Reviewing inbound applicants

Applicants always create an inbound record, but whether they wait for review depends on the workspace or posting intake policy. In review mode they wait in For Review in the job's Inbound tab — a pre-pipeline holding area — until a recruiter accepts or rejects them. Automatic intake can add clean applicants directly to the pipeline while holding duplicates or processing failures for review. (The queue also appears as an Inbound column at the start of the job's pipeline board.)

The Inbound tab

Open a job and select Inbound. Applicants are grouped by status pills, with counts: For Review (default), Accepted, Rejected and Screened out.

Each row shows:

• Name and avatar, with email, phone and location.
• Match badge — Strong Match, Moderate Match or Weak Match, with a percentage. Open "Why this score" for the AI's explanation.
• Work experience — expandable, parsed from the CV.
• CV preview — open the resume via a secure link.
• Source icon — "Applied via job portal" or "Applied via LinkedIn" — and the application date.

Accepting an applicant

Click Accept and confirm the pipeline stage (it defaults to your workspace's inbound default stage, or the posting's configured stage). Kepler then:

1. Finds an existing candidate with the same email — or creates a new candidate record.
2. Attaches the CV to the candidate's Documents as their resume.
3. Creates the application and places it at the chosen pipeline stage.
4. Logs the "applied via portal/LinkedIn" activity and indexes the candidate for search and matching.

Rejecting

Click Reject to move an applicant to the Rejected list. No candidate record is created and nothing enters your pipeline. Rejected applicants stay visible for audit.

Screened out

Open Screened out to inspect applicants Kepler classified as junk. You can still accept a screened-out applicant. If résumé processing failed, use Retry processing or review the applicant manually.

Bulk review

Select several For Review applicants, then choose Accept selected or Reject selected — useful after a posting attracts a wave of weak matches. Ambiguous duplicates remain in review for an individual link-or-create decision.

Notifications

The job owner is notified when a new applicant arrives (processed, parsed and scored). Tune this in your notification preferences.