Summary and recommendation
SmartRecruiters user management can be run manually, but complexity usually increases with role models, licensing gates, and offboarding dependencies. This guide gives the exact mechanics and where automation has the biggest impact.
SmartRecruiters user management lives under Settings → Users & Roles, accessible to System Administrators only.
From there, admins invite users by email, assign a system role (Admin, Recruiter, Hiring Manager, Interviewer, or Agency Recruiter), and optionally scope access by department or location.
Every app in a recruiting stack depends on clean role boundaries, and SmartRecruiters enforces those boundaries at both the role level and the job level.
Quick facts
| Admin console path | Settings → Users & Roles (accessible via the gear/settings icon in the top navigation bar) |
| Admin console URL | Official docs |
| SCIM available | Yes |
| SCIM tier required | Corporate/Enterprise |
| SSO prerequisite | No |
User types and roles
| Role | Permissions | Cannot do | Plan required | Seat cost | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| System Administrator | Full access to all settings, user management, job postings, reports, integrations, and billing configuration. | Only Admins can add, edit, or deactivate other users and manage roles. | |||
| Recruiter | Can create and manage job postings, review and advance candidates, collaborate with hiring teams, and access recruiting reports. | Cannot manage system settings, billing, or other users. | Recruiter access to specific jobs can be scoped by department or location depending on configuration. | ||
| Hiring Manager | Can view assigned job postings, review candidates, leave feedback, and participate in interview scheduling. | Cannot create jobs independently (depending on configuration), cannot access system settings or other users' data. | Hiring Manager visibility is typically limited to jobs they are assigned to. | ||
| Interviewer | Can view candidate profiles for jobs they are assigned to and submit interview scorecards. | Cannot advance or reject candidates, cannot access job configuration or settings. | Interviewers are often added as limited-access users and may not consume a full paid seat depending on plan; verify with SmartRecruiters account team. | ||
| Agency Recruiter (External) | Can submit candidates to jobs they are invited to via the agency portal. | Cannot access internal candidate data, settings, or other jobs not explicitly shared. | Agency users access via a separate agency portal, not the main admin console. |
Permission model
- Model type: hybrid
- Description: SmartRecruiters uses a combination of predefined system roles (Admin, Recruiter, Hiring Manager, Interviewer) and job-level or department-level access scoping. Certain plans support custom role configurations and granular permission sets.
- Custom roles: Yes
- Custom roles plan: Enterprise (custom quote required; not confirmed available on Essential/Professional tiers based on available documentation)
- Granularity: Role-level permissions apply globally; job-level and department-level scoping can further restrict what a user sees and acts on within their role.
How to add users
- Log in as a System Administrator.
- Navigate to Settings (gear icon) → Users & Roles.
- Click 'Add User' or 'Invite User'.
- Enter the user's first name, last name, and work email address.
- Select the appropriate system role (e.g., Recruiter, Hiring Manager).
- Optionally assign department or location scope if applicable.
- Click 'Send Invitation'. The user receives an email to set their password and activate their account.
Required fields: First name, Last name, Work email address, System role
Watch out for:
- Invitation emails can land in spam; users should be advised to check junk folders.
- The invited user must activate their account via the email link before they can log in.
- If SSO is enforced, the user's email domain must match the configured SSO domain.
- Role assignment at invite time determines default access; scoping adjustments may need to be made separately after the user is created.
| Bulk option | Availability | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| CSV import | Unknown | Not documented |
| Domain whitelisting | Unknown | Automatic domain-based user add |
| IdP provisioning | Yes | Enterprise (SCIM provisioning documented as available on Corporate/Enterprise tier) |
How to remove or deactivate users
- Can delete users: Unknown
- Delete/deactivate behavior: SmartRecruiters' admin UI centers on deactivation for interactive users, while the API surface includes delete-style user lifecycle operations. Public documentation does not support a single universal delete rule across every workflow, so removal behavior should be treated as tenant- and workflow-specific.
- Log in as a System Administrator.
- Navigate to Settings → Users & Roles.
- Locate the user in the user list (use search if needed).
- Click on the user's name to open their profile.
- Select the option to 'Deactivate' the user.
- Confirm the deactivation when prompted.
| Data impact | Behavior |
|---|---|
| Owned records | Candidate records, job postings, and notes created by the deactivated user remain in the system and are accessible to Admins and other authorized users. |
| Shared content | Shared evaluations, scorecards, and messages authored by the deactivated user are retained and visible in the relevant job or candidate record. |
| Integrations | SCIM-based deprovisioning (Enterprise) will deactivate the user account automatically when the user is removed or deprovisioned in the connected IdP. |
| License freed | Deactivating a user is expected to free up the associated seat/license, but the exact billing cycle impact should be confirmed with the SmartRecruiters account team. |
Watch out for:
- Deactivated users cannot log in but their data is not removed; this is important for compliance and audit purposes.
- If the deactivated user was the sole owner of active job postings, those jobs should be reassigned to an active recruiter before deactivation.
- SCIM deprovisioning requires Enterprise tier and a configured IdP integration; manual deactivation is required on lower tiers.
- Reactivating a previously deactivated user restores their access but may require re-assigning roles and scopes depending on configuration.
License and seat management
| Seat type | Includes | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Full User (Recruiter/Admin) | Full platform access including job creation, candidate management, reporting, and settings (role-dependent). | Included in plan subscription; per-seat pricing not publicly listed. Essential plans start ~$14,995/year for 10 users; higher tiers require custom quotes. |
| Limited User (Hiring Manager/Interviewer) | Restricted access to assigned jobs and candidate review/feedback functions. | May be included at no additional per-seat cost depending on plan; confirm with SmartRecruiters account team. |
- Where to check usage: Settings → Users & Roles (filter by Active users to see current seat consumption)
- How to identify unused seats: Filter the Users & Roles list by 'Active' status and sort by last login date to identify users who have not logged in recently. SmartRecruiters does not appear to provide a built-in 'inactive user' report in standard tiers based on available documentation.
- Billing notes: SmartRecruiters pricing is subscription-based and negotiated annually. Seat counts and overages should be managed through the account team. Public pricing is only available for the Essential tier (~$14,995/year for 10 users); Professional, High-Volume, and Enterprise tiers require custom quotes.
The cost of manual management
Deactivating a departing user is a manual, step-by-step process: locate the user, open their profile, trigger deactivation, and confirm. There is no automated reassignment workflow, so any open job postings owned by that user must be manually transferred to an active recruiter before deactivation.
Identifying stale accounts requires filtering the Users & Roles list by Active status and sorting by last login - SmartRecruiters does not surface a native inactive-user report on standard tiers.
What IT admins are saying
Community evidence is not specific enough to quote or summarize yet for this app.
The decision
Manual user management in SmartRecruiters is workable for small, stable teams but becomes operationally expensive as headcount or recruiter turnover grows. Every app that touches your hiring workflow - ATS, HRIS, SSO - creates a separate deprovisioning obligation; SmartRecruiters adds to that list without automated offboarding below the Enterprise tier.
Teams on Essential or Professional plans should build a documented offboarding checklist that includes job reassignment before deactivation, and should audit active users quarterly using the last-login sort.
Bottom line
SmartRecruiters gives administrators a clear, role-based user management interface, but the manual overhead is real: no bulk actions, no native inactive-user report, and no automated deprovisioning unless you are on Corporate or Enterprise with a configured IdP.
For organizations managing frequent recruiter or hiring manager turnover, the absence of automated lifecycle tooling below the top tier means user hygiene depends entirely on admin discipline.
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