Gem Projects offer an efficient way to categorize prospective candidates at the top of the funnel so you can create and send outreach Sequences for open roles (and ongoing nurture) at scale. As a best practice, consider creating a project for every open position.
Please take a look at this Gem Academy course for video instructions on how to create a new project in Gem.
Utilizing Project Fields for better organization and reporting
Project Fields, set by your admin team, play a key role in keeping projects organized and enhancing reporting insights. Commonly used fields include Department and Project Type (e.g., open role, events, nurture, referral). Later-stage companies might also incorporate fields like Recruiting Team and Location.
Your admin should have configured project fields — if they haven’t, we highly recommend you configure them before adding any new projects to Gem.
Adding new Projects to Gem
There are three ways to add a new Project to Gem:
1. From your Gem homepage, select the New dropdown in the top-right corner, then choose Project. A Create Project popup will appear, prompting you to enter a project name. You can provide additional project details in the Description field, including hyperlinks to relevant documents. You’ll also select your project fields here. When done, select Create Project.
2. From your Projects page, select the + New project button in the top-right corner. Enter a project name in the Create Project pop-up that appears, and (optionally) any project details in the Description field, including hyperlinks to relevant documents. You’ll also select your project fields here. Then select Create Project.
3. You can also start a Project directly from the Gem Chrome Extension while viewing a prospective candidate’s profile:
- Navigate to the prospect’s profile (on LinkedIn, GitHub, Indeed, or elsewhere), and open up the Gem sidebar.
- Begin typing the new project name in the Add to another project field. You’ll see an option to Create a new project in the dropdown that appears.
- Select that option. You’ll be prompted to input the full project name and, optionally, a description.
- When you select Create Project, Gem will automatically create the project and assign the candidate to it.
Note: If a candidate is uploaded into Gem without being assigned to a specific project, they will automatically be placed into a default project called My Scratchpad.
Optimizing project names for clarity and searchability
To keep your projects organized and easy to find, we recommend establishing a clear and consistent naming convention across your team. Using unique terms will also improve filtering and searchability. A helpful naming convention might include elements like the year, month, job title, and location (e.g., 2024-Feb-Software Engineer-SF).
Configuring share settings on a Gem project
Share settings control who can view your project and manage the candidates within it. To complete the setup of your project in Gem, you’ll need to configure these settings. Simply select the Share dropdown in the top-right corner of the Projects page and choose Edit access.
From here, you can select the sharing option that suits your needs and designate team members to collaborate on the project with you.
Gem projects have three share settings, each with its own level of access and visibility:
- Confidential Project: These projects are viewable only by the users you designate, who can also manage candidates by adding or removing them. Other users will not see any activity associated with this project (e.g., no stats from this project will be visible in Outreach Stats, and other users won’t be able to see that the candidate is associated with a confidential project when viewing their Gem profile.)
- Personal Project (default): These projects are viewable by anyone on your team with the link, but only you and those you designate can modify the list by adding or removing candidates. Stats for personal projects are reflected in Outreach Stats, and other users can see when candidates are assigned to a personal project when viewing their Gem profiles.
- Shared Project: Anyone with a Gem account can view or add candidates to shared projects. Shared project stats are included in Outreach Stats, and users can see which candidates belong to a shared project when viewing their Gem profiles.
Choose the appropriate sharing option for your project and designate specific teammates to collaborate with you in the Who has access field.
Projects are set to Personal by default, but you can easily change the share setting to Confidential or Shared. To save your setting, simply select the X in the top-right corner of the Project sharing pop-up after making your selection.
Note: If you’d like all your new projects to default to Confidential or Shared, you can update your personal user defaults. Here’s how:
- Click your profile name in the bottom-left corner of your Gem instance and select Settings.
- In the General tab, scroll down to Additional Settings.
- Locate the dropdown menu beside Default project privacy type.
- Select your default share setting, and then Save settings.
With your project set up, you’re ready to begin adding candidates and sending Sequences to them in bulk.
➡️ Next, you’ll share a Gem Project!
- Utilizing Project Fields for better organization and reporting
- Adding new Projects to Gem
- Optimizing project names for clarity and searchability
- Configuring share settings on a Gem project