USER GUIDE
SimpleStaff™ (Hiring)
SimpleStaff is your hiring workspace: post jobs to your website, collect applications, move candidates through your pipeline, schedule interviews, and keep a clean record of every decision along the way.
Before you begin
Two things should be set up before you post your first job:
- An online application form. Every job posting needs an application form attached to it. Build one first under Left menu › Forms › Add Form with the fields every applicant should fill out (name, contact info, resume upload, any custom questions). One form can cover many postings — most teams build one general application form plus one or two specialty forms.
- Job Posting Settings. Open Apps › SimpleStaff › Settings › Job Posting Settings to set the defaults for how postings appear on your public Jobs page.
It also helps to review your Status Taxonomy — the named stages a candidate moves through — before you start (covered under Manage Applicants below). Open the app from Apps › SimpleStaff.
1 Start at the Hiring Dashboard
Your starting point is the Hiring Dashboard — a one-screen overview of active postings with applicant counts, upcoming interviews, your message templates, Hiring Documents, and any active applicant share links with their time remaining. Every panel links straight into the page where you do the actual work.
2 Add and manage job postings
Open Apps › SimpleStaff › Manage Job Postings to add a new posting or edit an existing one. When you create a posting, you write the job details and pick the application form it uses.
To edit or remove a posting later, return to the same list, open the posting, and use its Edit or Delete controls.
3 The public Jobs page
Every active posting appears automatically on your website's public Jobs page, where residents and job-seekers can read the details and click Apply Online. Because the application form is attached to the posting, each submission lands directly in Manage Applicants — no email inbox to sort through.
4 Manage Applicants
Open Apps › SimpleStaff › Manage Applicants to see every posting with an applicant count next to it. Click a posting to see its applicants — name, email, phone, and current status at a glance.
One person who applied to three different postings is one applicant record with three applications. Their notes, files, scorecards, tags, and history follow them across postings, so you never start over.
Toggle between Table view (sortable rows with checkboxes for bulk actions) and Pipeline view (drag cards between status columns) at the top of the page. On the applicant detail page you can change a candidate's status, add tags, leave notes, and record 1-to-5 scorecards.
5 Keep reusable files in Hiring Documents
Open Apps › SimpleStaff › Hiring Documents — your secure repository for templates and forms you reuse across hires, such as offer-letter templates, standard forms, welcome packets, and policy documents. Upload each file once. On any applicant's Files tab, click Add from Hiring Documents to attach it with one click. These files are visible only to hiring staff and never appear on public share links.
6 Schedule interviews with templates and the calendar
Interview Templates are reusable question banks. Three are ready on first use — General Phone Screen, Standard First Round, and Final / Department Head — each with guidance on what a strong answer looks like. Edit them or build your own under Apps › SimpleStaff › Interview Templates.
On an applicant's Interviews tab, click Schedule a new interview, pick a template, and set the date, time, location, and attendees. Each attendee scores independently on a per-question grid, which keeps your hiring decisions well-documented.
Every scheduled interview shows up on the Interview Calendar (in the SimpleStaff menu), color-coded by status. Click Subscribe to get a personal calendar feed you can add to Google Calendar, Outlook, or Apple Calendar — a read-only feed that updates automatically.
7 Email candidates with Message Templates
Every applicant has a Messages tab where you can send email and see the full history, with delivery status. The composer pulls from your site's Message Templates (SimpleStaff › Settings › Message Templates). Five are ready to use: Application acknowledgement, Interview invite, Polite rejection, Offer letter shell, and Onboarding welcome. Each uses merge fields like first name and job title that fill in automatically. Edit them to sound like your team, or build your own.
8 Review Hiring Reports
Open Apps › SimpleStaff › Settings › Hiring Reports for a roll-up of hiring activity, scoped to a date window you choose. Three reports on one page:
- Time to hire — average and median days from application to hire, overall and by department.
- Applicants per posting — every posting that received applications, with a status breakdown.
- Source breakdown — how applications arrived (website, email, imported).
Each report has its own Export CSV button so you can share the numbers.
• Coming soon: Employee Management
Everything above is about hiring. The next chapter of SimpleStaff is about your people after the offer is accepted — secure employee records, a document vault, and repeatable onboarding workflows. These features arrive after the new CMS launches.
Next steps
Get set up in this order: build an application form, review your Job Posting Settings and Status Taxonomy, then post your first job. Before your first round of interviews, upload your reusable files to Hiring Documents and personalize the seeded Message Templates and Interview Templates so they sound like your team.
Related guides: see the User Guides index for Forms (where you build the application form each posting needs).