Retrieve Candidates API guide

Get candidate information from Indeed for employers.

 

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By using this API and its documentation and building an integration, you agree to the Additional API Terms and Guidelines.

Call the Retrieve Candidates API to get candidate information from Indeed for employers.

Retrieve Candidates API workflow

After you integrate with the Retrieve Candidates API, you can call these operations:

1. 1.
   Authenticate.
2. 2.
   Register employer: Register an employer and return information about the registration.
3. 3.
   Get unacknowledged assets: Get unacknowledged assets in the order you staged them, from oldest to newest.
4. 4.
   Get assets by time range: Get acknowledged assets in a time range.
5. 5.
   Create test assets: Create test assets for integration testing.
6. 6.
   Troubleshoot GraphQL errors: Resolve GraphQL errors.

Retrieve Candidates API reference

• registerEmployer: Registers an employer and returns information about the registration.
• fetchAssets: Returns unacknowledged assets in the order you staged them, from oldest to newest.
• assetsByTimeRange: Returns acknowledged assets in a time range.
• stageAssets: Creates test assets for integration testing.

Authenticate

When you become an Indeed partner, Indeed sets up an app for your integration. Sign in to Partner Console to view your app and OAuth credentials (client ID, secret, and authorization code for 3-legged OAuth). Exchange credentials for an access token to authenticate API calls.

Each Candidate Sync API operation requires an OAuth token:

OAuth token types for Candidate Sync API operations

API and operations	OAuth token type
Employer Registration API Register an employer	Authenticate with a 3-legged OAuth token that represents an employer and has the employer.ats_candidate.sync scope. This token links the employer's Indeed account to their ATS account. An Indeed administrator or owner must create it. If registerEmployer returns a missing scope error, the token might not be associated with an employer.
Employer Registration API Update a registration List registrations Deregister an employer Send Candidates API Initialize application and upload attachments Submit application Track application status Delete application Retrieve Candidates API Get unacknowledged assets Get assets by time range Create test assets	Authenticate with a 2-legged OAuth token.. Your application authenticates directly with Indeed's authorization server without user interaction.

Securely store access tokens in your ATS, and don't share them between users. Indeed trusts that your system is the source of truth for a job. If you use a user's access token for a job that another user posted, Indeed might grant that user access to the other user's job on Indeed.

After you get an access token, include this token in the query or mutation. Indeed recommends that you refresh your access tokens before they expire to avoid asking users to sign in every time they need to view updated job statuses.

See Integrate with Indeed and call APIs and Scopes.

Register employer

Use the Employer Registration API to register an employer.

Request – Register employer

To register an employer and return registration information, call registerEmployer.

Authenticate with a 3-legged OAuth token that represents an employer and has the employer.ats_candidate.sync scope. This token links the employer's Indeed account to their ATS account. An Indeed administrator or owner must create it. If registerEmployer returns a missing scope error, the token might not be associated with an employer.

Provide these input fields:

registerEmployer input fields

Field	Required	Description
partnerEmployerId Type: ID!	✅	An ID you provide to uniquely identify the employer. You can register one partnerEmployerId with multiple Indeed accounts, but each Indeed account supports only one partnerEmployerId per ATS. If you use a different partnerEmployerId with the same Indeed account, Indeed updates the registration to the new atsName and partnerEmployerId.
atsName Type: String!	✅	The name you provide for the employer. Employers see this name on Indeed.

Response – Register employer

The API returns an EmployerRegistration. Store its id to use in later Candidate Sync API calls, or query findRegisteredEmployers with the partnerEmployerId to retrieve it.

Get unacknowledged assets

Call fetchAssets to get unacknowledged assets in the order you staged them, from oldest to newest.

Authenticate with a 2-legged OAuth token.. Your application authenticates directly with Indeed's authorization server without user interaction.

The Retrieve Candidates API currently supports interested candidates from Smart Sourcing. Indeed might add new asset types in future updates, so handle unexpected asset types in the response. Not every asset is an AtsSyncCandidateSyncInterestedCandidateAsset.

The employerIdentifier in the response matches the ID that you sent to Indeed when you created the registration. Use it to identify which employer receives the candidate.

Request – Get unacknowledged assets

This mutation gets unacknowledged assets.

