The application form is one of the first real interactions a candidate has with your company. This article covers what candidates actually see and experience when they apply through Kula, and how the choices you make in the form builder shape that experience.

What candidates see

• Clicking Apply on a job posting takes the candidate to the Kula-hosted application form, organized into the Personal Info and Profile sections, followed by any custom sections your team added. Candidates only see fields set to Mandatory or Optional — Hidden fields never appear to them.

• Personal Info typically includes first/last name, email, phone number, and location. Profile typically includes resume/CV upload, LinkedIn URL, and portfolio/website URL. Custom sections with role-specific questions follow after that.

How each field type presents to a candidate

• Short Text and Long Text appear as single-line and multi-line text inputs.

• Yes/No appears as a two-button toggle.

• Single Select shows as a dropdown or radio buttons, Multi-Select as a checkbox list.

• Number and Date use a numeric input and date picker respectively.

• URL is a text input validated as a web address.

• Currency is a numeric input with currency context.

Resume upload and autofill

• Candidates uploading a resume see two effective paths: let Kula auto-fill parts of the form from the resume, or fill it out manually. Because it wasn't always visually obvious that autofill was even an option, the resume section's UI was reworked to make the choice clearer to candidates.

• Autofill currently works reliably from PDF and DOCX resumes. Uploading in another format for the general resume/attachment field is accepted more broadly (PDF, DOCX, JPG, PNG), but the autofill/parsing step itself is built around PDF and DOCX.

Required vs. optional indicators

Mandatory fields are clearly marked, and Kula blocks submission with a highlighted prompt if any are left empty. Optional fields are visible and skippable with no effect on submission. See "Required vs. optional fields" for how these states are configured and their edge cases.

Submission and confirmation

• Once required fields are complete, the candidate submits and sees an on-screen confirmation.

• A confirmation email is not automatic — it only goes out if a confirmation email template has been chosen for that specific job (Job → Settings → Job Post → Application form section → Application submission email).

• This is a per-job setting, not an account-wide default, so a candidate not receiving a confirmation email is often simply because that particular job's template was never set.

How your configuration choices affect candidates

• Form length and completion. Every additional mandatory field adds friction and measurably reduces completion, especially for passive or competitive candidates. Keep required fields to what's genuinely necessary at the application stage.

• Section organization. Grouping related questions under clear labels ("About Your Experience," "Compensation & Availability") reads as intentional rather than a flat list of questions.

• Field labels. Write from the candidate's perspective — "How many days' notice do you need to give your current employer?" lands better than "Notice period (days)."

• Mobile. The form is responsive, but Short Text, Yes/No, and Single Select fields give the smoothest mobile experience; Long Text and Multi-Select ask more of a small screen. Favor simpler field types if you expect a lot of mobile applicants (field, logistics, frontline roles).

• If your careers page is embedded or built on Kula's Job Boards API rather than the Kula-hosted form, dropdown/select field values are sent correctly from Kula's side, but rendering them correctly on your own site is your team's responsibility — a real case surfaced values not displaying on a customer's own careers page despite the API returning them correctly, traced to the customer's own frontend rather than Kula. See "Embedding Kula job boards in an external careers page" for more on this setup.

Good to know

• There's no confirmed candidate-facing save-and-resume-later feature. Candidates should expect to complete the form in one sitting. If you need this for a long or complex form, consider shortening it rather than assuming candidates can pick up where they left off.

• Confirmation emails are configured per job, not account-wide. If candidates report not receiving one, check that job's Application submission email setting before assuming something is broken.

• Resume autofill works best from PDF or DOCX, and currently only reliably captures work experience, location, and social URLs — other fields a resume contains (designation, phone, education, skills, current employer) may still come through blank and need the candidate to fill them manually.

• A required Short Text field caps a candidate's answer at 255 characters, and a required Attachment field only accepts PDF, DOCX, JPG, and PNG — both can silently block submission if a candidate's answer or file doesn't fit. See "Required vs. optional fields" for the sourced detail.

• If you build your own application UI against Kula's Job Boards API, don't assume your frontend renders every field correctly just because the API returns the right data — validate dropdown/select rendering specifically, since this has been a real source of "candidates can't see the options" reports that turned out to be on the customer's side.

FAQ

• Can candidates save and return to a partially completed application? Not as a confirmed, generally available feature — candidates should plan to complete the form in one session.

• Do candidates get a confirmation after submitting? They always see an on-screen confirmation. A confirmation email only sends if one has been configured for that specific job.

• Can candidates edit their application after submitting? No, not directly. If something needs to change, your team can update it from the candidate's profile in Kula.

• What happens if a candidate leaves a required field blank and tries to submit? The form won't submit — Kula highlights the missing required field(s) and prompts the candidate to complete them.

• Can candidates apply without uploading a resume? Yes, if the resume/CV field is set to Optional rather than Required on that job's form.

• Does resume autofill capture everything from the candidate's resume? Not yet — it reliably fills work experience, location, and social URLs today. Other fields like designation, phone, education, and skills may still need to be entered manually even if the resume contains them.

• Can the application form be embedded on our own careers page? Yes, via Kula's Job Boards API — see "Embedding Kula job boards in an external careers page" for what that setup actually involves.

Need help?

If you have questions about the candidate application experience, reach out to us at support@kula.ai or use the in-app chat.