candidates exist as CV documents rather than a spreadsheet, use Upload CVs on the Candidates page instead of importing, because reading the full CV extracts structured detail that a CSV import does not.

Recording a lawful basis

Because you are loading people's personal information, the import asks you to record the lawful basis on which you hold them, and to confirm it before the import runs. You choose between legitimate interest and prior consent, and you note where the list came from. This is recorded against every candidate in the import.

After the import

When it finishes you see how many candidates were added, how many existing records were updated, and any rows that were rejected, with the reason and the line number so you can fix them and re-import. Your candidate list refreshes so the new candidates are there straight away.

If you arrive in Aptly without a complete profile, you see a short prompt titled Just a couple of details before you can use the app. This usually happens after a Google sign-in or for accounts created before Aptly asked for company name.

The prompt asks for three things:

• First name
• Last name
• Company name

All three are required. Aptly uses your company name to generate your job board URL automatically, and your name appears on candidate-facing emails and the client shortlist.

You can update any of these later in My Profile → Personal tab (name) or My Profile → Company tab (company name and job board URL).

Open a job and click Add CVs: this scrolls the page down to the CV drop zone at the bottom of the job. Drop your files in or click to browse. Aptly accepts PDF and Word (.docx / .doc) files.

Limits

• Maximum 50 CVs per screening batch
• CVs are processed in parallel batches of 8, so larger uploads are significantly faster than sequential tools
• A typical 20-CV batch takes 60–90 seconds

Adding more CVs later

You can screen additional CVs into the same job at any time by dropping files into the drop zone at the bottom of the job page. Each new batch is scored against the same job spec and merged into the existing pipeline.

To add a single candidate from pasted text or by hand, use Add candidate instead.

Not every candidate arrives as a CV file. A referral comes in by phone, or you find someone on LinkedIn. The Add candidate button, next to Add CVs on any job, gets them into your pipeline without a document.

Two tabs: Paste text and Manual entry. On the Paste tab, choose whether you are pasting CV text or LinkedIn profile text. The choice matters: Aptly scores profile text on its own terms, so the AI-CV flag never fires on a profile export and confidence is capped at medium on profile evidence alone.

Pasted text is capped at 20,000 characters. Paste the profile's main sections; recommendations and activity are not needed and count against the limit.

Aptly reads the text and pre-fills a check screen. Everything is editable, and Aptly never invents an email or phone number: anything it could not read is left blank and flagged for you to fill in. Select a lawful basis for holding the candidate's data, then choose whether to screen now (one scan) or add them unscreened.

Candidates added without screening land in the Applied stage showing Not screened until you screen them.

If the email matches a candidate already in your database, Aptly will not create a duplicate. You can add the existing candidate to the job instead, and choose whether to keep their stored CV text or replace it with what you just pasted.

When you create a job, Aptly searches your existing candidate database and shows a From your database panel on the job page. Each row shows an indicative match score and a short explanation of why the candidate fits. This search runs on the candidates already in your database, so strong matches can surface before you have advertised the role.

Adding a match to the job is free and places the candidate in the Applied stage as Not screened. Choosing Add + Screen runs a full screening straight away and uses one scan, the same as screening any other candidate. Adds run one at a time: while one is in progress the other buttons pause briefly.

The panel stays on the job page for everyone in your team until someone dismisses it. Refresh matches runs the search again, which is useful after new candidates have joined your database. You can also search your database manually at any time from the menu at the top of the job page under DB search.

Every hiring manager weighs candidates differently. The Client priorities sliders tell the scoring engine which axes to weight up or down for this role.

Four sliders, three settings each

• Technical match: hard skills, tech stack, credentials. Set to More to penalise gaps harder, Less to credit adjacent skills.
• Industry experience: sector knowledge and domain credibility. Set to More to prioritise direct-sector candidates, Less to credit transferable experience from other industries.
• Seniority: leadership scope, gravitas, years. Set to More to weight formal seniority and executive signals heavily, Less to credit high-growth trajectories at slightly lower levels.
• Culture and soft skills: communication, team fit, personality. Set to More to weight soft signals heavily, Less to focus the score on hard qualifications.

Every slider defaults to Normal, which behaves exactly as the scorer did before sliders existed. Each slider can shift the score by up to 10 points; total cumulative adjustment is capped at 25 points to keep scoring stable when multiple sliders are set.

Every CV you screen is automatically added to your candidate database. AI Database Search compares any candidate's history against a new job spec, so you can pull from people you already have on file before sourcing externally.

1. Open a job and click the DB search button in the job header
2. Aptly searches your full candidate pool and returns ranked matches, each with a brief reason explaining why it fits
3. Click + Add to job to bring a candidate into the job's pipeline. They land in the Applied stage with no score and no verdict.
4. To get a score and verdict, click Screen now on the candidate row. This runs the AI scoring against the current job spec and uses 1 scan credit.

Every candidate receives a score from 0–100 and a verdict. The score reflects overall fit against the job spec. The verdict is a category recommendation:

• Strong shortlist — Recommend progressing. Strong match on the criteria that matter most.
• Borderline — Possible. Meets some criteria but has notable gaps. Two email options are generated — one to progress, one to decline.
• Do not progress — Does not meet the requirements. A respectful rejection email is generated automatically.

Ranking

Candidates are ranked within each verdict category. A rank of #1 means Aptly considers them the strongest overall match — not just the highest raw score.

What factors influence the score?

• Match against must-have skills and experience in the job spec
• Seniority alignment (mismatch is a hard penalty — candidates significantly over or under-levelled score below 50)
• Domain and sector credibility
• Any client priorities sliders you have set

Every scored candidate carries a confidence level alongside the verdict: low, medium, or high. Confidence tells you how reliable the score itself is, not how good the candidate is. A Strong shortlist with low confidence is still a Strong shortlist, but the underlying evidence is thinner than usual and deserves a closer second look.

Confidence and verdict are independent. A Do not progress can carry high confidence if the mismatch is clear-cut. A Borderline can carry low confidence if the CV gave the model little to work with.

Three things can lead to low confidence:

• The CV shows AI-generation signals (the AI-CV flag is Moderate or Strong). The score is based on potentially unreliable source material.
• The score sits close to a verdict boundary (within 5 points of 45 or 70). A small change in interpretation could move the candidate into a different verdict band.
• The CV is sparse and gave the model limited evidence to base the score on.

Where you see confidence:

• List view and kanban: a small "Low confidence" pill appears on the candidate row or card. Medium and high show no pill (no news is good news).
• Expand panels, kanban modal, PDF, and client share link: the full confidence level (low, medium, or high) is shown directly under the one-line summary, with the reason in parentheses when confidence is low.

