This article contains all the information you need to manage the candidate documents you will find under Documents on the Profile tab of the application. It will explain which document categories are available, how you assign documents to specific categories, and how to set up access rights for the employees involved in the application process. 

Access rights for candidate documents

Candidate documents usually contain sensitive information that not all the employees involved in the recruiting process should be able to view or edit. You can use Recruiting roles to specify the access rights for the individual document categories. To do so, go to Settings > Recruiting > Recruiting > Roles > Candidate documents. 

You can assign either viewing or editing rights, with editing rights automatically including viewing rights. Candidate documents are organized into the following categories: 

Special rules apply to the document categories Offer, Uncategorized and Outbound message attachments. You will learn more about this under Special categories. 

Characteristics of Viewing Rights

The following rules apply for viewing rights:

• Viewing rights allow an employee to view the documents on the Profile tab of the application. They do not allow an employee to upload documents or change document categories.
• An employee with viewing rights can view message attachments in the Messages tab of the application, as long as their recruiting role also has at least viewing rights for Messages. 

Characteristics of Editing Rights

The following rules apply for editing rights:

• The editing mode for the Documents section in the candidate's Profile tab is only visible for employees who have editing rights for at least one document category. Employees can then upload documents or change document categories.
• An employee can only assign document categories if they have editing rights for the categories in question. If an employee has viewing but not editing rights for certain categories, these will be greyed out when they are in editing mode. 
• Employees with editing rights can assign email attachments to the relevant document category directly from the Messages tab. You can find out more under Managing Document Categories in the Candidate Profile. 

Notes
▶︎ If an employee with editing rights for a certain category changes the category of a document to another category they don't have editing rights for, they will not be able to reverse this change.
▶︎ Should the employee have viewing rights for the newly assigned category, they will still be able to view the document, but not change its category.
▶︎ If they don't have viewing rights, the document will no longer be visible for employees with their recruiting role. 

Special categories: 

Manage document categories in the candidate profile

The candidate profile allows you to upload new candidate documents and assign categories. There are several ways to assign a category to a candidate document. This can be done via the Profile tab or the Messages tab. The following section provides an overview of both options: 

In the Profile tab 

1. Go to the required application and select the Profile tab.
2. If the candidate profile does not yet contain any documents, click on the Upload documents button. If documents have already been uploaded, click on the pen icon in the Documents section to access the upload screen.
3. Then upload new documents and select from the drop-down-menu which Document category you want to assign to the document.

Notes
▶︎ The maximum size per document uploaded in the candidate profile is 10 MB.
▶︎ Only for PDF and DOCX formats are supported.

Tip
If you have editing rights for the category, you can also assign existing documents to a different category. 

In the Messages tab

In the Messages tab, you will be able to see both the incoming emails and all the documents that candidates send as attachments during the application process. You can assign these to a category directly from this tab. At the same time, they are also saved under Documents on the Profile tab.

Notes
▶︎ The relevant recruiting role must be granted at least viewing rights for Messages. 
▶︎ To set a document category directly from the Messages tab, you will need editing rights for the Uncategorized category because incoming candidate documents automatically belong to this category.

1. Go to the required application and enter the Messages tab. 
2. Use the drop-down menu next to each document to categorize the file. If you only have viewing rights, you will be able to see the file and file name, but cannot categorize it.

Tip
Any documents you send to candidates via the Messages tab will be assigned to the Outbound message attachments category. 

Notes
▶︎ The limit regarding the size of the attachment documents is up to 10 MB.
▶︎ The following formats are supported: bib, doc, xml, docx, dotx, fodt, html, ltx, txt, odt, ott, pdb, pdf, psw, rtf, sdw, stw, sxw, uot, vor, wps, epub, png, bmp, emf, eps, fodg, gif, jpg, jpeg, met, odd, otg, pbm, pct, pgm, ppm, ras, std, svg, svm, swf, sxd, sxw, tif, tiff, xhtml, xpm, odp, fodp, potm, pot, pptx, pps, ppt, pwp, sda, sdd, sti, sxi, uop, wmf, csv, dbf, dif, fods, ods, ots, pxl, sdc, slk, stc, sxc, uos, xls, xlt, xlsx.
▶︎ However, only the following file types can be previewed in the candidate profile: pdf, docx, doc, jpg, png, txt, jpeg, odt, ods, xlsx, rtf, xls, pptx, ppt, gif, tif, tiff, bmp, csv.

Specify document categories in the application form

If you use the Personio Career Page, you can let your candidates assign their documents to a category when uploading them in the application form. To specify which document categories should be available to your candidates as upload options in the application form, follow these steps:

1. Go to Settings > Recruiting > Career page > Application form settings.
2. Under Document upload fields, you will find CV and Other as predefined default categories. 
3. Click on Select fields to activate further categories, and define if these should be required for the application.

Alternatively, you can also set up a specific application form per job and choose which documents are required to apply.

If candidates use the application form, they will find that it contains an upload option for the document categories you have specified. When candidates select a particular category for their document upload, their documents will then automatically be assigned to that category. If you want to change the category later on in the candidate's profile, you will need editing rights for the document category that contains the document.

Tip
By adding categories to the Recruiting API, you can also submit categorized documents from your company's own career page. For more information, take a look at our Developer Hub. 

Notes 
▶︎ The maximum size per document received via the application form is 20 MB.
▶︎ The following formats are supported : pdf, docx, doc, png, jpg, jpeg, txt, odt, ods, xlsx, rtf, xls, pptx, ppt, gif, tif, tiff, bmp, csv, rar, gz, zip, 7z, mp4, 3gp, mov, avi, wmv.