Candidate ownership
By Linus Lu
This article will cover some of the rules and policies regarding candidate ownership on the platform.
Rules of ownership
Recruiters gain ownership over candidates when they are submitted to a role.
Candidate ownership is specific to the company that the candidate has been submitted to. That means that different recruiters can have ownership over the same candidate if different recruiters have submitted that candidate to roles at different companies.
Candidate ownership duration is 12 months for all companies unless otherwise noted.
Submitting a candidate to our general submission does not confer overall ownership of that candidate. Candidate ownership will only be given and the ownership period starts once the candidate has been submitted to a particular role, and then only to the company that that role belongs to.
Candidate ownership conflicts
In cases where multiple recruiters have sourced or engaged a candidate for the same role, and one recruiter submits that candidate to the role, Paraform will trigger a conflict email to both recruiters notifying them of the potential ownership conflict.
In most cases, candidate ownership will go to the recruiter that ultimately submitted the candidate. Submittal of the candidate will override almost all other considerations, including first contact date and first response date.
Overturning or sharing ownership
The only case where candidate ownership may be overturned is if the challenging recruiter was first to get the candidate not just interested in the role but committed to being submitted to that role on Paraform. Evidence from email/message exchanges and from the candidate’s vouching may be required to support a final decision around candidate ownership.
In cases similar to the one above, but with less clearly defined timelines and evidence, candidate ownership may be shared between the recruiters, either 50/50 or 80/20 depending on the strength of evidence available.
Other Conflict Cases
Let’s say that Recruiter A and Recruiter B both sourced and contacted a candidate for a role, and Recruiter B ends up submitting the candidate.
- If Recruiter A had reached out to the candidate at an earlier date than Recruiter B, but the candidate only responded to Recruiter B, then Recruiter B will get full ownership of the candidate.
- If Recruiter A had reached out to the candidate at an earlier date than Recruiter B, and the candidate had responded to Recruiter A but only expressed interest in the role to Recruiter B, even at a later date, then Recruiter B will get full ownership of the candidate.
- If Recruiter A had reached out to the candidate either earlier or later than Recruiter B, and the candidate expressed interest in the role to both recruiters in which the dating and precedence is uncertain, and the candidate only admits to expressing interest in the role to Recruiter B, then Recruiter B will get full ownership of the candidate.
If your case is not reflected in the scenarios listed above, a member of the Paraform team will assess the case individually and make a final decision after both parties have introduced all relevant information.
Arbitration of candidate ownership conflict
We heavily encourage all recruiters on Paraform to be forthcoming with information and to resolve candidate ownership issues peer to peer, and in the vast majority of cases, we expect recruiters to be able to respectfully and amicably resolve ownership conflicts. Decisions with mutual agreement from both recruiter parties will be considered binding and final by Paraform.
Only in situations not clearly resolvable from the guidelines laid out in this article, or with prolonged disagreement between, will the Paraform team step in and arbitrate the dispute.
Until and unless an explicit written notice has been made by Paraform informing all parties to overturn or share candidate ownership, ownership should be assumed to be fully held by the submitting recruiter.
Paraform reserves the final authority to make decisions about candidate ownership. As a recruiter, you should be assured that the Paraform team will strive to make ownership decisions in a timely manner that is fair and considerate of all the facts presented.
Duplicate outreach and ownership
When you source a candidate on the Chrome extension and mark them as contacted, this following message will be presented to other recruiters looking to source the same candidate for the same role.
This message will remain there for 10 days after you source the candidate, and is meant to discourage duplicate outreach and protect the candidate experience.
Contacting a candidate does not prevent or preclude other recruiters from contacting that candidate for the same role, nor does it give precedence to the recruiter who contacted the candidate first when it comes to claiming candidate ownership.
For candidates that have already been submitted to the role or to a role at the same company, they will be off limits to any further outreach for that company, but will be fair game for outreach regarding other clients.
