> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://trygradient.ai/docs/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Roles

> How roles organize your hiring and where assessments fit

# 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

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="Role" icon="briefcase">
    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.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Assessment" icon="clipboard-check">
    The work-sample test a candidate actually completes: a task brief, phases, a deliverable
    type, seeded data, and a scoring rubric. See [Assessments](/concepts/assessments).
  </Card>
</CardGroup>

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

| Field           | Description                                                                                                                                                                        |
| --------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Title           | The role name, for example "Senior Product Manager".                                                                                                                               |
| Job description | Pasted text or a link. Gradient reads it to suggest priority skills and to draft assessments.                                                                                      |
| Hiring manager  | The workspace member who owns the role.                                                                                                                                            |
| Recruiter       | The workspace member running the search.                                                                                                                                           |
| Priority skills | Up to five skills that matter most for this role, ranked, usually mined from the job description. These become the Prioritized Skills category in the [rubric](/concepts/scoring). |
| ATS-linked job  | An optional link to the matching job in Ashby, Greenhouse, or Workday. See [Integrations](/integrations).                                                                          |
| Stats           | Rolled up across the role's assessments: how many assessments exist and how many distinct candidates have been invited.                                                            |

## The role-first flow

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

<Steps>
  <Step title="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.
  </Step>

  <Step title="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.
  </Step>

  <Step title="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.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Invite candidates">
    Once the assessment is active, invite candidates one at a time or in bulk. See
    [Bulk invite](/guides/bulk-invite).
  </Step>
</Steps>

<Note>
  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.
</Note>

## 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](/integrations) for how job import and the assessment-partner flow work.