Do I need to manually update the candidate portal at each interview stage?
Do I have to move the stage manually in both places? No - once configured, the candidate's portal will update to the current stage when you send an availability request or confirmation email.
The recommended flow is:
Move the candidate to the next stage in Greenhouse.
Guide automatically pulls that change and shows the current stage on the candidate's internal Guide profile.
When you draft and send the candidate confirmation email in Guide, the candidate portal stage updates at the moment you click Send.
A manual stage selector also exists in Guide (under Interview Plan), but it only exists for overrides or quick corrections. In most cases you won't need it, because sending the confirmation handles the portal stage for you.
How to set the portal stage from any email draft view:
Open the candidate confirmation (or availability request) draft in Guide.
On the message, use the portal stage picker to choose which interview plan stage the candidate should move to. You can also choose "No portal stage" if you don't want to move them.
Send the message. The portal stage is applied at send time, not before.
Guide remembers your choice Guide saves your portal stage selection per job and stage.
The next time you send an email at that same stage for that job, Guide pre-fills the same choice automatically, so you only need to set it once per stage/job. You can change it anytime, and the new choice becomes the default going forward.
And this updates the candidate-facing portal:
Moving Candidate Portal Stages with Aria
If your account has Aria turned on, you'll see an extra "Update candidate portal stage" panel inside Aria settings for each job. With Aria, you no longer set the portal stage in your email draft workflow - instead you configure the rule once per job stage in job settings, and Aria moves the candidate's portal stage automatically when the event you choose happens.
How to configure your job-level preferences
Job level (Jobs → [Job] → Aria → a stage): This is where you can point the candidate to a specific stage.
Each job stage inherits the organization defaults (you'll see an "inherited from organization-level Aria settings" note), and you can override either the trigger or the destination stage for that stage.
Once you choose a trigger other than "Let Aria choose" or "Don't update automatically," the "Which stage should the candidate move to?" dropdown unlocks and lists that job's stages (for example, "Virtual onsite (4 of 5)"). Pick the stage you want the candidate moved to. You can reset any overridden field to fall back to the organization default at any time.
How to set this up:
In Settings → Aria, set your default trigger under "Update candidate portal stage." Leave the stage as "Let Aria choose" if you want Aria to decide.
For any job where you want an exact destination stage, open Jobs → [Job] → Aria, expand the relevant stage, and set the trigger and the specific stage under "Which stage should the candidate move to?"
Save your changes.
A few things to keep in mind:
"Let Aria choose" lets Aria decide which stage to move the candidate to; selecting a specific stage pins it.
Choosing "Don't update automatically" turns off the automatic move for that scope.
This automatic behavior only applies when Aria is enabled for your account. Without it, you continue to set the portal stage manually in the email draft as described earlier in this article.
As with everything else, this only affects the candidate-facing portal stage - it never changes your Greenhouse stage.
Best practices
Always update the stage in Greenhouse first.
Let the confirmation email drive the portal stage update.
Use the manual selector only to override or fix a mismatch.
Keep your stage choices consistent per job for a smooth candidate experience.