A Glossary of Key Terms in HighLevel Platform Terminology for HR & Recruiting

For HR and recruiting professionals, navigating the landscape of modern CRM and marketing automation platforms can be a powerful catalyst for efficiency. HighLevel, often referred to as GoHighLevel (GHL), stands out as an all-in-one solution that can revolutionize talent acquisition and employee engagement processes. Understanding its core terminology is the first step toward harnessing its full potential. This glossary provides clear, authoritative definitions tailored to how these terms apply within the HR and recruiting domain, helping you streamline your operations, enhance candidate experiences, and automate critical workflows.

HighLevel (GHL)

HighLevel, or GoHighLevel, is an all-in-one sales and marketing platform designed to help businesses manage their entire digital presence and client communications. For HR and recruiting, GHL acts as a centralized hub for managing candidate pipelines, automating outreach, scheduling interviews, and nurturing talent pools. It consolidates CRM, email marketing, SMS, social media posting, website/funnel building, and reputation management into a single platform, eliminating the need for multiple disparate tools. Recruiters can use it to track applicants, automate follow-ups, and create seamless communication flows from initial contact to onboarding, ensuring no candidate slips through the cracks and saving valuable administrative time.

Sub-Account

Within the HighLevel ecosystem, a Sub-Account represents an individual business or client instance. If you’re an HR consulting firm managing recruiting for multiple clients, each client would typically have their own Sub-Account, providing a distinct, segregated environment for their specific pipelines, contacts, and automation. For internal HR departments in larger organizations, Sub-Accounts can segment different departments or hiring initiatives, ensuring data privacy and tailored workflows without cross-contamination. This hierarchical structure allows for robust organization and custom branding for each entity, making it ideal for managing diverse recruiting needs under one master account.

Snapshot

A HighLevel Snapshot is a pre-built template of a Sub-Account, containing all its configurations, workflows, forms, pipelines, custom fields, and more. For HR and recruiting, Snapshots are invaluable for rapidly deploying standardized recruiting processes. Imagine creating a “New Hire Onboarding” Snapshot that includes all necessary forms, automated welcome emails, task assignments, and internal communication workflows. This allows recruiting agencies or HR teams to clone proven strategies across multiple clients or departments instantly, ensuring consistency, reducing setup time, and accelerating time-to-hire. It’s a foundational tool for scalability and maintaining best practices.

Workflows / Automation

Workflows (formerly “Campaigns” in older HighLevel versions) are the powerful automation engine of the platform. They allow you to define sequences of actions based on specific triggers, automating repetitive tasks. In HR and recruiting, workflows can be used to automatically send application acknowledgments, schedule interview reminders, trigger internal notifications when a candidate reaches a certain pipeline stage, or even initiate background checks via integrations. By automating these processes, recruiters save significant time, minimize manual errors, and provide a consistent, professional experience for every candidate, freeing up capacity for high-value strategic work.

Triggers

Triggers are the events that initiate a workflow in HighLevel. They are the “if” part of an “if this, then that” automation statement. Common HR and recruiting triggers include: “Form Submitted” (e.g., a job application), “Contact Tag Added” (e.g., marking a candidate as “Interview Scheduled”), “Pipeline Stage Changed” (e.g., moving an applicant to “Offer Extended”), or “Appointment Booked” (e.g., a candidate self-scheduling an interview). Defining the right triggers is crucial for building responsive and efficient recruiting automation. They ensure that relevant actions are taken automatically the moment a specific event occurs, keeping the hiring process moving forward.

Actions

Actions are the specific tasks that a HighLevel workflow performs once a trigger is met. They are the “then that” part of your automation logic. In an HR context, actions could include: “Send Email” (e.g., an interview confirmation), “Send SMS” (e.g., a reminder), “Add Contact Tag” (e.g., “Hired”), “Assign User” (e.g., assigning a recruiter to a new applicant), “Move Contact to Pipeline Stage,” or “Create Task” (e.g., for an HR manager to review a resume). A well-designed sequence of actions ensures that all necessary follow-ups and internal processes are executed without manual intervention, streamlining the entire talent acquisition lifecycle.

Custom Fields

Custom Fields in HighLevel allow you to store specific, unique data points about your contacts beyond the standard fields (like name, email, phone). For HR and recruiting, these are incredibly powerful. You can create custom fields for “Desired Salary,” “Visa Sponsorship Required,” “Years of Experience,” “Referral Source,” “Expected Start Date,” or even “Preferred Interview Time.” These fields ensure that all relevant candidate information is captured, organized, and easily accessible within their contact profile. This structured data can then be used in workflows for personalization, filtering, and reporting, enabling more informed and efficient hiring decisions.