Aptly analyses each CV for signs that it was substantially generated by AI rather than written by the candidate. This does not disqualify anyone automatically — it is a signal for your own judgement.

• None — No meaningful AI writing signals detected
• Mild — Some generic phrasing or structural patterns; could be natural
• Moderate — Notable AI-style characteristics. Worth a closer look at the CV
• Strong — Strong signals of AI generation. The CV may not reflect the candidate's actual writing or depth

A brief reason is shown under each flag when you expand a candidate row. Use this as context when deciding whether to probe further at interview.

Aptly sets a ⭐ Hidden gem flag on candidates who have a unique or standout credential that might not be obvious from their overall score alone. This could be a rare certification, an unusually relevant prior employer, or domain experience that exactly matches the client's niche.

The flag is designed to surface candidates who might otherwise be overlooked in a score-sorted list. When a candidate has this flag, read the reason — it often explains why a mid-range score still represents a strong potential fit for a specific type of client.

Every candidate row expands to show two evidence lists:

• Why they stand out - specific strengths from their CV that match the role requirements. These are direct references to what is in the CV, not generic praise.
• Gaps to probe - specific areas where the candidate falls short or where the CV is ambiguous. These are designed to be used as interview prompts.

These are grounded in the actual CV content - Aptly will not invent qualifications or pad the lists. If a CV is thin, the reasons will be thin too.

When a candidate has been screened with a PDF or Word CV, you can open the original document, not just the extracted text.

Select View CV on the candidate profile, the pipeline card, or the candidate detail rail. The button appears only when a stored original is available, so candidates added before this feature, or screened without a readable file, will not show it.

Original CV files are stored privately, scoped to your organisation, and are deleted when you delete the candidate.

Each candidate in a job moves through a pipeline that reflects where they are in the process:

• Applied — Applied via your job board. Not yet screened.
• Screened — CV has been processed by Aptly. Awaiting your decision.
• Shortlisted — You have confirmed they are moving forward.
• Interviewing — Interview scheduled or in progress.
• Offered — Offer has been made.
• Placed — Role filled by this candidate.
• Rejected — Not progressing. Moved to the collapsed rejected section.

Moving a candidate

Click the stage track (the segmented progress bar) on any candidate row to advance them to a new stage. You can also click the Reject button to move them directly to rejected. When you move a candidate to Shortlisted, Interviewing, Offered, or Rejected — a relevant draft email appears automatically for you to review and send.

When you need to do the same thing to several candidates, you can select them in a job's list view and act on them together rather than one at a time.

Selecting candidates

Each candidate row in the list view has a checkbox. Tick the ones you want, or use the checkbox in the column header to select everyone currently shown. Selection respects your filters and search, so if you have narrowed the list to one verdict or searched for a name, select-all takes only those rows. Nothing is ever selected for you; you choose every candidate that an action will touch.

This is available in list view. Switch to list with the ≡ List toggle if you are in kanban.

Email selected

Once you have candidates selected, a bar appears with the actions available. Email selected opens a window where you write or paste one message, a subject and a body, that goes to everyone you picked. You see how many candidates will receive it and the names before you send, and you tick a short confirmation so a send is always deliberate. This is one message to the group, not the per-candidate draft you get from the verdict emails. Anyone who has unsubscribed is skipped automatically, and the message tells you afterwards how many were sent and whether anyone was skipped or had no email address on file.

Reject selected

Reject selected moves everyone you picked to the rejected stage in one step. It does not send any email, so use it when you want to clear candidates from the active list without contacting them. If you want to send a rejection message as well, use Email selected first, then reject.

The Applied stage holds candidates who have entered a job's pipeline but have not yet been scored. Three flows put candidates here:

• Job board applications. Anyone who applies through your public job board lands in Applied as a fresh CV.
• AI Database Search adds. Candidates you bring in from the DB search results land in Applied with no score and no verdict.
• Add candidate. Candidates you add from pasted text or by hand, choosing to add them unscreened, land in Applied.

Unscreened candidates show Not screened until you screen them.

Running Screen now

Click ✨ Screen now on any Applied candidate to run the AI scoring against the current job spec. This uses 1 scan credit, generates a score, verdict, match reasons, gaps, and a draft email, and moves the candidate to the Screened stage. From there they progress through the rest of the pipeline as normal.

You can also use ✨ Screen all at the top of the Applied panel to score every unscreened candidate in one go.

The kanban view shows your candidates as cards arranged in columns by stage — a visual alternative to the default list view. Both views show the same candidates and are kept in sync.

Switching to kanban

Open any job with screened candidates and click the ⊞ Kanban toggle button at the top right of the candidates section. Click ≡ List to switch back.

What each card shows

• Candidate name and initials avatar
• Email address (if available)
• Score bar and percentage
• Verdict badge (Strong / Borderline)

Moving a candidate

There are two ways to move a candidate between stages on the board.

Drag the card. Pick up any candidate card and drop it on the column for the stage you want. The candidate moves there immediately and the list view stays in sync. On a touch screen, press and hold the card briefly before you drag, so scrolling the board is never mistaken for a move.

Use the menu. Click the ⋯ button on any card to open a stage menu and pick the destination. This does the same thing as a drag, and is handy when the column you want is off screen.

Moving a candidate into Shortlisted, Interviewing, or Offered prepares a draft email for them, the same as it does elsewhere in Aptly. The draft is written into the candidate's row in list view, so switch to ≡ List to review and send it after a drag.

Opening a candidate

Click anywhere on a card (other than the ⋯ button) to open a full candidate modal. This shows their score, match reasons, gaps, and all draft emails — so you can action a candidate without leaving the kanban view.

Every job has a Stats view that gathers how the role is progressing into one place. Open a job and switch to it with the Stats toggle at the top of the candidates section, next to List and Kanban.

Pipeline and conversion

A funnel shows how many candidates sit at each stage from screened through to placed, with rejected counted separately. Below it, conversion rates show what share move from one stage to the next, screened to shortlisted, shortlisted to interviewing, and onward.

Velocity

How long the job has been open, how quickly you reached a first screen, a first shortlist, and a first interview, and the average time candidates spend in each stage. If the role has been filled, you also see time to fill.

Quality

The average score across your scored candidates and the spread from lowest to highest, a breakdown of verdicts and AI-CV signals, and counts of low-confidence scores and hidden gems.

Engagement

A quiet summary of activity on the job: CVs processed, screening runs, client views and comments, references, scorecards, and videos.

