Offers and e-signature

Offers are in the Growth and Enterprise plans, and signing with DocuSign, Skribble or Yousign in Enterprise. A candidate can always accept an offer already sent. See Plans and the trial.

Offer templates

Open Hiring process › Offers. Admins write the templates; everyone else can read them. Careers Orbit starts you with Offer of employment in English and German.

A template has a heading and the offer itself, with variables that are filled in for each candidate: {firstName}, {lastName}, {jobTitle}, {company}, {salary}, {startDate}, {contractType}, {extra}, {offerExpires}, {senderName} and {today}. Select a variable under the text to insert it. Leave an empty line between paragraphs.

You can add more templates, such as one for seasonal guides, and remove them, but you always keep at least one.

Write the template in your main language first, then choose another language above the fields to translate it. A field left empty in a translation uses your main language, so a German heading can go with an English text while the translation is under way.

How offers work

At the top of the same page, admins choose:

• A second person approves: offers wait for someone else on the hiring team to approve them before they can be sent. The person who made the offer can't approve it.
• Move to hired when accepted: Careers Orbit moves the candidate to the hired stage as soon as they accept. Without it, the hiring team gets a notification and moves them.
• How candidates sign: Careers Orbit's own acceptance, or an external signing service once it is connected (see below).

Make an offer

1. Move the candidate to an offer stage in the hiring room.
2. On their profile, under Offers, select Make an offer. Choose the template and fill in the salary, start date, contract type, anything else such as a bonus, and how many days they have to answer.
3. Read the offer under Read the offer. It is written in the candidate's language. Change updates it while it is a draft.
4. If approval is on, select Ask for approval. The job's owner and hiring team are notified; one of them selects Approve or Ask for changes with a comment.
5. Select Send to the candidate. They get an email with a personal link to the offer. Change that email under Email templates (Your offer).

An application has one open offer at a time: to make a new one, Withdraw the current one first. Recruiters, admins and hiring managers on jobs that let the team act can make offers. A job's Offers tab lists every offer for it.

What the candidate sees

The link opens a page in your career site's colours with the offer, a Download as PDF button and the offer's fingerprint. To accept, they type their full name and tick a box saying that this is their electronic signature. To decline, they can give a reason. Both go straight to the hiring team as a notification, and the profile shows when they opened it.

Candidates can also find the offer in Your applications after signing in with an email code, and accept or decline it there in the same way. Accepting there emails them the signed PDF as an attachment.

The signature record

When a candidate accepts, Careers Orbit records:

• the name they typed and the time;
• their IP address in coded form (a keyed hash, so the address itself isn't stored);
• their browser;
• a SHA-256 fingerprint of the exact text of the offer, which must match the text they were shown.

It then makes a signed PDF: the offer, followed by a certificate page with the record above. The PDF is added to the candidate's files, the candidate gets an email with a link to it, and the profile shows the record under Offers.

This is a simple electronic signature under the EU's eIDAS regulation, not an advanced or qualified one. It shows that the candidate accepted the offer. Some contracts need more by law; in Germany, for example, a fixed-term contract needs a handwritten or qualified electronic signature. The employment contract that follows the offer still sets out all the terms. Check with your lawyer which form you need.

External signing services

DocuSign, Skribble and Yousign are listed under How candidates sign and stay off until the Orbit team connects them on the server. They can give advanced or qualified electronic signatures. Until then, offers use Careers Orbit's own acceptance.

Afterwards

An offer that isn't answered in time expires, and its link says so. Withdraw stops the link working at any time before an answer. Offers stay on the profile with their history; erasing the candidate erases them too. Sent offers and their signature records are in the candidate's own data download; the team's export for an access request also has drafts and each offer's history.