Candidate Ownership

This article covers the rules and policies around candidate ownership on Paraform — who owns a candidate, how conflicts are resolved, and how outreach protection works.

Rules of ownership

You gain ownership over a candidate when you submit them to a role. A few key principles:

• Ownership is company-scoped, not role-scoped. If you submit a candidate to Role A at Company X, your ownership applies across all of Company X's roles — no one else can submit that candidate to Company X while your ownership is active.

• Different recruiters can own the same candidate at different companies. If you submit a candidate to Company X and another recruiter submits them to Company Y, you both have ownership — just for your respective companies.

• Ownership lasts 12 months. After a submission, ownership is held for 12 months at that company unless otherwise noted. After that window, other recruiters can submit the candidate to that company again.

Candidate ownership conflicts

If multiple recruiters believe they have ownership over the same candidate at the same company, Paraform steps in to arbitrate.

In most cases, ownership goes to the recruiter who obtained explicit consent from the candidate to be submitted to that specific role. Paraform reserves final authority on ownership decisions, and we strive to resolve them fairly and promptly based on the facts.

Outreach protection

Sourcing a candidate and marking them as contacted doesn't give you ownership — but Paraform does show warnings and block duplicate work when multiple recruiters are pursuing the same candidate for the same company.

When you mark a candidate as contacted

When you source a candidate on the Chrome extension and mark them as contacted, other recruiters looking at that same candidate for the same company will see a "contacted recently" warning. This warning persists for 45 days after you source them, and it's meant to discourage duplicate outreach and protect the candidate experience.

Contacting a candidate doesn't prevent other recruiters from also contacting them for the same role — and it doesn't give you priority if there's an ownership dispute later. It's a warning, not a claim.

Already-submitted candidates

If a candidate has already been submitted to the role, or to any role at the same company (within the 12-month ownership window), they are off-limits for further outreach for that company. They're still fair game for outreach regarding other clients.

Same-agency activity

If another recruiter in your agency has previously worked with the candidate, you'll see a "known to agency" warning rather than a block. Agencies are expected to coordinate internally on ownership.