> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://help.mercury360.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.
# Team Invites and Role-Based Permissions | Mercury Recruit
> Invite teammates, assign roles with precise permissions, organize hiring by department hierarchy, and revoke or change access at any time.
Mercury Recruit uses role-based access control to ensure every member of your hiring team sees exactly what they need — and nothing they shouldn't. An interviewer doesn't need access to salary negotiation data; an external staffing partner doesn't need visibility into your entire candidate database. This guide explains how to invite teammates, what each role can and cannot do, how to structure departments and team ownership, and how to remove or reassign access as your team evolves.
Only workspace **Admins** can invite new members, assign or change roles, manage department hierarchy, and revoke access. Hiring Managers can view the team roster for their department but cannot modify it.
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## Invite teammates
Click your **workspace avatar** in the top-right corner and select **Workspace Settings**. Then click the **Team** tab. You'll see a list of all current workspace members, their roles, and their invitation status.
Click **Invite Member**. In the invite modal:
1. Enter the invitee's **work email address**. You can add multiple addresses at once by separating them with commas.
2. Select a **Role** from the dropdown (see the [Available roles](#available-roles) section below for a full breakdown).
3. Optionally assign a **Department** so the member's default job visibility is scoped to that team from day one.
4. Add a personal **Message** (optional) that appears in the invitation email — useful for letting the invitee know what they're joining and what to expect.
5. Click **Send Invite**.
The invitee receives an email from Mercury Recruit with a link to create their password and join the workspace. Invitations expire after **72 hours**; if an invite lapses, return to the Team tab, find the member under **Pending Invites**, and click **Resend**.
If your company uses a shared email domain (e.g. everyone is `@acme.com`), you can enable **Trusted Domain Invites** in **Workspace Settings → Security Policy**. This lets anyone with your domain auto-join as a **Recruiter** without requiring an explicit invite — ideal for fast-growing teams.
Once the invitee accepts, their status on the Team tab changes from **Pending** to **Active** and they appear in the assignee dropdowns across jobs, candidates, and interviews.
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## Available roles
Mercury Recruit includes five roles. Each is designed for a specific function in the hiring workflow — assign the most restrictive role that still allows the member to do their job effectively.
Full workspace control. Admins manage billing, all workspace settings, team membership, roles, department structure, integrations, and audit logs. Assign this role only to people who need to configure the system — typically HR leadership or IT.
Owns job requisitions within their assigned department(s). Can create and publish jobs, move candidates through the pipeline, request assessments, and view analytics for their own jobs. Cannot access jobs or candidates outside their departments.
Handles day-to-day sourcing and candidate management across all jobs they are assigned to. Can review applications, update ATS scores, schedule interviews, send candidate communications, and add candidates to the talent pool. Cannot change job settings or manage team members.
Scoped read access to candidates assigned to them for interviews. Can view the candidate profile and resume, submit a structured scorecard, and leave internal notes on assigned candidates. Cannot view salary data, other candidates' profiles, or pipeline-wide analytics.
Provides access through the **External Recruiter Access Portal** — a separate, permission-limited view designed for staffing agencies and contract recruiters. External Recruiters can submit candidate profiles for designated jobs and track submission status, but they cannot see your internal candidate database, ATS scores, salary data, or any jobs they were not explicitly granted access to. All External Recruiter activity is logged in the audit trail.
### Role permissions at a glance
| Permission | Admin | Hiring Manager | Recruiter | Interviewer | External Recruiter |
| ------------------------------------- | :------------: | :------------: | :-------: | :---------: | :----------------: |
| Create and publish jobs | ✅ | ✅ (own dept.) | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
| Edit job settings and pipeline stages | ✅ | ✅ (own dept.) | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
| Review and score candidates | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ |
| Move candidates between stages | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ |
| Submit interview scorecards | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ |
| Send candidate communications | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ |
| Manage assessments | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ |
| Export candidate data | ✅ | ✅ (own dept.) | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
| View analytics and reports | ✅ | ✅ (own dept.) | Limited | ❌ | ❌ |
| Submit candidates (external portal) | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ |
| Manage team members and roles | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
| Access billing and plan settings | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
| View audit logs | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
| System-wide admin visibility | ✅ (Enterprise) | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
**System-Wide Admin Visibility** is an Enterprise-exclusive feature that gives designated Admins a unified view of all hiring activity across every department, location, and team — including headcount plans, cross-department candidate movement, and system health metrics. Contact your account manager to enable it.