When a role is filled, mark the job as Filled using the status dropdown at the top of the job page. The placement modal appears where you can record:

• Which candidate was placed
• The placement fee and currency

If you are not ready to record the details, Skip for now still marks the role as filled and you can add the fee later. The placed candidate's stage is updated to Placed automatically.

To change anything later, click Edit placement on the job page. The modal opens with your saved details filled in.

Placement outcomes

Once a job is filled, an outcome control appears next to the Edit placement button. Use it to record what happened after the offer: Placed, Started, Fell through, or Rebated with the rebate amount. If a placement falls through, Aptly offers to reopen the job so you can run the role again. Outcomes feed the owner Reporting page, so billings stay accurate even when a placement does not stick.

Lost the role to another agency

If a competitor fills the role, set the status to Filled by other agency instead. This closes the job with no placement and no fee, so your Reporting stays accurate. Your candidate pipeline is not changed, which means that if the other agency's placement falls through you can set the job back to Open and continue with the candidates you already have. This status is available on agency workspaces only, and jobs with it appear under the Filled tab on your jobs list.

Expand any candidate row and click 📅 Log interview to record an interview. You can capture:

• Interview date
• Format (video, in person, phone, other)
• Outcome (progressing / pending decision / not progressing)
• Notes — key impressions, things to follow up

Interview logs are stored permanently on the application and visible whenever you reopen the candidate row.

Interview scheduling lets you set up an interview with a candidate and hand out the links that get everyone to it, all from the candidate's row. You choose how the interview happens, who runs it, and how the time is agreed, and Aptly keeps both sides in step from the invitation through to any later change.

What it does, and what it does not

Scheduling arranges a single interview and shares the booking links for it. It does not move the candidate along your pipeline. A candidate you schedule an interview for stays in whatever stage they were already in, so if you want them shown as Interviewing you still move them there yourself. Keeping the two apart means you can line up a conversation without committing the candidate's stage before it has happened.

Starting one

Open a candidate and choose Schedule interview. First you pick the type of interview, which decides the one detail Aptly needs to bring everyone together:

• Phone takes a phone number.
• In person takes an address.
• Online takes a meeting link from your own video tool.

Then you pick the interviewer. That is either you, or one of the client contacts on the job. Who the interviewer is decides whose availability the candidate is booking against, and it changes how the next step works.

Two ways to agree a time

Whoever is interviewing, there are two ways to settle on a time.

Offer specific times. You pick how long the interview should run, then add one or more start times. The candidate sees those times and picks the one that suits them. As soon as they pick, everyone involved gets a calendar invite for that slot and a reminder before it.

Share a booking link. You paste a link from a scheduling tool such as Calendly or Cal.com, and the candidate books straight into that tool. This is handy when the interviewer would rather run everything from their own scheduler. Be aware of the trade-off: because the booking happens in the external tool, Aptly never learns which time was chosen, so for this path there is no Aptly calendar invite and no Aptly reminder. The candidate gets whatever the external tool sends them.

Who is interviewing

When you are the interviewer, you set the time options yourself as you create the interview: enter your available start times, or paste your own booking link, there and then.

When a client contact is the interviewer, you do not know their availability, so you send them a link to their own page instead. They offer their times or paste their own booking link from there. When they respond, the candidate is sent their invite automatically, because you already chose to send the interviewer the link, so you do not have to send anything to the candidate by hand in that case.

Sending and copying the links

Each interview has two links: a candidate link and an interviewer link. Both can be copied or sent. Send emails the link to that party, and once it has gone the card shows them as invited with the date it was sent. Until then the card reads not invited yet, which simply means no email has gone out to them. Copy hands you the link to pass on yourself, in your own message, and because Aptly did not send it that does not count as invited, so the card still reads not invited yet even though you have shared it.

The meeting link for online interviews

An online interview needs a join link. If you create one without a link and a client contact is interviewing, they are asked to supply the meeting link when they respond, so an online interview always ends up with a way to join even when you did not have the link at the start. For where to find a link in Google Meet, Zoom, or Teams, see How do I get a meeting link? below.

Rescheduling, editing, and cancelling

From a confirmed interview you can change course in three ways. Reschedule reopens it: you can send it back to the candidate to pick again from the same times, or back to the interviewer to offer fresh ones. Edit lets you change the details of the interview. Cancel calls it off. Rescheduling and cancelling both send the affected people an updated or cancellation calendar notice for the old time, so nobody is left holding a slot that no longer stands.

When you schedule an online interview, Aptly asks for a meeting link. You create that link in your own video tool, then paste it in. Here is how to find it in the common ones.

Google Meet

Start a new meeting in Google Meet, or create one from a Google Calendar event, then copy the join link it shows you and paste it into the Meeting link field.

Zoom

Use your personal meeting room link, or schedule a meeting in Zoom and copy the join link from the invitation. Paste that link into the Meeting link field.

Microsoft Teams

Create a meeting in Teams or in an Outlook Calendar event, open it, and copy the join link. Paste that link into the Meeting link field.

Aptly surfaces two separate signals about where a candidate stands. They are easy to confuse, so it helps to keep them apart.

Availability status, set by you

Every candidate has an availability status you set on their profile: Available, Passive, Placed, Not available, or Do not contact. When it is anything other than Available, it shows as a small pill next to the candidate's name on a job's applicants list, so anyone on the team sees it before they contact or advance that person. This status is manual, so it reflects whatever you last set on the profile.

The Placed chip, worked out automatically

Separately, Aptly shows a Placed chip on the candidate list and on a candidate's profile whenever that person has been placed on any job in your pipeline. This one is derived automatically from a real placed application, not set by hand, so it flags someone who is already placed elsewhere even if their availability status was never updated. Use it to avoid pitching or progressing a candidate who is already in a role.

Notes are internal team notes: a private thread your team keeps on a job, and a separate thread on each candidate. They sit alongside the structured surfaces you already use, like interview logs, scorecards, and video notes, but they are free text for anything worth remembering that does not belong in those.

Where they live

There is a Notes tab on the job page for notes about the role, and a Notes tab on the expanded candidate row for notes about a person. The candidate Notes tab appears once a candidate has been screened, because a note attaches to their application, so an applicant who has not been screened yet does not show it.

How they work

Type a note and add it. It timestamps with your name, and the newest note sits at the top of the thread. You can edit or delete your own notes at any time. Notes from other people on your team are read only to you. If a team member later leaves the organisation, their notes stay on the thread and read as written by a former team member.

