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Adding historical candidates to Greenhouse using bulk import

Permissions: Job Admins who can view or edit candidates or above

Product tier: Available for Advanced and Expert subscription tiers

For customers who are migrating to Greenhouse for the first time and want to ensure their full candidate history is included in Greenhouse Recruiting, it's recommended to do three separate imports to account for current candidates, past candidates who were rejected, and past candidates who were hired. 

Notes about historical candidate data in Greenhouse Recruiting:

  • Each import can only contain up to 8,000 rows. If you have more candidates, they will need to be separated into multiple imports.
  • Candidates who have been hired or rejected will automatically be emailed GDPR/CCPA information unless the consent extension email rules are disabled
  • Historical data can be used as a reference, but limitations may prevent effective reporting

Upload current and historical candidates to Greenhouse

  1. First, upload active candidates in the Application, Assessment, Face to Face, or Offer milestone using the bulk import. These are the "current" or "active" candidates who will be evaluated using auto-merge.
  2. Then, temporarily disable auto-merge.
  3. Bulk upload historical candidates who were rejected (with no milestone selected).
  4. Bulk upload historical candidates who were hired (with no milestone selected)
  5. Re-enable auto merge (for future applications)

Tip: When uploading historical candidates, Greenhouse recommends using the ‘Container job’ method, where all historical candidates are housed in a single job in Greenhouse:

  • Create a job in Greenhouse named ‘HISTORICAL DATA’ (or similar)
  • Mark the job as a "Template" so it can be easily excluded from reports
  • Select your container job as the destination for all historical candidates

Mark past rejected candidates as "rejected" in Greenhouse

  1. Go to the all candidates page and filter the list using the tag matching the import from the rejected candidates upload. (Candidates > Candidate Tag filter > find Import tag, e.g, ‘Imported Jun 18, 2025’)
  2. Bulk reject those candidates without sending a rejection email. This ensures that the candidates are labeled properly in Greenhouse, but avoids unintentionally sending an email to those users. (Bulk Actions > Reject > select “Reject and Don’t Send Email”)