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## Set up department and team hierarchy
Organizing your workspace into departments lets you scope job ownership, candidate visibility, and reporting to the right people. It also allows Hiring Managers to operate autonomously within their area without requiring Admin involvement for every action.
Go to **Workspace Settings → Departments** and click **+ Add Department**. Enter the department name (e.g., *Engineering*, *Go-to-Market*, *People & Culture*) and click **Save**. Repeat for each department in your organization.
If your organization has nested teams within departments (e.g., *Front-End Engineering* and *Infrastructure* under *Engineering*), click the department name and select **Add Sub-Team**. Sub-teams inherit the parent department's Hiring Managers unless you assign a separate manager at the sub-team level.
For organizations with fewer than five departments, a flat structure is usually simpler to manage. Hierarchy is most valuable when different managers own hiring across separate cost centers or when you need per-department reporting.
On the **Team** tab, click a member's name to open their profile. Under **Department Assignment**, select one or more departments. Members can belong to multiple departments — for example, a Recruiter who supports both Engineering and Design hiring.
On the **Departments** page, click a department and use the **Hiring Manager** dropdown to assign the owner. This person receives notifications for all jobs in the department and appears as the hiring contact on internal records. A department can have more than one Hiring Manager if multiple people share ownership.
When creating a new job, the **Department** field determines which Hiring Manager owns it and which Recruiters can be assigned. You can override the default assignment on any individual job by editing the **Job Ownership** field in the job's settings.
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## Change a member's role
Roles evolve as your team grows. Promote a Recruiter to Hiring Manager when they take on a new department, or restrict an External Recruiter's access after a project ends — all without disrupting active hiring workflows.
Go to **Workspace Settings → Team** and locate the member whose role you want to change. You can search by name or filter by current role.
Click the member's name to open their profile, then click **Edit Role**. Select the new role from the dropdown and click **Save Changes**.
The role change takes effect immediately — the member will see updated permissions on their next page load or action, without needing to log out and back in.
Downgrading an Admin to any other role is irreversible through the UI if they are the **last Admin** in the workspace. Mercury Recruit prevents workspaces from having zero Admins. If you need to remove the last Admin, first promote another member to Admin, then change the original Admin's role.
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## Revoke access
When a team member leaves the organization or a contractor's engagement ends, revoke their access promptly to protect candidate data and maintain GDPR compliance.
Go to **Workspace Settings → Team** and find the member. You can filter by **Active** or **Pending** to narrow the list.
Click the member's name to open their profile. Scroll to the bottom and click **Remove from Workspace**, then confirm in the dialog by clicking **Yes, Remove Access**.
Removal is immediate:
* The member is signed out of all active sessions on the next request.
* They lose access to all jobs, candidates, and workspace data.
* Their historical activity (notes, scorecards, status changes) is retained for record-keeping and appears attributed to their name with a **(Deactivated)** label.
* Any interviews they were scheduled to conduct are flagged as **Unassigned** so another team member can take over.
After removal, Mercury Recruit shows a prompt listing any open candidate assignments, scheduled interviews, or active job ownerships tied to the removed member. Use this prompt to reassign each item — or you can do it later from the individual job and candidate records.
Candidate data submitted by External Recruiters through the External Recruiter Access Portal remains in your workspace after you revoke their access. External Recruiter submissions are treated as your organization's data — only your Admins can delete them.
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## Need help?
If you have questions about role configuration or need help setting up a complex department structure, contact the Mercury Recruit support team:
* **Email:** [support@mercury360.com](mailto:support@mercury360.com)
* **Phone:** [+1 (855) 551-0417](tel:+18555510417)
* **In-app chat:** Click the **?** icon in the bottom-right corner of any page