Chat lets your hiring team message applicants without leaving Hatch. You can start a conversation whenever you're ready, keep everything about a job in one place, and organise interviews faster.

To message applicants, you need to be on the job's hiring team as a Hiring manager or Recruiter. You can set someone's role in the job's Meet the team section.

Other hiring team members, and anyone in your company with access to the job's applications, can read conversations but can't send messages. That way, everyone stays in the loop without applicants hearing from too many people. If you can't send messages, you'll see "You can't send messages in this thread" in the message box.

You and the applicant are both notified when there's a new message, so conversations don't go quiet.

Chat opens once you shortlist an applicant. Open their application and you'll find the conversation in the side panel, alongside a timeline of their application, when they were shortlisted and their contact details. Your shortlist message is the first message in the thread.

From there, you don't need to wait for the applicant to reply. Message them whenever you like, whether that's to ask a quick question or set up an interview. You'll see Not viewed under a message until they've read it.

There's no limit on how many messages you can send in a row. You can also keep messaging someone after you've declined their application, for example to share feedback.

Applicants can only message you once your hiring team has made contact, by sending them a message, shortlisting them or inviting them to your job. To keep things balanced, they can send up to two messages in a row before waiting for a reply, and can't message you once their application has been declined.