They stay internal

Notes are only ever seen by your team. They never appear on the client share link, the candidate portal, the PDF report, or a submission. That boundary is what makes them safe to write freely, so you can be candid about fit, gaps, and next steps.

A scorecard is a structured rubric for evaluating an interviewed candidate against the job's competencies. Each competency is rated 1 to 5 with an optional comment, and the interviewer picks an overall recommendation from Strong no hire, No hire, Hire, or Strong hire.

How this differs from "Log interview"

"Log interview" is for quick post-call notes (date, format, outcome, free text). Scorecards are for structured, multi-rater feedback that can be aggregated across interviewers. Both can coexist on the same candidate; use whichever fits the situation.

Adding a scorecard

Open the candidate from the job page and switch to the Scorecards tab. The tab header holds three buttons side by side: Edit competencies, + Invite interviewer, and + Add scorecard.

1. Click + Add scorecard
2. Pick an overall recommendation
3. Add an optional overall comment
4. Rate each competency on the 1 to 5 scale, with an optional comment on each
5. Click Save scorecard

Every active competency on the job's template must be rated before the scorecard will save. Partial scorecards are not accepted, so consensus comparisons stay clean.

The aggregation summary

Once a candidate has 2 or more scorecards, an automatic summary block appears above the individual cards. It shows the average rating per competency and the distribution of overall recommendations across all raters, so consensus and disagreement are both visible at a glance.

Every job has its own competency template. The same competencies are used on every scorecard for that job, so ratings are directly comparable across interviewers and across candidates within the role.

The first time you open the Scorecards tab on a job, Aptly seeds five default competencies: Technical fit, Communication, Experience match, Cultural fit, and Domain knowledge. You can adjust them at any time.

Opening the editor

1. Open any candidate in the job and switch to the Scorecards tab
2. Click Edit competencies

What you can change

• Rename a competency (✎ icon)
• Reorder using the up and down arrows next to each competency
• Remove a competency you no longer want on new scorecards (🗑 icon)
• Restore a competency you previously removed
• Add new competencies in the input row at the bottom of the editor as fresh themes emerge from earlier interviews

How removal works

Removed competencies stay attached to existing scorecards, so historical ratings aren't lost; new scorecards no longer see them. To bring one back, click Show removed at the bottom of the editor, then Restore next to the competency you want active again.

Hiring managers, client-side interviewers, or anyone outside your Aptly organisation can score a candidate without needing an Aptly account. You send them a tokenised link, they fill in the same competency rubric you use internally, and their submission lands alongside your team's scorecards.

Sending an invite

1. Open the candidate and switch to the Scorecards tab
2. Click + Invite interviewer
3. Enter their name, email, and an optional message
4. Click Send invite

Each invite link is unique to the invitee and expires 14 days after sending.

What the external interviewer sees

A clean public web page (no Aptly account required) showing the role title, the candidate's name, the full competency list, the rating controls, and the recommendation choices. The competency template is the same one your team uses, covered in Editing the competency template above.

Their submission appears in the candidate's scorecard list labelled Submitted by {name} (external), so internal and external feedback stay clearly distinguished in the aggregation summary.

Tracking pending invites

A Pending invites subsection in the Scorecards tab lists every outstanding invitation with its current status:

• Pending sent, recipient has not opened the link yet
• Opened the recipient has loaded the page but has not submitted
• Expired the 14-day window has passed without a submission
• Revoked you cancelled the invite manually

Actions on a pending invite

• Copy link to share manually if the email did not reach them
• Resend the email (limited to once per hour to prevent accidental spam)
• Revoke to cancel the invite immediately

Reference checks gather structured feedback on a candidate from people who have worked with them. Aptly handles the full workflow from request through to a downloadable report, with the same candidate-dignity principle that guides everything else: every party knows where they stand.

When you can request references

The References tab appears on the per-application row in your candidate pipeline, alongside Scorecards and Activity. It is available when a candidate has reached Shortlisted, Interviewing, Offered, or Placed. References can be requested at any of these stages, though most recruiters use it once the candidate is in late-stage consideration.

Two ways to collect references

When you click "Request references", you choose between two methods.

Option A: ask the candidate to provide referee details. Aptly emails the candidate with a private link to a short form. They enter the names, emails, and contact details of their references, and Aptly takes it from there. This is the default and most common path. It puts the candidate in control of who they nominate.

Option B: enter the referees yourself. If you already have referee contact details, you can enter them directly when creating the request. Aptly will email the referees immediately. This skips the candidate step and is faster when you have the information to hand.

Both paths send the same referee invitation and use the same reference form. The difference is purely in how you collect the contact details.

How many references to request

You can request 1, 2, or 3 references per round. Two is the default. The choice depends on the role and your client's expectations.

Aptly's reference workflow uses two hosted forms, both branded and short. Recipients receive a clear email, click through to fill in the form, and the data flows back to you automatically.

The candidate-side form (Option A only)

The candidate receives an email from you, sent via Aptly, with a link to a short form hosted at aptly.pro. They enter the names, emails, optional phone numbers, relationships, companies, and working dates of each referee. The candidate cannot use their own email as a referee email.

Once they submit, Aptly emails the referees directly and notifies you. The link expires after 14 days. If the candidate has not submitted within that window, you can resend the invitation from the References tab.

The referee-side form

Referees receive an email with a link to a short reference form. The form takes about three minutes and is structured around five default questions:

• How long did you work with the candidate
• In what capacity did you work together
• How would you rate their overall performance
• Would you hire or work with them again
• What is the single strongest thing about them professionally

Each question is a pick-list with five or six options. The referee can also add optional comments at the end.

If the referee declines

If the referee would prefer not to provide a reference, the form has a clear decline option with space to leave an optional reason. Declined references appear in your report alongside submitted ones, with the reason if provided. The candidate is not told that a referee declined.

Once you have requested references, the References tab on the candidate row tracks progress and lets you take action.

What the tab shows at each stage

For Option A, while waiting for the candidate to provide details, you see "Awaiting candidate to provide referee details" with a "Resend candidate invitation" button.

Once referees have been invited (whether via Option A or Option B), you see a card per referee with their current status:

• Awaiting: invitation sent, referee has not clicked through yet
• Opened: referee has opened the form but not submitted
• Submitted: full response received, click the card to expand the answers
• Declined: referee declined to provide a reference, with reason if they gave one
• Expired: the 14-day link has passed without action
• Revoked: you revoked the invitation manually

Resending and revoking individual referees

For pending referees (Awaiting or Opened), you can Resend the invitation or Revoke it. Resend is rate-limited to once per hour, so the recipient is not spammed. Revoke marks the invitation as cancelled and the referee can no longer submit.

