Running the coach recruitment pipeline

Coach recruitment in Clubhouse is a kanban-style pipeline that takes a coaching candidate from "we should talk to this person" all the way to "they're a signed staff member with portal access." This article walks through each stage and the tools at your disposal.

• Where to find it
• The pipeline stages
• Adding a candidate
• Working with a candidate
• The mobile list view
• Programs of interest
• Signing a candidate
• What about WWC?
• Declined or withdrew
• Returning ex-coaches
• Permissions
• Notifications
• Reporting

Open Recruitment → Coaches in the admin sidebar (grant-holding coaches: the same board is your portal's Coaches tab). It opens as a kanban of candidates grouped by stage.

The board shows five active columns, left to right:

1. Shortlisted — A name we want to talk to. No commitment.
2. Contacted — Initial outreach has been made.
3. Evaluating — Conversations or an interview under way.
4. Offer — We've made an offer.
5. Signed — They've accepted and we're ready to provision.

Declined and Withdrawn candidates move to the archive view (kept for history).

Drag a candidate card between columns to move them. Every move is timestamped on their activity timeline.

Tap + Add candidate in the top right. Enter:

• Name (required).
• Email and phone (optional, but needed before the offer stage).
• Programs of interest — which programs they could coach in.
• Source — how we heard about them (referral, cold, returning ex-coach, etc.).
• Notes — free text, visible to admins and the TD.

Tap Add candidate. They appear in the Shortlisted column.

Tap a card to open the candidate detail panel. You can:

• Edit contact details — keep email and phone current.
• Log an activity — add a note to the timeline ("called, left voicemail," "interview booked for 14 May," etc.).
• Attach documents — CV, cover letter, references, qualification certificates.
• Move stages — drop-down or drag.
• Add the TD as watcher — they get notified on stage changes.

Activity timeline entries are visible to anyone with recruitment access. Treat the panel as a shared file on the candidate.

On phones, the kanban becomes a single list grouped by stage. Tap a candidate to open the same detail panel. All actions work identically.

Tag each candidate with the programs they're a fit for (BYL coach, GJDL goalkeeping, MJDL TD, etc.). The board can be filtered by program — useful when you're staffing a specific gap.

When a candidate accepts an offer:

1. Open their detail panel.
2. Tap Add to staff.
3. The "Add to club staff" modal asks you to confirm:
   • Their preferred email (this becomes their portal login).
   • Which squads / programs they'll coach.
   • Their start date.
   • Whether to send the portal invite immediately.
4. Confirm with Add to staff.

Behind the scenes Clubhouse:

• Creates a staff record linked to the candidate.
• Adds them to the configured squads with the configured roles.
• If "send portal invite" is ticked, invites anyone not yet invited (see How do I add a staff member?).
• Moves the candidate card to the Signed column.
• Logs the provisioning event on the activity timeline.

The candidate card stays on the board for history. To remove it from the active view, archive it (it remains searchable).

A candidate's WWC isn't required to progress through the pipeline, but it is required before they can be signed and assigned to a squad. The Sign to staff modal blocks completion if WWC is missing or expired and prompts you to capture it first. See Working With Children Check basics.

If a candidate declines or you decide not to proceed:

1. Move them to Declined / Withdrew.
2. Add a final timeline note explaining why (so future you knows).

The card stays in the column for the season. At end of season, the TD or admin can archive declined candidates in bulk.

If a returning ex-coach turns up in recruitment, the Former players & staff panel on the candidate detail shows their prior history in the club — what squads they coached, what years, what qualifications they held. This avoids re-onboarding from scratch.

Recruitment access is controlled in the admin module config (see Granting admin portal access). By default:

• Super admin / admin with the Recruitment module enabled have full access.
• Technical Director has read access by default and edit access if explicitly granted.
• Coaching staff have no access by default. A super admin can give an individual coach, goalkeeper coach or video analyst a Coach recruitment grant under Additional access on their staff record. At Full access they get this same pipeline as a Coaches tab in their own portal — no admin login, no second factor, and nothing changes about who can do what: they work the same board you do, minus the link through to a signed candidate's staff profile. At EOIs only they get the coach enquiries inbox and no pipeline.

When you add a candidate or move stages, only people who are "watching" the candidate or have the Recruitment module enabled receive a notification. There are no candidate-facing notifications from this module — all communication with the candidate happens outside Clubhouse (your usual email or phone).

The Recruitment dashboard shows a small set of metrics:

• Active pipeline by stage.
• Candidates added in the last 30 days.
• Average time-in-stage (helpful for spotting candidates that have gone cold).
• Hires completed this season.

Use these to keep the pipeline healthy: stale candidates that have been sitting in "Approached" for three weeks usually need either a nudge or a graceful exit.