Understand employee profile visibility and classification
Purpose
This article explains how Eightfold handles the classification of employees and controls visibility to their profiles and activities.
Overview
Eightfold ensures accurate identification of current and past employees and provides flexible control over who can access sensitive profile information. This is managed through two key mechanisms: refined employee classification logic and clear permissions for viewing past and current employee profiles.
Employee classification
Eightfold classifies individuals within the system based on whether they're current employees, past employees (alumni), or neither.
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Classification: The system determines a profile's status through a specific process:
- It first checks if employee data is present for the profile, typically sourced from an ATS or TM system.
- If employee data is found, it checks for a termination date to differentiate between current and past employees.
- If employee data isn't available, the system scans the "Experiences" section of the profile, including resume data, to see if any experience listed the company name.
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Improved Logic: Individuals could sometimes be classified as employees if they listed participation in company events or seminars on their resume, particularly when official employee data wasn't available. \
The current logic aims to address this issue by placing greater emphasis on ATS and TM data for classification. For certain configurations, a
skip_past_experience_checkflag is introduced in the traits config. When this flag is enabled, the system bypasses the step of checking resume experience for classification purposes. Instead, it only uses current employee data or flags to find out if a candidate is an employee or alumni.
Granular profile visibility control
Eightfold lets users choose who can see detailed information on employee profiles. This includes the activities tab and interview feedback sections.
- Default access: By default, users aren't allowed to view the profiles of employees (both past and present). Without the relevant permissions, the only activities visible are those created by the current user or related to positions on which the current user is a member of the hiring team.
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Separate permissions: To offer more flexibility and precise control, Eightfold uses two distinct permissions for employee profile visibility:
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PERM_VIEW_PAST_EMPLOYEE_ACTIVITY(also known asview_past_employee_profiles): This permission lets users see all the activities and feedback linked to past employees. -
PERM_VIEW_CURRENT_EMPLOYEE_ACTIVITY(also known asview_present_employee_profiles): This permission lets users see all the activities and feedback only for current employees.
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These separate permissions allow administrators to decouple access control. You can grant users permission to see past employee information, current employee information, or both, based on their role and privacy requirements.
How to use
Administrators can configure these permissions for different user roles within the platform. By assigning PERM_VIEW_PAST_EMPLOYEE_ACTIVITY and/or PERM_VIEW_CURRENT_EMPLOYEE_ACTIVITY to specific roles (such as Administrators, Recruiters, or Hiring Managers), you control which employees' profile activities and feedback those users can view.