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Job Interviews & Careers vocabulary · Applications & Hiring

Candidate

Meaning in job interviews & careers, with examples

/ˈkændɪdət/nounCore term

In job interviews & careers, candidate means: A person who is being considered for a job, especially someone who has applied and is going through the selection process.

In Turkish: aday, başvuru sahibi

How it is used

Recruiters and hiring managers use this word all the time: a strong candidate, the ideal candidate, shortlisted candidates. Job ads often describe 'the successful candidate', meaning the person who will get the job.

Example sentences

  1. We've interviewed five candidates, and two of them are very strong.

  2. The successful candidate will join our London team in March.

Common collocations

  • strong candidate
  • ideal candidate
  • successful candidate
  • shortlisted candidate
  • applicationA formal request for a job, or the set of documents and forms you send to an employer when you make that request.
  • shortlistTo choose a small number of the best applicants from everyone who applied, so that they can be invited to an interview.
  • recruiterA person whose job is to find and select people for jobs, either inside a company's HR team or at an external agency.
  • interviewerThe person who asks the questions in an interview; in a job interview, usually a manager, an HR specialist or a future colleague.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

More terms: Applications & Hiring

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