Tips for Recruiters

Crewdentials is perfect as either:

• a maritime specific tool to work alongside your ATS to gather and manage your certificates

• your database of applicants and documents in place of an ATS. It can also act as your registration portal

Either way, your first step is creating a Workflow to attach your Crew to. We will cover Workflows on a later step.

We know that a lot of the shore based recruitment systems offer really great functionality, and we know how hard it is to change systems. If that's the case then we can help make that system better, and more relevant for the unique challenges that maritime recruitment brings!

Crewdentials offers specialist maritime layer, delivering a seamless user experience for you and your applicants.

Simply build a Workflow (guide here if you need some help) and get your applicants to fill it in!

The applicant will appear in your crew list and their documents will appear in your Workspace - neatly organised, consistently named in accordance with our comprehensive database of certificates, and showing which are expired or expiring!

On your Workflow we recommend gathering enough data so that you can easily cross reference the applicant to your ATS database.  

Once an applicant has uploaded their documents into your Workflow, they will be given the option of creating their own individual Crew Profile with Crewdentials. You will appear as a Connection in that individual's Crew Profile and they can easily update you with new or refreshed certificates. We will even notify them when something is expiring.

Don't worry - if they don't create their own Crewdentials Profile, they can still log in to your Workflow and update their information with you

If your ATS offers APIs we may be able to get the two systems to talk to each other - please get in contact

If you simply want to have the 2 systems working alongside each other without a technical integration you have a number of options. How you wish to do this may depend on your current processes - we are always around to bounce ideas off.

Getting the url link in the hands of your applicants:

• if your ATS offers customisation, add an element such as an "upload your certificates here" to the page that the applicants see after they register, or when they log in. This element can host the url to the Workflow (we recommend using a Public Workflow). Simply copy and paste the url so that when the element is clicked, the applicant is taken to the Workflow

• you could add a url to your welcome or registration email which reminds the applicant to upload their certificates in accordance with your processes (for example on registration, or when put forward for a job)

• you could add a link to your website

Once the applicant is registered and has uploaded their certificates:

• On the Workflow there is a space in Private Data for a "Reference Code"(remember only you and your Workspace Users will see this). If the applicant has a unique code assigned to them in your ATS then you could add that here

• In the back end of your ATS, you could add a link to either the Workflow (using the Crew portal link on the left of a crew profile) or link directly to the applicant's specific Profile in your Workspace.

• In the back end of your ATS you could create an element which you update manually to show whether an applicant has supplied their certificates or not

You can have any number of Workflows you like. Most of the recruiters we work with have one Workflow which is flexible enough to suit any applicant.

Here are some recruitment specific tips on using Workflows!

One or more Workflows?

It really depends on your use case. With our tools to Group together crew once they are in your Workspace, a lot of our customers are happy to use just one Workflow.

Alternatively, you could have separate Workflows, perhaps for different pools - for example an interior or exterior pool. Each of these Workflows could be more specific about the certificates you want to collect from applicants to those pools.

Remember, each Workflow has its own url so you will need to make them all available for crew to register, and update their information with you.

If you do want to use more than one Workflow, each one will appear as a different connection in an applicant's Crewdentials Crew Profile, so for example [Recruiter Co name] - Website Sign up and [Recruiter Co name - Stewardess Roles]

Once applicants and their documents are in your Workspace, you can:

• group together profiles,

• manage and verify documents

Data

If you're using Crewdentials as a bolt on to an existing ATS, we recommend you collect sufficient information from the Crew Member to identify them and cross-reference to your ATS. Remember the "private data" is a section that only you can see so you can put a unique identifier in here.

If you're using Crewdentials as your applicant database, you can add in data fields to collect more information such as roles sought, experience, extra skills such as yoga instructor and give you the opportunity to track a candidate's progress with private data fields such as recruitment notes, interview notes and status (including background checked-interviewed-put forward-placed). Get in touch with us on [email protected] if you need any additional data fields.

If you want to share your candidate's profiles with your clients, we recommend adding in a data field that you can use for a summary of the candidate

Documents

The Workflows we've seen recruiters use generally have document blocks for:

• STCW

• medical fitness certificate

• a custom document block to collect highest Certificate of Competency

• a custom document block to collect any Flag State Endorsements held; and

• a custom document block (added as an "anything" block) so that an applicant can send in other relevant certificates.

