When you have generated an offer and are ready to send it to the candidate, you can use Gem’s integration with Docusign to send an e-signature request, which automatically sends the offer to the candidate to sign. You can also add additional signatories, such as senior members of the business, who don’t need Gem accounts in order to sign. This article covers how to send and track e-signature requests, as well as how to generate replacement offers and revoke offers.
For details of how to generate offer letters before sending them, see our Gem ATS: Generate offers for candidates article.
Requirements
- Your team uses Gem ATS.
- You’re set as a Hiring Manager or Recruiter on the job, or are an Admin in your Gem account. See our Gem ATS permissions article for more details..
- You have the Docusign integration enabled (see Gem ATS: Docusign integration for more details).
This article assumes that a candidate is in the Offer stage, that you have already generated an offer letter, and that the offer letter includes at least one e-signature token. If not, please see Gem ATS: Generate offers for candidates.
Send an e-signature request
With an offer letter generated, you can use Gem’s integration with Docusign to send an e-signature request to the candidate and, if needed, one or more company signatories.
Here are the steps to follow in order to send an e-signature request:
- Navigate to the Offer stage in the candidate’s application.
- Select the Send e-signature request button.
- This opens a Send e-signature request pop-up, where you can view and update the message to send to the candidate.
- Assuming you have a default offer e-signature request template, the details from the template will be automatically populated on this form. If you don’t have a template set as a default, or if you want to use a different template, you can select one from the Email template drop-down.
We recommend using an offer e-signature email template, but if you’re not using a template you can fill in all of the relevant fields on this pop-up manually.
- If you want to amend any of the fields on the pop-up, you can do that now. For instance, you can update the email message body, or choose a different send-from email address.
By default, e-signature request emails are sent from e-sign@gem.com, but you can select your own email address as a send-from address if you have set up a Docusign alias. See our Docusign integration article for details of how to set up an alias.
- When you’re ready, select the Preview & send button to open a Send e-signature request pop-up where you can preview what the e-signature request will look like.
- Wherever there is an e-signature field in the offer template, you will see a Docusign Sign element in the preview window, and likewise a Date Signed element against any e-signature date field. If there are any additional e-signature fields in the offer template (such as candidate attachments, or candidate text boxes) they will also have matching Docusign elements.
At least one signature field is always required. If needed, you can add additional Docusign fields into the template from the selection on the left-hand side of the window.
- If there are multiple signatories in the offer template, the Sign and Date Signed elements will display in different colours to represent each signatory. Make sure that each signatory has their own Sign element. If you want to add additional Docusign fields, use the drop-down at the top-left corner of the preview window to choose the relevant signatory.
- Select the Preview button at the top-right of the window to see how the letter will look.
- Use the Viewing as drop-down in the preview header to switch between signatories if you want to see how the letter will look to different people. Use the icons in the middle of the preview header to switch between desktop, tablet and mobile previews.
- Select the X icon at the top-right of the preview header to close the preview.
- Select the Send button to send the e-signature request. The order in which emails will be sent to the candidate and any company signers is determined by the Signing order setting in Admin settings. See the ‘Signing order’ section of our Docusign integration article for details of how to amend this order.
The Offer sent SLA begins at the point that you send the e-signature request. If the offer letter is not signed within the SLA time frame, the candidate’s status will turn red to show that the SLA has been missed, and you will receive an email notification confirming that the candidate is past SLA.
Track signature status
Once an e-signature request has been sent, under the Offer section of the candidate’s application you will see:
- Confirmation that an offer letter has been sent, along with the dates of when it was sent and when it will expire.
- A list of signers along with their signature status (e.g., Awaiting or Signed).
This information will change over time, as the candidate and (if applicable) company signatories sign the offer letter, if the candidate does not sign the offer letter within the SLA timeframe, or if the offer expires.
Note that once an e-signature request has been sent, the Send e-signature request button is no longer visible. If you need to send a new e-signature request, you will need to replace the original offer. You can do this by either generating a replacement offer or revoking the original offer. See the Generate a replacement offer section below for more information about how to replace an offer.
Email notifications
To keep the signing process on track, Docusign automatically sends email notifications at key stages.
- Initial notification: One or all of the signers will receive an automated email as soon as the e-signature request is sent, depending on what the signing order in your Docusign settings is set as (possible options are to send to both candidate and company signers simultaneously, to the candidate first and then company signers, or company signers first and then the candidate). See the ‘Signing order’ section of our Docusign integration article for details of how to amend this order.
- Reminder emails: Automatic reminders are sent 3 days before the offer expires.
- Expiration notification: If the offer expires before being signed, signers receive a final notification.
- Notification limits: Signers will not receive more than one automated notification within a 24-hour period.
The notifications that recipients (i.e. anyone who receives an e-signature request) receive will depend on what is configured in Docusign.
- If the recipient has a Docusign account, they can customize a range of notifications via their notification preferences in Docusign.
- If the recipient does not have a Docusign account, they will receive the standard set of notifications only (see Gem ATS: Generate offers for candidates for more details).
Senders and CC’d users will receive notifications when everyone has signed the offer letter.
See Docusign’s documentation for further information about email notifications.
Generate a replacement offer
If you need to update an offer which has already been sent but not signed, you can generate a replacement offer which revokes the original one and replaces it with a new offer.
You can generate a replacement offer as long as the original offer has not been accepted. For example, if the candidate has signed the e-signature request but at least one company signatory has not yet signed it, you can still generate a replacement. Once every signatory has signed the offer, it can no longer be replaced.
Here are the steps to generate a replacement offer:
- Navigate to the Offer stage in the candidate’s application.
- Select the Generate replacement offer button (next to the Download offer packet button).
- When prompted to confirm that you want to revoke the old offer and replace it with a new one, select the Revoke and replace offer button.
- On the Edit offer pop-up, you’ll see that the information from the original offer has been carried over - you can either select a new offer template, or update the offer fields with the relevant changes.
- When you’re ready, select the Save & close button to generate the replacement offer.
The original offer will now display as Offer letter (v1) and be clearly labelled as Revoked in the candidate’s application, and the replacement offer (Offer letter (v2)) will display beneath it.
In addition, the candidate and any required signatories will receive email notifications from Docusign confirming that the original e-signature request has been voided. If anyone tries to follow the link from the original e-signature emails, they will see an error message confirming that the request has been voided.
When you’re ready, you can now send a new e-signature request - see the Send an e-signature request section earlier for more details of the e-signature request process.
Revoke an offer
Once an offer has been created and an e-signature request sent, if you want to entirely cancel the offer you can do so by revoking the offer. Doing so is permanent, and can’t be undone.
You can revoke an offer as long as an e-signature request remains unsigned by at least one signatory. Once it has been signed by everyone, the offer can no longer be revoked.
Here are the steps to revoke an offer:
- Navigate to the Offer stage in the candidate’s application.
- Select the 3-dot (ellipsis) button at the right-hand side of the Offer letter, and select Revoke offer.
- When prompted to confirm that you want to revoke the offer, select the Revoke offer button.
- With that done, the offer letter in the candidate application will now be clearly labelled as Revoked.
In addition, the candidate and any required signatories will receive email notifications from Docusign confirming that the e-signature request has been voided. If anyone tries to follow the link from the e-signature emails, they will see an error message confirming that the request has been voided.
Further reading
- Configure offer admin settings
- Conditional offer sections
- Using custom tokens in offer letters
- Offer approvals
Have any issues or questions on this topic? Please feel free to contact your dedicated Gem Customer Success Manager directly or our Support team at support@gem.com.