Managing Shared Pipelines

Managing Shared Pipelines

Managing Shared Pipelines

When more than one recruiter is supporting the same job, the question usually starts as "how do I add another person here?" In practice, the solution can be a bit broader than that\.

What you may really be asking is who is owning the candidate's process, who is owning each seat, and how you want to report on it\. And, just as importantly, whether it is a workflow your team will realistically maintain\.

Written by Jennifer Rothman

Jenny is a Recruiting Operations Consultant at Ashby, where she helps teams build practical, custom\-fit processes that hold up in the real world\. Her background spans hands\-on recruiting operations at both startups and larger organizations, as well as time on Ashby's Customer Support team, where she solved day\-to\-day operational problems for talent teams\.

What's inside

Explore four parts of managing shared pipelines, or jump to the guidance you need\.

• Choose recruiter ownership approaches Compare how to track candidate ownership, supporting recruiters, and seat ownership
• Assign recruiters in Ashby Follow the steps for the ownership approaches your team will use
• [](~/cdc0c9ba-5202-452e-b25d-56b0d3b0f48c/)Bring existing recruiter assignment up to date Correct hiring team records for one job or across multiple jobs
• Report on recruiter ownership Choose the recruiter field that answers your reporting question

💡 This playbook focuses on recruiters\. Apply the same ownership questions to sourcers, recruiting coordinators, and hiring managers: what is each person responsible for, which hiring team role records that responsibility, and who will keep the assignment current?

Where recruiter ownership lives

Before deciding where to add a recruiter, ask what they are responsible for: the overall role, a specific headcount seat, or one candidate’s hiring process\.

Ashby records these in three places\. The Job is the role you are hiring for\. An Opening is an individual seat you need to fill—for example, one of three Account Executive hires\. A Job Consideration is a candidate’s application to a particular job\.

Use the table below to match the responsibility you want to track with the recruiter assignment that represents it\.

For example, Maya may own the Account Executive job while Leo manages one candidate’s process\. To see who is running that candidate’s process, use the recruiter on the Job Consideration; the recruiter on the Job answers a different question\.

The same person can own all three responsibilities, or your team can split them\. What matters is keeping each assignment accurate and choosing the matching field in your reports\.

One recruiter per candidacy

Assign one recruiter to each Job Consideration once someone takes ownership of the candidate’s process\. Update that assignment whenever ownership changes\.

Primary recruiter plus supporting recruiters

Keep one primary owner and record the people helping in a separate hiring team role\. Ask your CSM or Support to add the role, then keep both assignments current\.

Recruiter on the Opening

Track who owns each headcount seat on the Opening\. Pair this with candidacy ownership when you need to report on both seats and active candidates\. This approach requires Openings\.

Recommendation for recruiter ownership

When one recruiter manages the role, the seat, and the candidate’s process, I recommend assigning that recruiter on the Job, Opening, and Job Consideration\. Update those assignments as responsibilities change\.

If your team shares the work, assign the recruiter responsible for each role, seat, or candidacy in the corresponding place in Ashby\. When needed, use a separate hiring team role to identify supporting recruiters\. Lastly, you can combine the approaches below to reflect how your team works\.

Is this a configuration question or a process question?

Usually a process question disguised as a configuration one\. Before changing a field, it is worth defining what that field should represent and whether your team will keep it accurate\.

The best setup is the one that answers the question you care about and gets maintained over time\.

Does being on the hiring team give someone access?

Not on its own\. Access is controlled separately, through permissions on the employee profile\. Hiring team roles describe someone's relationship to the role and drive notifications and reporting\.

The important asterisk is Permissions Automation\. If your organization maps hiring team roles to access roles, then adding someone to the hiring team can grant them job access, and removing them can take it away\. In those instances, a hiring team change is also an access change, so it is worth checking before any bulk cleanup\.

How do I set up the recruiter screen to reflect the correct ownership?

Start with who should run the screen\. If it is the person who advances the candidate into that stage, use User who Advanced Candidate to Stage\. If a coordinator or hiring manager advances the candidate, they will be selected too\.

If the screen should follow the primary recruiter, use the appropriate hiring team role or an explicitly assigned interviewer\. Running the interview does not update the recruiter on the Job Consideration; keep that ownership assignment accurate separately\.

Public Booking Links cannot use User who Advanced Candidate to Stage as the sole interviewer option\. Choose specific interviewers, or use a Direct Booking Link for a candidate already in Ashby\.

FAQ

Before changing recruiter assignments, explore three common questions: what your team needs to agree on, how hiring team roles relate to access, and who should run recruiter screens\.

📚 Want a deeper dive on hiring teams and how roles differ from permissions? Explore the Creating and Opening Jobs and User Permissions articles in the Ashby Knowledge Base\.