Cancel and start over

If a reference round is not working out, for example if the candidate provided wrong contact details or the referees are unresponsive, the "Cancel all and start over" link at the top of the References tab revokes all pending invitations and opens the request modal for a fresh round. Already-submitted or declined references in the old round are preserved.

Once all referees have submitted or declined, the References tab switches to a "Completed" view, and a "Download report" button appears at the top right of the tab.

What is in the report

The downloaded PDF includes:

• Your agency logo and name in the header
• The candidate's name, the role, and the client (if set on the job)
• A summary count of submitted and total references
• A side-by-side aggregation table for the five default questions, shown when two or more references were submitted
• One full section per submitted reference with all five default answers, any custom question responses, and the optional comments field
• A "Declined references" section listing any referees who declined, with their reason if provided

What happens when you download

The first time you download the report for a given round, Aptly does two things in the background:

1. Marks the report as viewed, so the candidate stops appearing in your dashboard's "References ready to review" list.
2. Sends a brief neutral email to the candidate confirming that their references have been received. This closes the loop respectfully without revealing what was said.

Subsequent downloads do not re-send the candidate email. You can re-download the report as often as you like.

What references do not do

Aptly does not use AI to interpret or score reference responses. The content of a reference is private to you and your client. Candidates do not see what their referees said.

References are scoped to a specific application, meaning a specific role. The same candidate may have separate reference rounds for different roles, and each is independent. If you want references for a candidate on a new role, request a fresh round on that role's application.

A video introduction is a short, one-way video the candidate records on their own, before any live interview. You request it, the candidate answers a few questions in their own time, and you watch the answers back when it suits you. It gives you a feel for the person behind the CV without booking an interview slot.

This is not an AI interview. There is no bot asking questions and no automated scoring. The candidate records alone, reviews their own answers, and submits when they are happy with them. You stay the judge of what you see.

When you can request one

The option appears once a candidate has reached Screened, and it stays available through Shortlisted, Interviewing, Offered, and Placed. The candidate needs an email address on file, since the request is sent to them by email.

Open a candidate who has been screened and choose Request video, either from the quick actions in the right rail or from the Video tab on the candidate. Aptly emails the candidate a private link to record against. The link is valid for 14 days.

The questions

The first time you request a video for a job, Aptly generates the questions from that job's interview guide. You can edit them to whatever you want, between one and four questions. Edit them from the job's overflow menu under Video questions, or from the request dialog as you send. Edits apply to future requests, not to links you have already sent.

The candidate opens the link and records their answers one question at a time, with around 90 seconds suggested for each. On a phone, their phone's camera opens to record. On a computer, they record in the browser with a live preview, so they can see themselves before they start.

They review each answer and can re-record it before submitting, so what they send you is the take they are happy with. Once they submit, they get a confirmation email. That email includes a link they can use to delete their video early if they would rather it not be kept.

When the candidate submits, their answers appear in the Video tab on the candidate, where you watch each one back in the app. Alongside the recording you can keep private notes, visible only to you and your team, to capture your read on the person while it is fresh.

Retention

Videos are stored securely and deleted automatically 30 days after they are recorded. Your notes are not deleted with the video, so your read on the candidate stays on the record after the recording itself is gone. The candidate can also delete their video earlier than 30 days using the link in their confirmation email.

Aptly generates a personalised, ready-to-send email for every candidate as part of each screening. The type of email depends on their verdict:

• Strong shortlist — one shortlist email, congratulating and inviting them forward
• Borderline — two options: Option A to progress, Option B to respectfully decline
• Do not progress — one personalised rejection that references their background — not a form letter

Sending emails

Expand a candidate row to view and edit the draft. Click Send email to send directly from Aptly, or Copy to paste it into your own email client.

Email templates let you save a message once and reuse it whenever you write to candidates, instead of retyping the same email or copying it from elsewhere. You manage them in My Profile under the Email templates tab.

Creating a template

Open My Profile and go to Email templates. Give the template a name, choose whether it is private or shared, write a subject and a body, and save. The name is only for you to find it later; the candidate never sees it. Private templates are visible only to you. Shared templates are visible to everyone in your organisation, so your team can work from the same wording, and only the person who created a shared template can edit or delete it.

Merge fields

A template can include merge fields that fill in with the right values when you use it. Use the Insert merge field control in the editor to drop one in at your cursor rather than typing it by hand. The available fields are the candidate's first name, the candidate's full name, the job title, the client name, your agency name, and your name as the sender. When a template is used, each field is replaced with the real value for that candidate and role. If a field has no value to fill in, for example the client name on a job with no client set, it renders as nothing rather than leaving a placeholder in the email, so it is worth reading your template back to check it still works when an optional field is empty. The first name is taken from the part of the candidate's name before the first space; if there is no space, the full name is used.

Using a template

You can insert a template in three places: on a single candidate, from the Insert template control next to Copy and Send, where the fields fill in for that candidate straight away; on a stage email, when you move a candidate to shortlisted, interviewing, offered, or rejected; and on a bulk send, from Email selected in a job's list view. On a bulk send the merge fields stay as they are in the composer, because there is no single candidate yet, and each recipient gets their own copy with their own details filled in when you send. In every case the template is a starting point, and you can change the wording before it goes out.

When you move a candidate to a key stage, a relevant draft email appears automatically at the top of their expanded row — no separate step required.

• Shortlisted — their original shortlist or progress email appears
• Interviewing — an interview invitation with placeholder date/format fields
• Offered — an offer notification with placeholder salary/start date fields
• Rejected — a context-appropriate rejection (different wording for post-interview versus initial screening rejections)

All drafts are editable inline before sending. The email appears highlighted in the context of the stage change so it's impossible to miss.

Aptly extracts email addresses directly from CV content. If a CV does not contain a clearly formatted email address, or if the address is embedded in a graphic or image-only PDF, extraction may fail.

In this case, the email preview will show No email address found in red. You can still copy the email body and send it manually from your own email client.

The candidate record in your database will also be missing an email — you can add it manually by opening their profile from the Candidates tab.

If a candidate's record can no longer be matched, for example the candidate was deleted or their address changed, Aptly skips the send rather than emailing an address it cannot honour an unsubscribe request for. Skipped recipients are listed after a bulk send, and a single send tells you why it did not go.

Every email a candidate receives through Aptly is recorded on their application, so the full history of how you have contacted someone lives in one place rather than scattered across your inbox.

