Playbook, recruitment agency
Which login is it, and which address is sitting on it
A reset is the most mechanical request any website receives and it is still not simple here, because a recruitment site usually fronts more than one login and nobody outside the agency can tell them apart. Underneath sits a duller problem that causes most of these messages: the address the account was registered with is one the person can no longer open, and no reset link fixes that.
Why this is not the general answer
The handling pattern for password resets holds across every trade. What follows is the part that does not.
- The registered address is often a work email at a job the candidate has since left, which is exactly the circumstance that made them start looking again, so the reset arrives somewhere they cannot reach.
- Several logins sit behind one website: a candidate area, a timesheet system for people on assignment and an approval login for client managers, each with separate credentials and a separate support route.
- A candidate who applied through an external listing may never have held an account with the agency at all, so the reset they want is for a service that belongs to somebody else.
- Changing the address on a record is not a reset, and on a database that holds identity documents it is an identity question, which is precisely the thing a chat window cannot settle.
How it arrives
- i did not get the password reset email
- the reset link says it has expired
- i cannot remember which email i registered with
- can you change the email address on my record
- is the timesheet login the same as my candidate login
- i applied through a jobs board do i have a login here
What has to be indexed for this to work
| A list of the logins on your site and what each is for | The candidate area, timesheet submission, client approval. Describe them in the words a worker would use, because the assistant cannot guess and a confident instruction about the wrong one costs somebody an evening. |
|---|---|
| Where the reset link lives for each, and how long it lasts | The exact page, the expiry, and whether requesting a second link invalidates the first. Expired links produce a second message from the same person within minutes, usually a shorter and angrier one. |
| What to do when the registered address is unreachable | The route for somebody who no longer has the email they signed up with, and what you need before you will change it. This is the branch that generates the contact and it is almost never published anywhere. |
| Where reset messages come from | The sending address and the subject line, so somebody can search a spam folder for it. Cheap to publish, and it closes a real share of these without anybody at the agency being involved. |
The reply
There is more than one login here, so it helps to know which you mean: the candidate area, the timesheet system if you are on assignment, or the approval login if you are a hiring manager [1]. For the candidate area the reset link is on the sign in page and it expires, so request a fresh one rather than reusing an older email [2]. If the address on your record is an old work address you cannot open any more, a reset will not help and it needs a person. I cannot change an address or see any account, so leave me your name and an email you can reach.
It asks which login before giving instructions, because three answers exist and confidently picking one is worse than a question. The expiry is mentioned because otherwise the same person writes again in five minutes. And the unreachable address is named as a person's job, which is where most of these actually end up.
Where it stops
The trigger. The registered address is unreachable, the visitor asks to change the email on a record, or the reset is for a system the agency does not run.
A reset will not get you in if the address on the record is one you cannot open, and I cannot change it or check anything from here. Give me your name and an email you can reach now and somebody will sort it out with you.
It stops answering before it guesses, says who will pick it up, and asks for the one thing that makes a reply possible. Nothing about it reads as a dead end.
Never say this here
Out of bounds
- Never say a reset email has been sent, because the assistant cannot trigger one and the person will sit waiting for it.
- Never confirm which address a record is registered under, since that discloses personal data to whoever happens to be typing.
- Never change or promise to change the address on a candidate record, because a holding that includes identity documents needs identity checked properly.
- Never give reset instructions for a system somebody else runs, such as an intermediary's payroll portal or an external listing site.
Questions
- Why does it ask which login every single time?
- Because a recruitment site usually has more than one and the words candidates use for them overlap completely. One question costs a second and prevents the reply that sends a temporary worker to the wrong sign in page the night before a deadline.
- Can it verify who somebody is?
- No, and it should not attempt it. It cannot check identity, read a record or confirm an address, so anything that turns on knowing who is typing goes to a person with the details already collected.
- People say they never received the email. What helps most?
- Publishing the sending address and the subject line. A good share of these are sitting in a spam folder, and giving somebody something to search for ends the conversation without anybody being contacted.
Keep reading
- Everything for a recruitment agencyTwo audiences on one website. Process, payroll and compliance questions are answerable, application outcomes never are.
- Handling password resets in generalAn assistant cannot reset anything. It can walk somebody through your real flow and name the step that usually breaks.
- What an assistant may say about how candidate data is heldProcurement wants to know how a recruiter stores identity documents and worker records. Only published answers, because each one is a commitment.
- Cancelling a search is not cancelling a subscriptionWithdrawing a brief, ending a temp booking and the introduction that stays live for months. Terms answers, never a decision on a case.
- Three clocks running on a recruitment websiteA shift starts before the office opens and the cut off falls at the weekend. Which times a recruitment site actually needs to publish.
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