Forms

HighLevel Forms are customizable web forms that can be embedded on websites, landing pages, or sent directly to candidates. For recruiting, forms are essential for collecting applicant information during the initial application process, gathering pre-screening questions, or collecting feedback. The data submitted through these forms automatically populates candidate profiles within your GHL CRM, and can trigger workflows (e.g., an automated email confirming receipt of application). They are crucial for standardizing data collection, ensuring all necessary information is captured upfront, and initiating the automated candidate journey.

Surveys

HighLevel Surveys are more dynamic and interactive than standard forms, allowing for multi-page questionnaires and conditional logic. In HR and recruiting, surveys can be used for more in-depth candidate pre-qualification, post-interview feedback, or even employee satisfaction surveys during onboarding. For instance, a candidate might answer a question, and based on their response, be shown a different follow-up question. This allows for a more tailored and efficient data collection process, helping recruiters quickly identify top talent or gather nuanced insights that simple forms might miss, enhancing the quality of candidate assessment and feedback loops.

Funnel / Website Builder

The HighLevel Funnel and Website Builder allows users to create professional, conversion-focused web pages without coding. For HR and recruiting, this means quickly building dedicated career pages, job-specific landing pages, application portals, or even onboarding resource hubs. Each page can be optimized to guide candidates through a specific journey, from initial interest to application submission. By controlling the entire web presence related to hiring, HR teams can ensure a consistent brand experience, capture candidate information effectively, and integrate seamlessly with their CRM and automation workflows, improving the overall candidate experience and conversion rates.

Calendar

HighLevel’s Calendar feature enables candidates to self-schedule interviews or meetings directly into a recruiter’s or hiring manager’s available slots. This eliminates the back-and-forth email volley often associated with scheduling. Recruiters can create multiple calendar types for different interview stages (e.g., Phone Screen, Technical Interview, Final Interview) and link them to specific team members’ availability. When a candidate books an appointment, it automatically updates the GHL CRM, sends confirmations, and can trigger subsequent workflows, drastically reducing administrative overhead and accelerating the interview process.

CRM (Contacts)

The Contact Management (CRM) system within HighLevel is the central database for all candidate and employee information. Every applicant, prospect, or current employee will have a detailed profile containing their contact information, custom field data (e.g., resume notes, desired salary), communication history (emails, SMS, calls), pipeline stage, and any associated tasks or appointments. This “single source of truth” allows HR and recruiting teams to have a 360-degree view of each individual, enabling personalized communication, efficient progress tracking, and insightful reporting across the entire talent lifecycle from application to alumni.

Opportunities / Pipelines

Opportunities and Pipelines in HighLevel provide a visual, Kanban-style view of your recruiting process. Each pipeline represents a stage in the hiring journey (e.g., “Application Received,” “Pre-Screen,” “Interview,” “Offer Extended,” “Hired”). An “Opportunity” is a candidate moving through these stages. This allows recruiters to see at a glance where each candidate stands, identify bottlenecks, and prioritize actions. Automations can be triggered when an opportunity moves from one stage to another, ensuring a smooth and consistent progression for every applicant, making the entire recruiting process transparent and manageable.

SMS / Email Marketing

HighLevel offers robust built-in SMS and email marketing capabilities, allowing HR and recruiting teams to communicate directly and at scale with candidates. This can be used for automated application acknowledgments, interview reminders, follow-ups with passive candidates, job alerts, or even internal communications. The ability to manage these communications directly within the CRM means every interaction is logged and tied to the candidate’s profile, providing a complete communication history. This integrated approach ensures timely, personalized outreach, improving candidate engagement and reducing reliance on external communication tools.

Two-Way Messaging

HighLevel’s Two-Way Messaging feature allows recruiters to engage in direct, real-time conversations with candidates via SMS, email, Facebook Messenger, Google My Business messages, and more, all from a single unified inbox. This streamlines communication, making it easier for candidates to ask questions and for recruiters to provide quick responses, enhancing the candidate experience. All conversations are automatically logged within the candidate’s CRM profile, ensuring a complete and auditable record of all interactions, which is vital for compliance and team collaboration in recruiting.

If you would like to read more, we recommend this article: Mastering HighLevel Sandboxes: Secure Data for HR & Recruiting with CRM-Backup