Let's Get Started →

Choose Recruiter Ownership Approaches

Choose recruiter ownership approaches

Decide how to record who manages each candidate’s process, who supports the work, and who owns each headcount seat\. Your team may need more than one approach\.

“We all review applications, then one recruiter takes over each candidate\.”

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Once a recruiter takes responsibility for a candidate’s process, assign them on that candidate’s Job Consideration\. Update the assignment if another recruiter takes over\. Agree as a team on when that handoff happens\.

“One recruiter leads the hiring effort\. Others help with screens or when volume gets high\.”

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Keep the lead recruiter in the primary role and record other contributors in a separate supporting role\. This makes it clear who is accountable and who is helping\.

If your account doesn’t already have a suitable supporting Hiring Team role, ask your CSM or Ashby Support to add one before using this approach\.

“We’re filling several seats for the same role, and recruiters divide the seats\.”

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Record who is responsible for filling each seat so you can report on seat ownership and hiring progress\. If you also need to track who manages each candidate’s process, maintain recruiter assignments on Job Considerations too\.

How does your team share recruiting work?

While the ideal configuration maintains the correct recruiter across fields, the best configuration is one that you can reliably maintain\. Ensure your team is aligned on your approach and incorporates it into your process\.

Select each card that describes your team to see which recruiter assignments can help\. Then use the comparison table to review where those assignments belong and what your team will need to maintain\.

Combining recruiter ownership approaches

In some cases, the best option may be to combine multiple approaches\. For example, two recruiters might divide six Openings while each candidate has one recruiter managing their process\. Record seat ownership on the Openings and candidate ownership on the Job Considerations\. If another recruiter helps, record their contribution in a supporting role\.

Choose the combination that reflects your team’s responsibilities, and agree on who will update each assignment when those responsibilities change\.

Compare recruiter ownership approaches

Use the table to compare the responsibility each approach tracks, where to record it in Ashby, and when to update the assignment\. Pay particular attention to the reporting limitations and the work required to keep assignments accurate\.

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Avoid using these fields for recruiter ownership

Candidate tags, candidate custom fields, and Credited To serve other purposes\. They do not clearly represent who currently manages a candidate’s application to a particular job\.

Candidate tags

Tags apply to the candidate, not to an individual job application\.

If a candidate is considered for several jobs, a recruiter tag does not tell you who manages each application\.

Candidate custom fields

On Plus or Enterprise plans, candidate custom fields also apply to the candidate record\.

A recruiter recorded here does not distinguish between the people managing that candidate’s applications to different jobs\.

Credited to

Credited To records sourcing or referral attribution: who brought the candidate in\.

That person may be different from the recruiter managing the candidate’s current hiring process\.

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Assign Recruiters in Ashby

Assign recruiters in Ashby

Follow the instructions for each ownership approach your team will use\. Each section shows where to make the assignment, how to check the result, and when to update it\.

One recruiter per candidacy

Hints:

• In Nora’s Account Executive application, scroll down in Activities & Progress to find Hiring Team\.

Hints:

• Three recruiters are listed\. Ruth owns Nora’s process\. Open the menu beside Recruiting Professional to remove that recruiter first\.

Hints:

• Select Delete to remove Recruiting Professional from this application’s Recruiter role\.

Hints:

• Remove Dean Spencer from the Recruiter role using the same steps\. Keep Ruth Willis assigned because she owns Nora’s process\.

Hints:

• Select Delete to remove Dean Spencer from this application’s Recruiter role\. Ruth should remain assigned\.

Primary recruiter plus supporting recruiters

Before you begin

Agree on who owns the candidate’s process and how the supporting recruiters will help\. Confirm that your account has a custom hiring team role, such as “Secondary Recruiter\.” If needed, ask your CSM or Ashby Support to add the role first\.

In this example, Samuel owns Kaitlin’s Backend Engineer application, while Joe and Martha help with sourcing or screens\. Keep Samuel in the Recruiter role and assign Joe and Martha to the Secondary Recruiter role\.

• Open the candidate’s application for the correct job\.
• In Activities & Progress, find Hiring Team\. Confirm that the primary owner is assigned to the Recruiter role\.
• Select Add Member, choose your custom supporting role, and select the supporting recruiter\. Save the assignment\. Repeat for each supporting recruiter\. If a supporting recruiter is also listed in the Recruiter role, remove that assignment so only the primary owner remains in that role\.

Check your result

If the supporting recruiter helps across the job, add them to the Job’s Hiring Team in your custom supporting role\. They’ll appear in that hiring team role on new applications\. When saving, choose whether to apply the change to existing applications too\.

If they help with only specific candidates, follow the steps below to assign them directly to those applications\.

