When hiring is active across multiple roles simultaneously, keeping track of candidates becomes its own challenge. Who applied for which position? What are their contact details? Are they still in the pipeline, or have they been placed elsewhere? Without a dedicated place to see all candidates together, recruitment teams end up piecing together information from job-specific pipelines, emails, and spreadsheets.
Horilla HRMS solves this with a dedicated Candidates section — a centralized directory where every applicant in the system is visible in one place, regardless of which role or stage they are associated with.
Where to Find It
The Candidates section sits within the Recruitment module. Click the Recruitment icon in the left sidebar, and the sub-menu expands to show: Dashboard, Recruitment Pipeline, Recruitment Survey, Candidates, Interview, Recruitment, Open Jobs, Stages, and Skill Zone. Click on Candidates.
The page is titled “Candidates” and is accessible at Horilla > Recruitment > Candidates.
The Card View
The Candidates page defaults to a card view — a grid layout where each candidate is represented as a card showing their profile photo, full name, email address, and the role or position they applied for. The grid presents multiple candidates at a glance, making it easy to visually browse the pool without the density of a table.
Each card has a three-dot menu in the top right corner for individual actions — opening the full candidate record, editing details, or other operations available for that candidate.
The current view shows candidates like Liam Bennett, Noah Anderson, Sophia Carter, Lucas Rogers, Amelia Hayes, Emily Turner, Henry Jenkins, Sebastian Howard, Mia Reed, William Peterson, Benjamin Foster, Grace Price, Elijah Collins, Olivia Coleman, Charlotte Brooks, and Ava Mitchell — each with their email and the position they are associated with, such as Odoo Dev or Sales Man.
List View Option
At the top right of the page, alongside the Search bar, Filter, and Actions buttons, there are two view toggle icons — a list view icon and a grid/card view icon. Switching to list view presents the same candidate data in a traditional table format, which is more useful when you need to sort by a specific column or compare details across many candidates at once.
Both views show the same underlying data — the choice between them is simply about what makes the most sense for the task at hand.
The Active Filter
The Candidates page applies a default filter: “Is active: True.” This means the view shows only currently active candidates — those who are still in the pipeline or relevant to an ongoing process. Candidates who have been archived or marked inactive are hidden from this default view, keeping the directory clean and focused on live prospects.
This filter can be removed or adjusted through the Filter button if you need to see historical or archived candidates as well. The Save option next to the filter bar lets you save a custom filter configuration for repeated use.
Colored Indicators on Cards
Looking at the candidate cards, some have a colored strip on the left edge. These indicators reflect the candidate’s current status or stage in the recruitment process — providing a quick visual cue about where they stand without needing to open each record. This is similar to the status strips seen in other Horilla list views and serves the same purpose: making a large grid scannable without additional clicks.
Searching and Filtering
The Search bar at the top right of the page allows searching by candidate name or email. For more structured filtering, the Filter button opens a panel with options to narrow the candidate list by specific criteria — role applied for, stage, active status, and other attributes.
This is particularly useful when a recruiter needs to quickly pull up all candidates for a specific position, or when HR wants to find a particular candidate by name without scrolling through the full directory.
Why a Centralized Candidate Directory Matters
Recruitment in most organizations happens across multiple active positions at the same time. Without a centralized view, every candidate only exists within the context of the specific job they applied for. That works fine when reviewing a single pipeline, but it creates blind spots in other situations.
A centralized candidate directory gives recruiters visibility they would not otherwise have. If a strong candidate applied for one role and was not selected, they may be an excellent fit for a different opening that comes up three months later. Without a searchable directory, that candidate is effectively invisible unless someone remembers to check a specific pipeline. With one, they are findable in seconds.
It also supports talent relationship management. Some candidates are worth staying in contact with even when no immediate role is available. Having them all in one searchable, filterable list — rather than buried in the history of individual job postings — makes proactive talent engagement genuinely feasible.
The Candidates page in Horilla HRMS is more than a list of applicants. It is a searchable, filterable directory of every person who has entered the recruitment process — organized cleanly in a card or list layout, with active filtering by default to keep the view focused on live candidates. For recruitment teams managing multiple open roles and a continuously growing candidate pool, this centralized view is one of the more practical pieces of the recruitment module, turning what would otherwise be fragmented pipeline data into an accessible, organized resource.
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