It's up to you whether you make any document block mandatory. A candidate will still be able to submit a profile without a document in a mandatory block, but you will be alerted with a red button next to the document placeholder.

You can also collect passports, CVs, references, photos on a Workflow. Again, use the custom document block (added as an "anything" block) and add a title and label explaining what you want the applicant to provide.

If you want to share candidates profiles with your clients via Group external access, be aware that if you use an "anything" block you can only choose whether to send all or none of the documents in that block

If you do specialist role based recruitment then you can specify specific certificates that someone has to provide (and make the document block mandatory if you wish)

Crew can be added in one of 2 ways:

• they can be imported from a Workflow; or

• you can add them from the Crew page by clicking the Add crew button. You can then add them to a Workflow and choose whether to invite them to collaborate with you.

To import from a Workflow: go to the Workflow, then to Profiles and you will see a list of all individuals who have submitted a profile on that Workflow.

In the column External, an entry of Yes means they have not yet been imported into your Workspace. 

Review their documents, and if you want them to appear in your Crew list, click the Import Profile button.

Alternatively you can delete the submission (click the 3 vertical buttons and select delete. The Crew Member will be notified (you can customise the message)

You can leave the submission on the Workflow and not import it. It will continue to show as "External: Yes". They will not be added to your Crew List and their Documents will not be added to your Document list.

Documents in your Workspace you be managed and verified as you wish.

Documents appear in your Workspace in one of 2 ways:

• by crew providing them to you via a Workflow; or

• by a member of your team adding a document. You can choose whether to share documents with crew.

More detail about Documents can be found in these guides

If you are looking for someone with a specific qualification, you may find it helpful to navigate to the Documents page and filter on the Doc column by the type of qualification you need. You will then be presented with a list of all your applicants in your Workspace with that qualification, and easily sort by those which are verified, or in date!

You could also group your applicants together by (eg) highest qualification - really useful if you have loads of crew in your Workspace

This is also the section where you will find verification tools - simply click on the Document, and choose the tab Verifications and select "start new verification"

Groups are a really useful way of grouping together information, documents and crew.

Groups can be one of 3 types:

• Vessel

• Contact

• General

We've seen recruiters use Groups in a number of ways so we thought some examples might help!

You can add crew to a group and then grant external access - meaning that you can share details of shortlisted candidates. See our guide in Groups!

Vessels

Create a Vessel Group and add all the information you need about the vessel (AIS tracking, billing details etc). Add documents that you need to keep hold of such as registration certificate, insurance certificate, MLC certificate and/or standard SEA.

You could add crew onto the Vessel once they've been placed, or create a new group (type: General) for each role. See further information in this guide about managing roles or placed candidates

Contacts

Create a Contact group and add relevant details - for example the captain or HoD that you are dealing with, or the management company. Add the contact as a sub-group to the relevant vessel.

General

General groups can be used to group together crew by jobs that you are recruiting for, or you could group your crew by any of the below metrics:

• depending on your volumes of crew - the month, quarter or year in which you placed them, or which they registered

• by vessel or role that you are recruiting for (don't forget you can use sub-group so you could have a Vessel with a sub-group for a role onboard that vessel)

• Recruitment pools - perfect for those crew that register with you but you don't have a role for them but want to keep hold of their details

• by role or qualification - add an applicant to a group based on the highest qualification they hold and instantly have a curated list of appropriately qualified people ready to take on a role!

• verified docs/not verified docs

• complete/incomplete

Click for further guides about creating or managing Groups.

Again, we have seen recruiters use files in a number of ways, some examples of which are...

• Adding vessel joining instructions to a group (vessel/role specific)

• Adding a file to a specific individual's crew Profile

• Adding an insurance document to a group (placed candidates)

• Providing MLC certificate to a group

More detail about using Files in general can be found in these guides

Onboarding a successful applicant onto a vessel or with a manager can be seamless with Crewdentials. Your applicant can simply log in to their Crewdentials Crew Profile and share their certificates!

If the vessel or manager has their own Crewdentials Business Workspace it is even simpler - once the applicant accepts the vessel or manager's Workflow, the documents in their Crew Profile will automatically appear in the Workflow, ready for review and submission

If you refer a vessel or manager to us and they sign up to a paid tier we will give you some Crewdentials service credits - just get in touch on [email protected]!