What this feature does and when to use it?
Backdoor Hire/Lost Fee Report detection builds directly on top of the Job Change Alert Report. Whenever Recruit CRM detects that a candidate has changed jobs, it takes one extra step and checks whether the candidate's new company matches any job the candidate was previously assigned to (Jobs created in the last 365 days) and where they were never marked as Placed.
If the system finds a match, it marks it as a potential backdoor hire, since it suggests the candidate may have joined that company on their own, outside the placement you were working on.
Backdoor Hiring Alerts are useful whenever you want to:
Catch cases where a candidate you sourced or submitted for a role may have been hired directly by the client.
Track and resolve these cases with a clear status workflow, instead of managing them over email or spreadsheets.
Log recovered fees against a record once a backdoor hire situation has been resolved commercially, so you have a record of the outcome.
Before you begin:
Please Note:
Backdoor Hire/Lost Fee Report is available only on the paid plans (Pro, Business and Enterprise).
Users with view access to a specific candidate or contact records will be able to view only those records in this report.
You need Edit access to a record to update the candidate profile or dismiss its job change alert. If you don't have edit access and try to click Update, you'll see a "No access" screen instead.
On the Free plan, detection doesn't run at all, and you'll still see the Backdoor Hire/Lost Fee Report, but it will remain empty. If you later upgrade to a paid plan, detection for your account begins from the next monthly detection cycle.
One Backdoor Hire record unlock consumes 5 Recruit CRM credits per candidate.
How is a potential backdoor hire detected?
There are 2 ways of accessing the potential backdoor hire that is detected:
From the Reports section.
From the Candidate Details Page.
Please note: This check only looks at jobs created within the last 365 days, and only jobs the candidate is currently assigned to at the time of the check. If you later unassign the candidate from that job, it's no longer considered for backdoor hire detection going forward.
From the Reports section:
1. Go to Reports → Backdoor Hiring Report, where you can review, unlock, and track it.
2. From here, you can:
Apply Filters.
Search by the record's name or company to find a specific record quickly.
3. Backdoor Status: You can assign a status to each record to track resolution. The default status is Backdoor Hire. Updating status does not remove the record from the report.
When Recovered is selected, a pop-up allows entry of the recovered fee (in the Job's currency); this appears in the Recovered Amount column and can be edited by selecting Recovered again.
From within the Update Status option, you can also add a task directly against a record, so you don't lose track of what still needs resolving.
4. Total Recovered Amount is shown at the top right. Amounts are shown at two levels: The Recovered Amount column for an individual record is shown in that job's currency. The Total Recovered Amount shown at the top right of the report is shown in your account's currency, and it recalculates automatically whenever you apply filters — so it always reflects the total for whatever subset of records you're currently viewing.
Bulk Actions: You will be able to update Status and Update Profile. When updating status in bulk, an option to simultaneously update profiles is shown. Selecting Recovered in bulk applies the entered fee to each candidate separately. Records already at the chosen status or already updated are skipped.
Sort & Filters: Column-level sorting; filters for New Organization, Assigned Job, Hiring Stage, Start Date, and Status; search by candidate name and company name.
From the Candidate Details Page:
When a potential backdoor hire is detected, a Backdoor Hire Detected badge appears on the candidate's profile:
Note: If a candidate has both a pending Job Change Alert and a Backdoor Hire Detected alert at the same time, only the Backdoor Hire Detected badge is shown on their profile as it takes precedence, since it's the more significant of the two. You can still update the candidate's profile directly from this badge.
The badge stays until you click on 'Update Profile' or 'Dismiss', or a newer job change is detected. Dismissing removes the alert from both the profile and the report, and the same alert won't reappear in future cycles, but a new one will appear if the candidate moves jobs again.
What Happens on Update?
The system updates the Current Organization and Current Title/Position of the candidate.
Creates a new work history entry with the detected job details.
If the previous work history entry had "Currently working in this role" toggled on, its End Date is set using the publicly available data (left blank if unavailable).
If the candidate has reached the maximum number of work history entries, the oldest is removed to make room.
If the new employer doesn't exist as a company record, it is stored as plain text and no company record is auto-created.
Note: When a work history entry is created via the job change alert update, mandatory work history field validation is bypassed. If mandatory fields configured in your account are not available from the publicly available data, those fields will remain empty in the new entry.
Reviewing and unlocking records
Under the Backdoor Hire/ Lost Fee Report, each record shows:
- Candidate Name
- New Organization & Title
- Assigned Job
- Hiring Stage (along with its history)
- Start Date of the candidate's new role
- Job Contact's Phone Number
- Recovered Amount
Please note: The first 2 records in your report are unlocked for free. Every record after that stays blurred until you unlock it, which costs 5 Recruit CRM Credits per candidate.
You can use 'Unlock All' to unlock everything at once. If you don't have enough credits to unlock every blurred record, unlocking proceeds in order, starting with the oldest detected record, until your credits run out.
By default, the report is sorted by when the Assigned Job was created — the older the job, the earlier it appears in the list; the more recently the job was created, the later it appears.
If the same candidate happens to match more than one job at the same company, this is still only treated as one alert, and only costs you one unlock.
Removing an alert
You can clear an alert from a candidate's profile in one of two ways: change their Backdoor Status away from the default "Backdoor Hire" to any other status, or dismiss the alert directly from the badge on the candidate's Details Page.
Note: If you delete a candidate record, it's removed from both the Backdoor Hiring Report and the Job Change Alert Report. If you merge two candidate records where either one had a pending alert, the detection checks rerun on the resulting merged profile, and any relevant alerts are surfaced again on that profile and in both reports.
Conclusion:
Backdoor Hiring Alerts give you visibility into candidates who may have joined a company outside your placement, without needing to track it manually. Review such records in the Backdoor Hiring Report, unlock the ones you need, and use the status and recovered amount fields to keep track of how each case is resolved.