Where to find it

Open a candidate from the job page and switch to the Activity tab. The Email history section lists every email sent to that candidate, most recent first.

What each entry shows

• What the email was. For emails you wrote and sent yourself, the subject is shown. For automated emails, you see the type, such as a reference invitation, a portal link, or a video introduction request.
• When it was sent.
• Its delivery status: Sent, Delivered, Bounced, or Marked as spam. A bounce or spam mark is worth noticing, as it usually means the candidate never received the message.

Reading a full email back

For emails you compose and send yourself, the full message is kept. Click View email on the entry to open the complete text exactly as it was sent. Automated emails are logged by type and status rather than full text, so they do not have a View email option.

Every job can have a unique share link that lets your hiring manager view the shortlist, candidate verdicts, and reasoning. You control who can open it by adding viewers to the link's access list.

1. Open a job and click Share with client
2. Add who can view the link (specific emails or a whole company domain)
3. Choose an expiry (7 days up to no expiry)
4. Tick the acknowledgement and click Generate link
5. Copy and send the link to your client

Hide candidate names

The share modal has a Hide candidate names (references only) toggle. Turn it on and your client sees each candidate's reference number in place of their name, which is useful before terms are agreed. You can turn it on or off at any time without regenerating the link. The change takes effect the next time your client opens the page, and it does not sign anyone out.

Who can view the link

The Who can view this link section sets the access list. Each entry is either a specific email (sarah@company.com) or a whole company domain (@company.com) that lets anyone with that email address get in. You can add up to 10 entries per link. Aptly suggests company domains you have used on other jobs so you do not have to retype them.

How the client opens the link

When the client clicks the link, they enter their email address. If it is on the access list, Aptly sends them a one-time magic link by email. They click that link and land on the shortlist. The link signs them in for 7 days on that browser, so they will not need to verify again the next time they visit.

What the client sees

The shortlist page carries your accent colour alongside your logo, and opens with a role summary card showing the role details and, when available, the top requirements read from your job spec. Below it sits the ranked shortlist with verdicts and evidence, and a comment box on each candidate. Candidates who were not progressed appear in a collapsed section you can expand. The client can see each candidate's name and reference number; when hide names is on, candidates are shown by reference number only. They cannot see phone numbers, the CV document, video introductions, your internal notes, or the numeric score: scoring is shown as a verdict band and ranking only.

Recent access

The share modal shows a Recent access log of who has verified and when, so you know which of your invited viewers have actually looked at the shortlist.

Removing access

Remove someone from the access list by clicking the × on their chip. They lose access the next time they load the page, even if they verified earlier. To kill all access entirely, click Revoke link. Regenerating the link with a new expiry also invalidates any old verified sessions.

Candidates who have not been screened show a neutral Not screened label.

Clients can leave comments on individual candidates directly from the share page. You are notified by email when a comment is posted.

Comments are visible to you inside each candidate's expanded row in the job pipeline. Jobs with unread comments are flagged on your Home dashboard with a 💬 badge.

This replaces the need for back-and-forth emails about specific candidates. The client's feedback stays attached to the candidate it relates to.

If you have set an access list on the share link, your client needs to be verified (see the share link article above) before they can post a comment.

The candidate portal is a personalised, no-login page that shows a candidate their current stage, a brief status description, and their fit profile for the role. It uses your agency logo and branding — no Aptly branding is shown to the candidate.

It is designed to replace the silence that candidates typically experience — they can check their status without calling or emailing you.

What the candidate sees

• Your agency logo and company name
• The job title they applied for
• Their current stage in plain English (e.g. "Your CV is being reviewed" or "You've been shortlisted")
• A personalised fit profile describing why they are a good match for the role
• A visual progress track

Expand any screened candidate's row and click 📬 Send portal link. Aptly will email them a unique, tokenised URL that only they can access — no password required.

The button only appears if the candidate has an email address on file. If it's missing, add it to their profile first.

Each portal link is permanent for that application — the stage shown updates automatically as you move the candidate through your pipeline, so you only need to send it once.

Your job board is a public page at aptly.pro/jobs/?agency=your-slug that lists all your live jobs. Candidates can view job descriptions and apply directly. Their details arrive in your pipeline as Applied candidates, ready to screen.

Aptly generates a job board slug for you automatically from your company name when you sign up, so your board is ready to share straight away. You can rename the slug at any time from your profile.

Changing your agency URL

1. Go to My Profile → Company tab
2. Under Job board URL, edit your agency slug (e.g. nexus-recruitment)
3. Click Save URL

Your job board URL will be confirmed once saved. Share it anywhere: your website, LinkedIn, email signatures.

When candidates apply through your job board, they must agree to a privacy notice. You decide what they see. Three options are available in My Profile → Company tab → Candidate privacy notice:

Link to your existing privacy notice

If your agency already publishes a privacy notice on its website, paste the URL. Candidates clicking the consent link go straight to your page. This is the cleanest option if you have an existing notice.

Paste your privacy text

If you do not have a published notice, paste the text directly. Candidates see it on an Aptly-hosted page styled with your branding, headed "Privacy notice from {your agency name}". Up to 10,000 characters, plain text.

Use the Aptly fallback

If neither a URL nor text is set, candidates see a hand-written general statement covering what to expect when applying to a recruitment agency that uses Aptly: what data is collected, how long it is typically retained, what their rights are, and how to contact you. This protects candidates and you while you decide which of the two options above you want to use.

Open any job and click 🌐 Post. A confirmation modal explains what will be made public and shows your job board URL. Confirm to make it live.

When candidates apply

They appear at the top of the job as Applied — unscreened, in a separate panel from your screened candidates. From there you can:

• Click ✨ Screen next to any individual applicant to screen them (costs 1 scan)
• Click ✨ Screen all to process the whole unscreened queue at once

Once screened, they join your regular ranked pipeline.

Retracting a job

Click the 🌐 On board button to retract it. The job is immediately removed from your public board. Existing applications are not affected.

Every public job has two share URLs: your full board (lists every live role) and a direct link to one role. The direct link is the one you want for LinkedIn, WhatsApp, or anywhere a preview card matters.

Where to find the links

Open any public job. In the header, click 🔗 Share job board link. A modal shows both URLs with copy buttons. The "This role directly" URL is the per-job link.

What candidates see

The per-job link opens directly to that role's full description with three Apply buttons. No expanding cards, no extra clicks.

LinkedIn previews

When you paste a per-job link into LinkedIn, the preview card automatically shows the role title, your agency name, and your logo. This makes the post look professional and gets more clicks than a generic link.

