A recruiter wants an applicant out of today's work queue. That does not tell you whether the candidacy has ended or the conversation is simply on hold. In Lever, archiving and snoozing solve different problems. Choosing the wrong one can hide a pending follow-up, distort the team's interpretation of its pipeline, or start an email that was never intended.
Start with the decision about the role, not the desire for a shorter list. This guide separates native Lever behavior from recommended controls for a custom AI workflow. It is about managing opportunities, not granting an agent authority to reject people.
Archive versus snooze at a glance
| Question | Archive | Snooze |
|---|---|---|
| What does it mean? | You are not proceeding with this opportunity | Engagement is temporarily paused |
| Where does it go? | The archive under its archive reason | Hidden from normal pipeline view, retaining its location |
| What brings it back? | A deliberate unarchive action | The snooze period ending, or removing the snooze |
| What needs review? | The opportunity, reason and optional email | The opportunity, duration, notes and follow-up owner |
Lever allows stage changes while an opportunity is snoozed. Do not assume that a stored stage from an earlier review is still current when work resumes. Read the opportunity again before taking the next action.
Choose the opportunity before choosing the action
Open the candidate profile and check the opportunities listed for that person. Someone considered for two roles can have a different outcome for each. Ending consideration for one role does not establish an outcome for the other. The distinction is explained in our guide to Lever candidates and opportunities.
Lever's individual archive flow can offer additional active opportunities for inclusion in the same action. Review that selection rather than treating a candidate name as the full scope. Confirm the role, current stage, archive reason and the opportunity being changed. Keep an unrelated active candidacy outside the action.
For a custom integration, store the reviewed opportunity identifier alongside the human-readable role. This is a recommended application control. A person's email address or name is not enough to identify the role-specific decision.
Use snooze for a real pause with a next step
For a temporary interruption, the clock button on an opportunity profile lets you select a snooze duration. Custom Time supports a specific duration. Opportunities can also be snoozed from the opportunity list, including multiple selections for the same period.
When the period ends, the opportunity reappears in the pipeline. Lever sends an email notification to the user who snoozed it, including notes added with that snooze. Write notes that explain the next action rather than merely repeating the date.
- Record why the conversation is paused and what needs to happen next.
- Choose a duration that matches the agreed follow-up, not a default chosen for tidiness.
- Name the recruiter responsible for checking the return.
- Define coverage if the person who snoozed it leaves or is unavailable.
- Recheck the role and latest candidate conversation before resuming contact.
The coverage and review steps above are operating recommendations. An email reminder is not evidence that a recruiter saw it or that a candidate received a follow-up. If another system manages tasks, test that handoff separately.
Snooze does not pause the reporting clock
Lever documents that snoozed time still counts toward time-based metrics in Visual Insights, including average time in stage. Hiding a record from the working view is therefore not the same as excluding it from elapsed-time reporting.
If managers want to distinguish active work from waiting, agree how to interpret the report before using it to judge recruiter performance. Keep pause reasons and follow-up obligations available for review. Do not promise that snooze alone will create a separate active-work metric.
Review archive emails as a separate action
In the archive workflow, Send email is optional. The editor supports sending with the archive action or delaying the email while the opportunity is archived immediately. That means archive state and message timing can differ.
There is an important carry-forward behavior. Lever remembers whether Send email was checked on the previous archive and can populate the editor with the last archive email text. Inspect the checkbox, recipient, role references and full message every time. Never treat remembered content as a reviewed draft for the next candidate.
For custom AI, prepare the proposed reason and message separately. Approval to update an opportunity should not silently approve an email. Bind any message review to the exact recipient and text. If a send has an uncertain outcome, reconcile it before retrying rather than assuming an error means nothing happened.
Make AI a preparation layer, not the decision owner
A useful custom assistant can collect the current opportunity state, the latest relevant notes and an explicitly recorded recruiter decision. It can flag a missing reason, a pause without a follow-up plan, or a message mentioning the wrong role. These are engineering recommendations for AI recruiting agents, not native Lever feature claims.
Keep the evidence packet narrow. Include the information needed for that opportunity and avoid unrelated private notes. If evidence conflicts, show the conflict. Do not infer rejection from silence, invent candidate preferences, or turn a temporary delay into a permanent disposition.
Before a reviewed change executes, check that the opportunity still has the same relevant state. A recruiter may have advanced the candidate while the draft waited. Mark the proposal stale and return it for review when the underlying decision has changed.
Common cleanup mistakes and recovery checks
- Archiving all active opportunities when only one role has ended.
- Snoozing repeatedly without a reason or a responsible recruiter.
- Assuming snoozed time disappears from time-in-stage metrics.
- Sending the previous candidate's archive email text without rereading it.
- Unarchiving a hired opportunity as routine cleanup without checking headcount implications.
Lever's Undo Archive action returns the opportunity to its last pipeline stage. Check whether that is still the right stage before continuing. Lever also warns that unarchiving a hired candidate can create requisition headcount issues. Treat that as a special case rather than a general reactivation shortcut.
How Remqa helps with Lever workflow automation
Remqa builds recruiting workflows that separate evidence collection, recruiter decisions, ATS changes and candidate communication. Start with one bounded cleanup queue, define the review packet, and test pauses, multiple opportunities and uncertain actions before expanding. Explore recruiting workflow support, or bring an example of the handoff your team wants to fix.