Quick Start
Go from zero to accepting applications in under 10 minutes — create an account, post a job, brand your career portal, and invite your team.
Why It Matters
Kit’s onboarding checklist walks you through up to fourteen steps to get your hiring pipeline operational (a few appear only when they apply to your account, such as the team and Outreach steps). This guide covers the critical path — the four steps that get you from sign-up to accepting real applications. You can come back and complete the rest later.
Step 1: Create Your Account
Sign up at the Kit homepage with your name, email, and a password. Kit creates your team account automatically — you’re the owner with full admin access.
After signing in, you’ll land on the dashboard with the onboarding checklist showing your progress. Each step links directly to the right page.
Complete Your Profile
Click Complete your profile to add your first name and time zone. Your time zone is used for interview scheduling and notification timestamps.
Step 2: Create and Publish a Job Posting
Navigate to Hiring > Job Postings and click New Job Posting.
Fill in the Basics
The only required field is Title — everything else is optional but recommended. Add a description, location, department, and salary range to help candidates self-select before applying.
Choose a Process Template
Kit includes four starter templates to get you going:
| Template | Best For | Stages |
|---|---|---|
| Software Engineer - Standard | Technical roles | Application, Take-Home Assignment, Code Review, Technical Interview, Culture & Values, References, Offer |
| Customer Support Representative | Support/service roles | Application, Scenario Responses, Application Review, Video Interview, Offer |
| Product Designer | Design roles | Application, Portfolio Review, Portfolio Evaluation, Portfolio Presentation, Culture & Collaboration, References, Offer |
| Video Editor for Content Creators | Content/media roles | Application, Paid Test Project, Project Review, Creative Conversation, Offer |
Select a template from the dropdown to pre-populate your stages. You can also select No template and add stages manually, or create your own reusable templates later. See Process Template Configuration for the full reference.
Publish
New jobs start in draft status. Click Publish when you’re ready to accept applications. Your job will appear on your career portal immediately. Copy the public URL from the job posting header to share it directly.
See Creating a Job Posting for the full lifecycle.
Step 3: Set Up Your Career Portal
Your career portal is the public page where candidates browse and apply to your jobs. Navigate to Hiring > Settings > Career Portal to customize it.
Brand It
Upload your company logo and set a primary color to match your brand. Choose between light and dark themes, and optionally select a custom Google Font. The settings page shows a live preview of your changes.
Share It
Your career portal is live at:
https://startupkit.app/careers/your-subdomain
Link this from your company website, social media, and job boards. You can also embed it as an iframe for a seamless experience on your own site.
See Setting Up Your Career Portal for more branding options.
Step 4: Invite Your Team
Hiring works best with collaboration. Navigate to your Account page and click Invite.
Enter the person’s name and email. Everyone you invite joins as an Admin — Kit has a single team role today, so each teammate gets full access to create jobs, manage settings, and configure templates. You scope what people focus on by assigning them as reviewers on specific stages rather than by limiting their role.
The invitee receives an email with a link to join. If they’re new to Kit, they’ll create an account. If they already have one, they sign in and join your team automatically.
After inviting your team, assign them as reviewers on specific stages so they get notified when candidates reach their review step. See Inviting Your Team for details.
What Happens Next
Once your job is published, candidates can find it on your career portal and apply. Here’s the flow:
- A candidate submits their application
- You see it in Hiring > Job Postings > (your job) under the applications list
- If screening is enabled, review the application and advance or reject
- The candidate receives a magic link email to track their progress in the candidate portal
- As they move through stages, your team reviews submissions, conducts interviews, and submits feedback
- Advance strong candidates to the next stage, reject those who don’t fit
See Managing Your Pipeline and Reviewing Applications for the full workflow.
Optional: Connect Integrations
These aren’t required to get started, but they’ll make your workflow smoother. Navigate to Integrations from the sidebar.
| Integration | What It Does |
|---|---|
| Slack | Real-time notifications, screening via team channel reactions, candidate channels with emoji reactions, and AI-powered KitBot (capabilities depend on the permission level you choose when connecting) |
| Google Calendar | Check team availability and avoid conflicts when scheduling interviews |
| GitHub | Auto-create private repos from templates for code assignment stages |
| MCP (AI Assistants) | Let Claude or other AI assistants manage hiring workflows via MCP |
Optional: Outreach Addon
Kit’s Outreach module adds AI-powered cold email campaigns to your account. The AI researches each prospect individually and writes personalized emails for your approval. Add the addon ($10/mo) from Account > Billing and configure your SMTP credentials to get started.
See Outreach Overview for the full guide.
Onboarding Checklist Reference
Kit tracks up to fourteen onboarding steps. Some appear only when relevant to your account (the team-profile step is team-accounts only, and the two Outreach steps appear once you’ve added the Outreach addon). Here’s the full list with completion criteria:
- Complete your profile — Add your name and set your timezone
- Set up your team profile — Add your team’s avatar and details (team accounts only)
- Create a job posting — Publish your first role to start hiring
- Set up your career portal — Customize your public careers page
- Configure a hiring process — Create at least one process template
- Connect Google Calendar — Check availability and avoid scheduling conflicts
- Connect Slack — Get real-time hiring updates in your channels
- Connect GitHub — Auto-create repos for code assignments
- Set up Anthropic AI — Power AI screening and summaries with Claude
- Invite a team member — Collaborate with your hiring team
- Set your availability — Define your interview schedule
- Connect an AI assistant — Set up Claude or another AI via MCP
- Set up Outreach email — Configure your SMTP credentials for cold email (Outreach addon only)
- Create an Outreach campaign — Launch your first AI-powered campaign (Outreach addon only)
The checklist appears on your dashboard until you complete or dismiss it. You can restore it anytime if you dismissed it early.