It helps to know what your board looks like from the other side. Visit your own URL at aptly.pro/jobs/?agency=your-slug in an incognito window to see exactly what candidates see.

The listing page

Each live role appears as a single clickable card showing the title, client name, and posted date. Clicking the card takes the candidate to the full role page. One card, one click, no nested buttons or expanding sections.

A search bar above the listings lets candidates filter by job title. Three dropdowns alongside it filter by work mode, employment type, and hours. Filter state is captured in the URL, so a candidate can bookmark or share a filtered view (for example, all remote permanent roles) and return to it directly.

The per-role page

The full job spec renders with headings, bullets, and emphasis preserved. Three Apply buttons are positioned at the top, bottom, and as a sticky button while scrolling, so candidates can apply from wherever they reach a decision.

The apply form

Candidates submit name, email, phone, CV, and tick the consent checkbox (linked to whichever privacy option you have set up). They can also opt in to marketing updates. The form is short by design to reduce drop-off.

After applying

They see a thank-you message and receive an email confirming their application. Their details land in your Applied stage, ready for you to screen.

You can add questions to any role's application form. They help you filter or learn more about applicants before you spend time reviewing them. Open a job, click Manage next to Screening questions (it is also in the job's actions menu), and add as many as you need.

Two types of question

A knockout question is a Yes or No question with a required answer. If an applicant gives the disqualifying answer, they are stopped before they finish applying and see a short message explaining the role is not a match. No application is created, so these never clutter your pipeline. Use these for hard requirements like work authorisation or a required certification.

An informative question is free text. It never blocks anyone; the answer is captured and shown to you alongside the candidate, so you have a bit more context. Use these for things that are useful to know but not deal-breakers.

What the applicant sees

Knockout questions appear first, on their own step. The applicant answers them before they reach the name, CV, and details form, so a disqualified applicant never has to upload a CV. Informative questions sit further down the form with the rest of their details.

Where the answers show up

Every answer, knockout and informative, is recorded on the application. Open a candidate and you will see their answers in the expanded view, next to the score and notes.

Your public job board can be embedded directly on your own website, so candidates see your live roles without leaving your site. It is a single snippet you paste once, and the board stays in sync with the roles you post in Aptly.

Where to find it

Open My Profile, go to the Company tab, and look for the Embed on your website card just below your Job board URL. It appears once your job board URL is set.

How to embed it

1. Copy the snippet from the Embed on your website card.
2. Paste it into the HTML of any page on your site where you want the board to appear.
3. Save and publish your page.

The board renders inline with your own logo and branding, your role listings, and the full apply flow, so candidates can search, open a role, and apply without leaving your website. Their applications land in your Applied stage exactly as they do from the hosted board.

Adjusting the height

The snippet sets a fixed height, and the board scrolls inside that height if your list of roles is taller. You can change the height value in the snippet to suit your page.

The bell icon in the top nav shows you what needs your attention without sending you to email. A red badge on the bell tells you how many unread notifications you have. Click the bell to open the dropdown and see the most recent ten.

Click any notification to jump to the relevant candidate, job, or page. Notifications are marked read automatically when you click them. Use Mark all as read at the top of the dropdown to clear everything at once.

You'll get a notification for the following events:

• New application via your public job board
• Client comment on a shared shortlist
• External interviewer submits a scorecard
• A reference is submitted (or declined)
• All references received for a candidate
• A team member accepts your invite
• You've used 80% of your monthly scans (org owners only)

Email notifications still fire for the events that had them before. Notifications don't replace email; they add an in-app channel so you can catch up without leaving Aptly.

The bell and the Needs attention card on Home answer different questions.

The bell is a log of things that happened. Each notification is a moment in time you can revisit. They stay around even after you've acted on them.

Needs attention on the Home dashboard shows what's currently waiting on you: references ready to review, applicants needing screening. Items disappear from this card the moment you've acted, because it reflects current state, not history.

Use the bell to catch up on what's happened. Use Needs attention to see what's still outstanding.

The shortlist PDF is a white-labelled report you can send straight to clients. It carries your logo, your accent colour, and your branding throughout, and presents your shortlist in a calm, client-ready layout.

How to download

Open a job with screened candidates and click the Download PDF button at the top of the candidates section. It opens a small options step: choose whether to hide candidate names, then click Download. Generation takes a few seconds.

Hiding candidate names

Tick Hide candidate names in the options step and each candidate appears by their reference number instead of their name, throughout the whole document. This is useful when you want to share the shortlist before terms are agreed with a client. The client share link has its own hide names setting in the share modal, so the PDF and the live link can each be anonymised independently.

What's included

• A cover with the role summary (location, work mode, employment type, hours, and salary) and the top requirements read from your job spec
• A ranked shortlist table
• A page per candidate with the verdict, confidence, AI-CV signal, strengths, gaps to probe, and a compact note of anything not evidenced in the CV
• Hidden gem highlights
• A compact section for candidates not progressed
• The interview guide (opening questions, technical questions, and red flags)

What's not included

Numeric scores do not appear anywhere in the report. Scoring is shown as the verdict and the ranking only, matching what a client sees on the share link.

Candidates who have not been screened are not included in the document. When an accent colour is set in your organisation settings, the report picks it up.

A submission is a short, white-labelled write-up that puts your shortlist forward to a client. Aptly drafts it from the candidates you pick, you edit the wording, then export it as a PDF or a Word document.

How to build one

Open a job and go to the Submission tab. Pick the scored candidates you want to put forward, then click Generate submission. Generation takes a few seconds.

What you get

• An introduction that frames how the candidates compare
• A headline for each candidate
• A few lines of advocacy, grounded in their evidence
• An honest note on what is worth knowing about each one

Editing and exporting

Every line is editable. Adjust any of the text, click Save, then export with Export PDF or Export DOCX. You can also reselect candidates or regenerate the text if the shortlist changes.

A spec CV is an agency-branded, anonymised profile of a candidate you can send to clients. Open a candidate on a job, go to the Spec CV tab, and generate one. Generation uses one scan; editing and regenerating are free. Agency workspaces only.

The document

The export is branded with your logo and accent colour and includes a recruiter introduction written for a client audience, a two-column profile with highlights and things worth noting from the screening, the candidate's education, skills and key details, a career timeline graphic showing their progression, and their full work experience with durations. Your contact details and the candidate reference appear throughout, and every page can carry a confidentiality mark.

What you control

The editor opens full screen with your changes previewed live. You choose whether the candidate's name is shown or the profile stays anonymous behind its reference, whose contact details appear (the candidate's, your own, or none), and whether employer names are shown or replaced with neutral descriptors. Each role can be hidden individually or in bulk by recency, and you can add a reason for leaving to any role, which appears on the document. The career timeline and confidentiality marks can each be switched off.