Confirm that the application lists one primary owner in the Recruiter role and each supporting recruiter in the custom supporting role\. In this example, Samuel is the Recruiter, and Joe and Martha are Secondary Recruiters\. Your account may use a different name for the supporting role\.

Keep the assignment current

Update the supporting role when someone starts or stops helping\. For Job\-level changes, choose which applications should receive the update\. If ownership of a candidate’s process changes, update the Recruiter role on that application as part of the handoff\.

Make the assignment

Recruiter on the Opening

Before you begin

Use this approach when recruiters are responsible for filling specific headcount seats within a shared job\. Your team must use Openings in Ashby, with an Opening for each seat you want to track\. Agree on who owns each seat before making assignments\.

For example, two recruiters may share one candidate pipeline while each owns different Openings\. The Recruiter role on each Opening records who is responsible for filling that seat\.

• Open the job and select Openings\. Find the seat you want to assign\.
• Select the Opening’s ID to open its details\. In Roles, use Add Member to assign the recruiter responsible for filling that seat to the Recruiter role\.
• Save the assignment and confirm that the intended recruiter is listed\. Repeat for each Opening your team needs to assign\.

Check your result Make the assignment

Assign the recruiter on the specific Opening they own\. If your team also tracks who owns each candidate’s process, maintain the Recruiter assignment on each application using “One recruiter per candidacy\.”

Confirm that you selected the correct Opening and that its Recruiter role names the person responsible for filling that seat\. Check each Opening individually, especially when several seats share the same job\.

Keep the assignment current

Update the Recruiter role on the Opening whenever responsibility for filling that seat changes\. If candidate ownership also changes, update the Recruiter assignment on the affected applications as part of the handoff\.

Choose the recruiter assignment you need to make

Open the relevant section below\. If your team tracks both candidate ownership and seat ownership, complete both sets of assignments\.

The next page covers cleaning up existing recruiter assignments across jobs and applications\.

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Bring existing recruiter assignments up to date

Bring existing recruiter assignments up to date

Use these cleanup options to bring existing hiring\-team assignments into line with the ownership approach your team has chosen\. Choose the method that fits the records you need to update\.

Choose a cleanup method

Updating one application? You can change its hiring team directly\. For a broader cleanup, use one of the bulk methods below to update multiple records together\.

What needs changing?	Where to begin
The hiring team on one application	Update the hiring team directly on that application\. View the Hiring Team section in the Candidate Profile guide
The hiring team for one job, with the same change applied to a chosen set of its applications	Update the Job’s Hiring Team\. Choose current and future applications, future only, or all applications\. View the hiring team update guide
A selected group of applications, potentially across jobs	On Plus or Enterprise plans, use a Custom List to select applications and update their hiring\-team role in bulk\. Review the selected records before running the update\. View the Custom Lists guide [](https://docs.ashbyhq.com/custom-reports)Custom Lists aren’t available on the Foundations plan\. To update an individual application’s hiring team, use the direct assignment method above\.[](https://docs.ashbyhq.com/custom-reports)
Hiring\-team assignments across many jobs	Use CSV import for broader Job\-level updates\. Mapped hiring\-team fields overwrite existing values, so include every assignment you want to retain in those fields\. View the CSV import guide

When I’d use a Custom List

Two recruiters may correctly share a Job, but both may also be listed on existing applications that should each have one owner\. In that situation, keep both recruiters on the Job and clean up ownership on the applications\.

I find Custom Lists useful here because you can gather the relevant applications across stages—including archived applications—and update them together\.

Group applications by their intended recruiter\. For example, if your team assigns ownership to whoever conducted the first\-round interview, use that information to identify the group\.

Review the records before updating\. Confirm who should own them and whether historical applications should be included\.

Update the Recruiter role for that group\. Leave the intended owner assigned, then repeat for applications owned by the other recruiter\.

Check the result

Review a few affected records\. Confirm that the intended recruiter is listed, other required hiring\-team assignments remain, and only the intended records changed\.

How do I find applications with multiple recruiters?*

On Plus and Enterprise plans, create a Custom List of Job Considerations\. Add candidate name, Job, and Job Consideration’s Recruiter as columns, then filter to the applications you need to review\. Look for more than one name in the Recruiter column\.

Without Custom Lists, open the relevant applications and review Hiring Team under Activities & Progress\. Checking only the Job’s hiring team will not confirm who is assigned to each application\.

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Before you put your approach into practice

• [ ] We have chosen recruiter ownership approaches our team can maintain
• [ ] We have agreed when candidate ownership is assigned and who updates it at handoff
• [ ] We know which recruiter field our reporting depends on
• [ ] We have removed the extra recruiters where a single owner is intended
• [ ] We know whether Permissions Automation is on, and what our changes will do to access
• [ ] We have checked sample records against the report and explained any shared recruiter counts

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