Overview
This page explains how a candidate typically moves through Tenzo from the moment they’re added to a job to a final disposition. For a definition of each stage by name, see Interview Stages.Entry points
A candidate’s first stage depends on how they enter Tenzo:- Most candidates start in Outreach, where Tenzo begins reaching out to schedule or conduct an interview. If the job has resume scoring configured, candidates pass through a brief, transient Awaiting Review step first while Tenzo scores the resume — most users never see this stage in the UI. Candidates whose resumes fail scoring land in Resume Rejected instead of Outreach.
- Candidates start in Cooling Down when they recently received outreach for another job and are still inside that cooldown window.
The happy path
Most candidates who go all the way through Tenzo follow this sequence:- Outreach — Tenzo reaches out to schedule or conduct an interview.
- AI Interview Scheduled (optional) — for video interviews, the candidate books a time and waits for the slot.
- Call Completed — the interview finishes and results are available for review.
Common branches
Resume rejection
If the candidate’s resume doesn’t meet the job’s requirements, they land in Resume Rejected. A recruiter can override this from the candidate’s profile with Progress to Interview, which sends the candidate to Outreach so Tenzo will reach out anyway.Candidates in Resume Rejected can also request a re-review themselves, which moves them to Re-review so a recruiter can take a second look.
Max attempts exhausted (phone outreach)
If Tenzo uses all configured outbound attempts for phone outreach without finishing the interview, the candidate lands in one of two terminal stages depending on outcome: Max Attempts - No Interview (no interview progress—for example voicemail or zero scored progress on screened calls) or Max Attempts - Interview Not Completed (partial interview progress but not finished). The split is keyed on the candidate’s best engagement across all attempts: any answered question (completion rate above 0%) routes to Interview Not Completed, while zero engagement routes to No Interview. Tenzo stops dialing either way; the candidate may still self-schedule from a previously sent video invite where your flow supports it (then AI Interview Scheduled → Call Completed). Some older candidates may still show Outreach Attempts Exhausted instead of those split stages.This same engagement gate decides whether an interview summary is generated. Interview Not Completed candidates engaged with the interview and receive a summary even though they never finished it; No Interview candidates never engaged and have no summary. The completion-rate threshold (default 80%) that marks a candidate above threshold for ATS stage moves is a separate check (see Above / below threshold vs call status).
Candidate-driven branches
Candidates can steer the flow with their responses during outreach:- Opted Out (
HUMAN_REVIEW_REQUESTED) — the candidate explicitly declined to interview with AI and asked for a manual review. This stage now reflects only an explicit AI opt-out; it is no longer used for missing consent. When required consent is missing on file (phone or web), the candidate goes to No Consent instead (see below). - No Consent (
NO_CONSENT) — Tenzo has no consent on file to contact the candidate on any usable channel, so outreach can’t proceed. This means consent was never granted, as opposed to Consent Revoked, where the candidate had consent and later opted out. - Accommodation — the candidate asked for special accommodations for their interview.
- Re-review — the candidate asked Tenzo to re-review their application after a rejection or completed interview.
- Not Interested — the candidate declined the role outright.
- Consent Revoked (
CONSENT_REVOKED) — the candidate opted out of the channel(s) they were reachable on (textedSTOP, asked by sms or email not to be contacted, asked not to be contacted during an AI phone screen, or had consent revoked upstream in your ATS), leaving no usable channel. Tenzo revokes only the channels the candidate operated within: an SMS opt-out revokes texting and AI calling but leaves email intact; an email opt-out revokes only email. - Do Not Contact (
DO_NOT_CONTACT) — a legacy stage retained for historical records. It is no longer applied to new candidates; opt-outs now land in Consent Revoked instead. - Not eligible for outreach (
SKIP_OUTREACH) — Tenzo is not allowed to start AI outreach for this candidate and job. This can happen because your organization’s ATS or policy rules block AI outreach (for example an active placement or excluded candidate status, such as a Bullhorn excluded status or a JobDiva “unavailable” candidate), or because the job-level AI Resume Review Only setting is turned on. This does not move the candidate to an ATS “do not contact” pipeline stage, and it’s recoverable when the blocking condition clears — but recovery is not automatic from the status change alone. Tenzo re-evaluates full org outreach eligibility (owner checks, placements, consent, and other policy rules) before moving the application back to Outreach. AI Resume Review Only recovery still requires turning that setting off for the job. Some integrations (such as Innova Bullhorn) can write a configured VRA submission status when this stage is applied. - Dispositioned (
DISPOSITIONED_IN_ATS) — the application left the configured start stage or has an invalid outcome in the ATS before outreach could proceed.
Multi-job behavior: Consent fields live on the candidate record and apply across jobs, so a channel opt-out moves the candidate to Consent Revoked on every job that depended on the revoked channel. Policy-based Not eligible for outreach is evaluated per candidate when they are synced or added. No Consent can appear on each job where that candidate is added without sufficient consent.
Auto-rejections
A few stages happen automatically without recruiter input:- Failed Knockout — the candidate answered a required knockout question in a way that disqualifies them.
- Fraud rejected — automated checks flagged the application as high fraud risk.
Cooldown
When a candidate is added to a job while still inside a cooldown window from recent outreach on another job, they land in Cooling Down. From there:- They move to Outreach automatically when the cooldown ends, and Tenzo begins reaching out as normal.
- They move to Cooldown Expired if they sit in cooldown past the maximum wait (14 days). At that point, outreach is cancelled to avoid a stale first contact.
Recruiter overrides
Recruiters can manually shift candidates between stages from the Tenzo app:- Cancel moves a candidate to Canceled and stops all further activity.
- Progress to Interview on a rejected candidate moves them back to Outreach.
- Dispositioning a candidate in the connected ATS moves them to Dispositioned in Tenzo.