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Roles

A role is a job opening you are hiring for. It is the top-level object in Gradient: you create a role first, then build one or more assessments under it, then invite candidates to those assessments. Roles are separate from assessments on purpose, so the thing you are hiring for (the job) is not tangled up with the thing candidates do (the task).

Role vs. assessment

Role

The job opening. Holds the job description, the people involved (hiring manager and recruiter), the priority skills you care about, and an optional link to the matching job in your ATS. Aggregates stats across all of its assessments.

Assessment

The work-sample test a candidate actually completes: a task brief, phases, a deliverable type, seeded data, and a scoring rubric. See Assessments.
One role can have many assessments (for example, a first-round screen and a deeper final round for the same opening). An assessment is created under a role and inherits context from it, such as the priority skills that shape the rubric.

What a role holds

The role-first flow

Creating an assessment always starts from a role. In the dashboard, the flow is:
1

Create a role

Enter a title and paste or link the job description. You can also import the role directly from a connected ATS job posting.
2

Confirm the priority skills

Gradient suggests up to five priority skills from the job description. Adjust the ranking and wording so the rubric scores what you care about.
3

Design the assessment

Gradient proposes a few assessment starting points based on the role. Pick one, or start from a custom brief, then move into the build wizard.
4

Invite candidates

Once the assessment is active, invite candidates one at a time or in bulk. See Bulk invite.
Because creation is role-first, the older “create an assessment from scratch” entry point now routes you to the roles list. Every assessment ends up attached to a role.

Roles and your ATS

If you connect an applicant tracking system, you can seed roles directly from your live job postings and keep candidate records in sync. Roles are the object that links to an ATS job. See Integrations for how job import and the assessment-partner flow work.