When your team is evaluating multiple candidates at the same time, it's important to be able to quickly view the status of each interview and any reasons why a candidate was not moved on afterward. This prevents you or your team members from constantly circling back to the same candidates, wondering why they were passed over. Furthermore, if there are times when you need to fill a role quickly, or the parameters for the role change during the recruitment process, you can go back and quickly see whether certain candidates should be reconsidered.
Zoho Recruit provides you with default evaluation reasons and default interview statuses that are visible to anyone with the suitable access permissions to help you conduct faster, more efficient interviews. Custom reasons and statuses can also be added to better match your hiring process.
List of default interview statuses:
- Hired
- Rejected
- On-hold
- Strong Hire
- Strong Reject
- Cancelled
- Shortlist
- Waitlist
- Move to next round
List of default reasons for rejection:
When recruiters, interviewers, or hiring managers reject a candidate, they can use this field to state their reasoning.
- Did not fit company culture
- Did not meet desired qualifications
- Did not meet minimum qualifications
- Did not meet screening requirements
- Incomplete application
- Ineligible to work in location
- Misrepresented qualifications
- Better qualified candidate selected
- No show for interview
- Other
- Unresponsive
List of default cancellation reasons:
When recruiters, interviewers, or hiring managers cancel an interview, they can use this field to state their reasoning.
- Candidate no-show
- Interviewer unavailable
- Job opening closed
- Job opening on-hold
- Others
Add a custom reason or status
If you do not find a suitable reason or status among the default options, you can add custom reasons for rejects and cancellations as well as custom statuses. These custom options will then be listed along with the default options for easier access later.
- To add a custom reason, go to Setup > Customization > Modules.
- Under the List of Modules, you'll find Interviews. Click the more actions button to the right of it and choose Layout in the pop-up.

- Under the Evaluation Information section, you will find Interview Status, Reason for Rejection, and Cancellation Reason.
- Click Edit Properties next to the preferred field (in this case 'Interview Status').

- Click the + icon next to add a custom reason.

- Click Done to save your custom reasons.
- Alternatively, when you're cancelling or submitting an evaluation for an interview, you can add custom reasons by clicking + Add New Values in the Overall Recommendation list.

Note:
You can use these statuses and reasons in
- Email Template merge fields
- Smart Filters
- Reports
- Related lists
- Custom view, workflow and blueprint criteria
- Advanced Search