Get unacknowledged assets:

mutation FetchAssets($input: FetchAssetsAtsSyncCandidateSyncInput) {
  atsSyncCandidateSync {
    fetchAssets(input: $input) {
      token
      assets {
        id
        metadata {
          stagedAt
          stagedTest
          employerIdentifier
          completeSourceAttribution {
            enumKey
            name
          }
        }
        ...on AtsSyncCandidateSyncInterestedCandidateAsset {
          contact {
            candidate {
              email
              location
              name
              phone
              resume {
                pdf {
                  name
                  url
                }
              }
            }
            job {
              sourcedPostingId
            }
            tracking {
              recruiterEmail
            }
          }
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

Provide these input fields:

fetchAssets input fields

Field	Type	Description
limit	Int!	Maximum number of assets to return.
token	String	Token from a previous fetchAssets call. Passing this token acknowledges the batch and prevents you from retrieving it again.

Response – Get unacknowledged assets

The API returns a FetchAssetsAtsSyncCandidateSyncPayload object with these fields:

fetchAssets response fields

Field	Type	Description
assets	[AtsSyncCandidateSyncAsset]!	Next available AtsSyncCandidateSyncAsset objects.
token	String	Acknowledgment token for this batch. Pass the token in the next fetchAssets call to acknowledge receipt and request the next batch. If the token is null or empty, Indeed has delivered all assets. Wait the standard polling interval before you call again.

Get assets by time range

After you acknowledge assets, call assetsByTimeRange to fetch them again from Indeed. Use this query to recover from data loss. Persist asset data in your data store. For pagination best practices, see the GraphQL Cursor Connections Specification.

Authenticate with a 2-legged OAuth token.. Your application authenticates directly with Indeed's authorization server without user interaction.

To retrieve new assets, use fetchAssets.

Request – Get assets by time range

If you omit a start or end date, the query uses the earliest and latest acknowledgment dates as defaults.

Gets acknowledged assets in a time range.

query AssetsByTimeRange($input: AtsSyncCandidateSyncAssetsByTimeRangeInput!,
  $after: String) {
  atsSyncCandidateSync {
    assetsByTimeRange(input: $input, after: $after) {
      assets {
        id
        metadata {
          employerIdentifier
          stagedAt
          stagedTest
          completeSourceAttribution {
            enumKey
            name
          }
        } 
        ... on AtsSyncCandidateSyncInterestedCandidateAsset {
          contact {
            candidate {
              email
              location
              name
              phone
              resume {
                pdf {
                  name
                  url
                }
              }
            }
            job {
              sourcedPostingId
            }
            tracking {
              recruiterEmail
            }
          }
        }
      }
      pageInfo {
        hasNextPage
        endCursor
      }
    }
  }
}

Response – Get assets by time range

assetsByTimeRange returns the same asset data as fetchAssets, but only for acknowledged assets. See Response – Get unacknowledged assets.

Mock assets expire after 14 days and stop appearing in assetsByTimeRange responses. See Create test assets.

Create test assets

Call stageAssets to create test candidate assets in sandbox mode. Test assets behave like real candidate assets. Use fetchAssets to retrieve them and test your workflow.

Authenticate with a 2-legged OAuth token.. Your application authenticates directly with Indeed's authorization server without user interaction.

Requirements

Before you stage test assets:

• The employerIdentifier must match the employerIdentifier of an employer registration that you created through registerEmployer.
• The sourcedPostingId must be a UUID, but does not need to match an existing job posting.
• Indeed removes mock asset data 14 days after you stage it.

Request – Create test assets

To create test assets:

1. Call stageAssets with test candidate details such as name, email, phone, and location.

   To include a test resume, set includeResume to true.

   The API returns a unique ID for each staged asset.

2. Call fetchAssets to retrieve the staged candidates.

3. Verify that your integration processes the candidate data.

   To identify mock assets, check the stageTest field on the metadata of each assets entry.

Creates test candidate assets for integration testing:

mutation {
  atsSyncCandidateSync {
    stageAssets(input: {
      assets: [{
        smartSourcingContact: {
          metadata: {
            employerIdentifier: "employer-123"
          }
          contact: {
            candidate: {
              name: "Jane Smith"
              email: "jsmith@example.com"
              location: "Syracuse, New York 13209"
              phone: "+10001112223"
              includeResume: true
            }
            job: {
              sourcedPostingId: "e29aaba8-2cef-447f-a1e0-bcb7ec3fa730"
            }
            tracking: {
              recruiterEmail: "recruiter@example.com"
            }
          }
        }
      }]
    }) {
      ids
    }
  }
}

Troubleshoot errors

For OAuth errors that occur before you reach GraphQL, see Troubleshoot OAuth errors.

For GraphQL errors, see Troubleshoot GraphQL errors.

 

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