Exports

PDF carries the full branded design and is the version to send. DOCX carries the same content in a simplified single-column layout for final tweaks in Word.

You can export the job description itself as a formatted PDF — useful for sending to candidates or keeping on file.

Open a job, expand the Job specification card, and click ⬇ Download spec. The exported PDF includes your job title and the full spec text.

Paid plans include multiple seats. To invite a colleague:

1. Go to My Profile → Company tab → Team
2. Enter their email address and click Send invite
3. They receive an email with a one-click acceptance link
4. Once accepted, they appear as a team member with full access to recruitment features

Roles

• Owner — full access including billing, branding, and team management. One per organisation.
• Member — full access to all recruitment features. Cannot access billing or remove other members. Can be granted access to the Reporting page by the owner.

Seat limits

• Starter — 3 seats
• Growth — 10 seats
• Team — unlimited seats

To add more seats, upgrade your plan in My Profile → Personal tab → Plan & billing.

To upgrade or change your plan, go to My Profile → Personal tab → Plan & billing. Select monthly or annual billing, then click the relevant plan button. You'll be taken to a secure checkout page.

Managing an existing subscription

If you are already on a paid plan, a Manage subscription → link appears below the plan grid. This opens the Stripe billing portal where you can update payment details, view invoices, or cancel.

Cancellation

Cancelling keeps your access until the end of your current billing period. After that, your account moves to the Free tier. Note that Free is a one-time 50-scan allowance, not a recurring monthly grant, so a returning Free user does not get a fresh batch of scans on rollover. Nothing is deleted: your jobs, candidates, and screening history are preserved.

Top-up scans

If you need extra scans without changing your plan, top-up packs are available as one-time purchases from My Profile → Personal tab → Plan & billing: 100 scans for $29 or 500 scans for $99. Top-up scans never expire, carry over month to month, and are only used after your plan allowance runs out.

When you upgrade or buy a top-up pack, Stripe Checkout collects a few details on top of your card so your invoices and tax records are correct.

• Business name. Appears on every invoice. Use the legal entity name your finance team expects.
• Billing address. Required. Used on invoices and to determine the correct tax treatment for your region.
• Tax ID. Optional, collected in supported regions (VAT for the EU and UK, GST for several others). Adding it puts your tax number on every invoice and may zero-rate VAT where reverse charge applies.

You can update these details at any time from the Stripe billing portal. Open My Profile → Personal tab → Plan & billing and click Manage subscription →.

Your agency branding appears on all client-facing and candidate-facing pages: the share link shortlist, the candidate portal, the public job board, and PDF reports. Your brand leads on every one of these surfaces, and Aptly appears only as a quiet powered-by line.

What to set up

1. Go to My Profile → Company tab
2. Upload your logo (PNG, JPG, or SVG, max 500KB) under Company logo
3. Fill in your company name, industry, contact email, phone, website, and address under Company details
4. Save changes

Branding is applied to your entire organisation — all team members' jobs and outputs use the same logo and details.

If your organisation's account has been disabled, you see a full-screen message instead of the app. The message explains what has happened and how to get in touch with us. A Sign out button is the only action available.

Accounts can be disabled for a few reasons, including unpaid billing, a request from the organisation owner, or a violation of our terms.

To restore access, email hello@aptly.pro from the address linked to your Aptly account. We will explain what is needed and reactivate the account once it is resolved.

Your data is preserved while the account is disabled. Jobs, candidates, and screening history are not deleted by the disable action itself.

If you own your organisation, a Reporting item appears in the sidebar beneath History. It shows how the whole desk is performing, in four sections. By default only the owner can see it. You can grant any team member access from My Profile, Company tab, by ticking Reporting access next to their name. Granted members see the same page you do, and you can revoke access at any time.

Billings

Placements with fees recorded in the selected period, net of any rebates, broken down by currency, by client, and by consultant. This reads from your placement records, so the fees you enter when filling a role are what appear here.

Pipeline value

An indicative snapshot of your open pipeline, weighted by how far each candidate has progressed. It only counts open jobs where you have set an Expected fee on the job details card, and it is a directional signal rather than a forecast of guaranteed revenue.

Desk health

Your funnel for the period, offer acceptance rate, average days to fill, and average time in each stage. Measures with too little data show as not enough data yet rather than a misleading number.

Team activity

Recorded actions per consultant in the period: screenings, candidates added, stage moves, notes, interviews, and submissions. These are workload counts, not a ranking.

Use the selector at the top to switch between this month, last month, and the last 90 days.

The Clients section lets you maintain a list of your hiring companies, their contacts, and the jobs linked to each account — all in one place.

Adding a client

1. Go to Clients in the main navigation
2. Click + New client
3. Enter the company name and any relevant details
4. Add contacts under the client record — name, role, email, and phone

Linking a client to a job

When creating or editing a job, select the client from the Client dropdown. This links the job to the client record, and all related jobs appear together on the client's page so you can see everything you are running for a company at a glance.

The Aptly Intelligence API lets you submit CVs and a job spec programmatically and receive structured scoring results back — no Aptly UI required. It is designed for corporates, ATS platforms, and developers who want to embed CV intelligence directly into their own tools.

How it works

1. Submit a job spec and up to 200 CVs via a single POST request
2. Receive a job_id immediately — processing runs in the background
3. Poll for results via GET, or receive them automatically via webhook when complete
4. Each candidate result includes a score (0–100), a verdict, match reasons, and gaps

Verdict thresholds

• Strong shortlist — score 75 and above
• Borderline — score 50 to 74
• Do not progress — score below 50

Results are retained for 72 hours after completion, then automatically purged. Full endpoint documentation is available at aptly.pro/api-docs.html →

API access is enabled per organisation by Aptly support. Email hello@aptly.pro to request it and we will set you up.

Once enabled, the API Keys tab appears in My Profile. Until then the tab is hidden and key creation is refused. API keys authenticate your requests using the X-API-Key header. You can have up to 5 active keys per organisation, which is useful for separating environments or teams.

Creating a key

1. Go to My Profile → API Keys tab
2. Click Create key and give it a label
3. Copy the full key immediately. It is shown only once and cannot be retrieved again.
4. Store it securely (a password manager or secrets vault)

Revoking a key

Click Revoke next to any key in the API Keys tab. Revocation is immediate; any requests using that key will fail instantly. If you lose a key, revoke it and create a new one.