# Reviewing inbound applicants

> Work the Applicants page and the New applicants lane — read AI fit and match scores, view CVs, and add, store or decline applicants.

_Collection: Job Advertising & Portal (job-portal) — Kepler Help Center. Canonical: https://keplercrm.com/support/articles/review-inbound-applicants/_

Applicants from your job portal, LinkedIn and your own website all arrive on one **Applicants** page (**Jobs → Applicants**). Kepler parses each CV and scores the applicant against the job, but nobody is added to a pipeline automatically: every applicant who isn't screened out as junk waits until a recruiter adds, stores or declines them.

## Where applicants show up

  - On **Jobs**, click **Applicants** in the toolbar. The button shows how many are waiting, and only appears while someone is.

  - On the Jobs board, a job card with people waiting shows *N new applicants to decide on*. Click it to open that job's pipeline.

  - On a job's **Pipeline** tab, the board starts with a **New applicants** lane while anyone is waiting (see below). In the table view, click **Review** on the line above the pipeline (*N applicants need a decision*) to open the Applicants page filtered to that job.

  - On **Pipeline**, the line above the views does the same for every job.

  - From an applicant notification.

## The New applicants lane

On a job's pipeline board, each waiting applicant has a dashed card with their fit, where they applied and how long they've waited. Click **Accept to** *stage* to add them at the posting's stage, or **Decline**. You can also drag a card onto a stage to add them there, or onto the reject tray to decline. Click the card itself to open the full review in a side panel, with **Accept to** *stage* (the arrow picks another stage), **Store only** and **Decline**. In the panel, `J` and `K` (or the arrow keys) move between applicants, and `A`, `S` and `D` accept, store and decline.

## The Applicants page

The chips across the top switch between **Needs decision** (the default), **Screened out**, **Stored**, **Declined** and **Added**, each with a count. **All jobs** and **My jobs** narrow the list; a job filter shows as its own chip, which you can clear.

Applicants are grouped by job, then by fit: **Good fit**, **Knock-out** (a must-have is missing), **Low fit** (folded away until you open it), then **Not scored yet**. Applicants who failed a screening rule sit last, under **Failed a rule**. Each row shows the applicant's name, fit, match percentage, headline and application date, plus flags such as *duplicate?* or *unreadable CV*.

## Reviewing an applicant

Select an applicant to see everything on the right:

  - **Fit for this role** — the match badge (**Strong Match**, **Moderate Match** or **Weak Match**) with a percentage, and the AI's reasons.

  - **Criteria** — how the applicant meets each of the job's [match criteria](/support/articles/ai-candidate-matching/).

  - **May already be in your CRM** — possible existing candidates, so you can merge instead of creating a duplicate.

  - **Experience (from the CV)** and any screening answers. Click **View CV** to open the CV itself.

## Deciding

Decide with the buttons in the bar at the bottom of the page:

| Action | What happens |
| --- | --- |
| Add to pipeline at stage | Creates the candidate record (or uses the existing one) and an application at that stage. Use the arrow beside the button to choose another stage under Add at stage . The default is the posting's stage, then your workspace's Inbound default stage. The button reads Accept & merge when the applicant will be merged into an existing record (one possible match, or the one you picked with Merge into this ), Create as new when there are several possible matches and you haven't picked one, and Accept anyway when the applicant failed a screening rule. |
| Store only | Keeps the applicant as a candidate for other roles, without an application on this job. Stored applicants can be added to a pipeline later from Stored . |
| Decline | No candidate record is created and nothing is sent to the applicant. Declined applicants stay visible under Declined . |

Each decision shows **Undo** for a few seconds. Undoing an add removes the application, and the candidate too if the add created them and nobody has used the record since.

Use `J` and `K` (or the arrow keys) to move through the queue and `X` to tick the current applicant. Deciding is always a click on this page.

## Screened out

Open **Screened out** to inspect applicants Kepler classified as spam or junk — nothing is deleted silently. You can still add one with **Restore and add**, or store it.

If a CV couldn't be read, the applicant stays in **Needs decision** marked *unreadable CV*. Use **Retry** in the **Processing** section, or open the CV and decide yourself.

## Bulk review

In **Needs decision**, good fits arrive ticked. Tick or untick applicants (or use **Select all**), then choose **Add N to pipeline**, **Store N** or **Decline N**. The **Low fit** group has its own **Store all** and **Decline all**, and **Handle the rest**, at the top of an applicant's details, offers to add all of a job's good fits or store all its low fits at once. Applicants who might already be in your CRM are held back from bulk adds for a one-by-one decision.

## Notifications

The job owner gets a notification straight away for a **Strong Match** good fit, and for an applicant whose CV couldn't be scored. Everyone else waiting is summed up once a day in an **Applicants waiting for review** notification. Choose how these reach you under **Settings → Notifications**, in **Applicants**.

> **TIP:** Review applicants at least daily while a posting is live — response rates drop sharply after 48 hours, and the Good fit group tells you exactly who to call first.