What are Automations?
Automations let you attach rules to any stage in your hiring process. When a candidate enters a stage or reaches a certain score, Alva can automatically take action on your behalf - such as sending an assessment invitation, moving the candidate to the next stage, or sending an email.
This means tasks that would normally require manual effort - like sending the same assessment to every new applicant - happen consistently and immediately, without you having to do them one by one.
Automations are particularly useful when you're hiring at volume or running multiple jobs at the same time, as they help ensure every candidate gets the same experience regardless of how busy things get. You stay in control throughout: Alva notifies you before any action is taken, and you can always cancel or send immediately.
How Automations work
Each automation has two parts: a trigger (what causes it to fire) and an action (what Alva does automatically).
Triggers
Trigger | When it fires |
Candidate enters a stage | Fires as soon as a candidate is dragged into or moved to a stage |
Score threshold reached | Fires when a candidate's Role Fit score or Stage Score crosses a value you define |
Actions
Action | What it does |
Send assessment | Automatically sends an invitation for the assessment(s) configured in that stage (e.g. Logic test, Personality test, Coding challenge, Screening for Readiness) |
Move candidate | Moves the candidate to another stage based on their score |
Send email | Sends an email to the candidate from you or another member of the hiring team |
Setting up an Automation
Open your job position and go to the Stages tab. In the top right corner, click Automation
to switch to the Automation viewClick + Add automation on the stage where you want to add it
Choose your trigger - stage entry or score threshold
Set your action - which assessment to send, which stage to move to, or what email to send
Click Save
💡Note: Stages that have active automations are marked with a ⚡ lightning bolt icon so you can spot them at a glance.
What happens when an Automation fires?
When you move a candidate into a stage with an automation, you'll see a notification toast at the bottom of the screen. This tells you what's about to happen — for example, that an assessment invitation will be sent in 20 seconds.
From this notification, you can:
Cancel - Stop the automation from running for this candidate
Send now - Skip the countdown and trigger the action immediately
Default Automations
When you add an assessment to a stage during job setup, Alva automatically creates a Send Assessment automation for that stage. This means candidates who land in that stage will receive their invitation without any manual action from you.
You can remove or edit this default automation at any time from the Automations panel.
Score-based Automations
Instead of triggering an automation when a candidate enters a stage, you can trigger it based on a score.
When setting up a condition, you'll see the following score-based options in the dropdown:
Condition | What it means |
Rolefit | Triggers based on the candidate's overall Role Fit score - a combined measure of how well the candidate matches the role across all assessments |
Stage score | Triggers based on the candidate's score for the specific stage the automation is attached to |
Personality test score | Triggers based on the candidate's score on the personality test specifically |
For each of these, you define a threshold (e.g. ≥ 70% or < 30%) and an action to take when the condition is met - such as moving the candidate to another stage or sending an email.
💡Important: We do not recommend using score-based automations to reject candidates without human oversight. Learn more about use of automatic decision-making.
Sending emails with Automations
With the Send Email automation, you can set up a message that goes out automatically when a candidate enters a stage or reaches a score. You can:
Write the email subject and body
Choose the sender - yourself or another member of the hiring team (e.g. the Hiring Manager)
💡Note: Email templates will soon be available as part of this feature, making it easy to reuse your best-performing messages across different jobs.
Any Questions?
Use the chat in the bottom right corner to connect with a member of our support team.
