NAIA Candidate Portal

Overview

The NAIA Candidate Portal is a full-stack talent acquisition platform built for the NAIA organization to connect their partner employers with top candidates. The system handles everything from initial invite through candidate onboarding, profile management, employer discovery, and direct outreach — all within a single, cohesive platform.

At its core is a fully dynamic intake form engine that administrators can configure without writing a single line of code, paired with a rich candidate-facing dashboard and a powerful employer-side browsing and filtering experience.

The Problem

NAIA needed a structured, professional pipeline for surfacing candidates to their network of partner employers. Existing workflows relied on scattered spreadsheets and manual outreach — no central record of candidate profiles, no way for employers to self-serve, and no visibility into who had been contacted or invited.

The platform needed to be flexible enough to evolve over time without engineering involvement, and polished enough that both candidates and employers would actually use it.

Dynamic Form Builder

The centerpiece of the admin experience is a fully configurable intake form builder. Administrators can:

• Add, rename, and reorder fields freely
• Set field type (text, dropdown, file upload, checkbox, date, and more)
• Control layout — column count, orientation, grouping, and step order
• Publish changes instantly — every update is immediately reflected in the live candidate intake flow

The candidate intake form is multi-step, with each page determined by how the administrator structured the form. Candidates progress through the steps, filling out every field and building their profile as they go.

Admin Features

Administrators have full control over the platform:

• Candidate invitations — invite candidates by email; full tracking of invite status and history
• Admin invitations — onboard additional admin members to the platform
• Employer invitations — invite partner companies to access the candidate pool
• Full audit logging — every action across the system is tracked and surfaced in the admin panel

Employer Experience

Once invited, employers can browse the full candidate pipeline:

• Candidate table — searchable, filterable list of all candidates with every intake form field visible as a column
• Profile view — full candidate profile including uploaded resumes and all submitted fields
• Direct contact — reach out to candidates directly from within the portal
• Favoriting — save candidates to a personal shortlist for follow-up

Employers can filter by any combination of form fields, making it straightforward to surface candidates that match specific criteria.

Candidate Experience

The candidate journey starts with an email invitation. From there:

1. They follow a branded invite link to the platform
2. Complete the multi-step intake form, building their profile field by field
3. Upload any required documents (resumes, certifications, etc.)
4. Land on their own candidate dashboard once the form is complete

The candidate dashboard gives them:

• Full profile view — a clean breakdown of every field they submitted
• Inline editing — update any field at any time post-submission
• Profile picture — uploaded by the candidate and surfaced in the admin candidate table
• Engagement stats — number of employer profile views, today vs. total
• Notifications — real-time alerts when employers message or engage with their profile

Outcome

The platform consolidated NAIA's entire candidate pipeline into one system — replacing manual spreadsheet workflows with a structured, self-service experience for administrators, employers, and candidates alike. Employers gained a searchable talent pool they could browse independently, and candidates had a professional profile they owned and could maintain over time.