Lever is the hiring system behind many startup and mid-size company postings, and its form is a single page with no account. You upload a resume, the fields fill from the parse, you answer the employer's questions, which Lever shows as cards, and you submit. A confirmation email follows. It is close to Greenhouse in shape, with two differences: the "apply with" buttons that pull from a professional profile, and the question cards, which can be short answers that are letters in disguise.
Key points
- The address is
jobs.lever.co/company, or the company's own careers page with a Lever form embedded. - No account. One page. One session.
- "Apply with LinkedIn" fills from a profile that is rarely as good as your tailored resume. Upload the resume instead.
- Question cards are the employer's. Read them first and write the long ones outside the form.
- The confirmation email is the only receipt. There is no portal.
The form
| Section | What it asks | What to check |
|---|---|---|
| Resume | Upload, or "apply with" a profile | Upload the tailored resume. The profile import is a fallback. |
| Contact | Full name, email, phone | The parse fills these. Read them. |
| Location | Current location, sometimes a dropdown | Match the posting's limit for a remote role |
| Links | LinkedIn, GitHub, portfolio, other | Fill the one that matters for the role |
| Additional information | A free text box | Short. A paragraph at most. Not a second resume. |
| Question cards | Work authorisation, salary, start date, custom questions | The custom ones are where the time goes |
| Voluntary questions | Demographics | Optional. Not seen by the hiring manager. |
The "apply with" button is a shortcut. The resume is the application.
Before you start
Open the form and scroll to the cards. Some are yes or no. Some are a sentence. Some are "tell us about a project you are proud of", which is paragraph two of a cover letter. Write those in a text file first, in the shape the guide on cover letters gives, and paste them in.
The form holds what you typed while the page is open, and loses it if the page reloads. Long answers are written elsewhere.
The parse
Lever reads the uploaded resume and fills name, email, phone and sometimes location. It does not fill work history or education into fields, because the form does not have them. The resume file itself is what the recruiter reads. That makes the parse less of a risk than on Workday or Taleo, and the tailored resume more important, because nothing else carries the detail.
The additional information box
A free text box that most people leave empty or fill with a second resume. Leave it empty, or put two sentences there: the one thing that makes you the fit, and when you are available. The guide on cover letters has the one thing. A recruiter reads this box when it is short.
After you submit
A confirmation email from the employer via Lever. No portal, no status page. The guide on how long until you hear back has what silence means. Withdrawing is an email to the recruiter.
Reapplying is a new form. The employer's side links it to your earlier record by email address, and two applications to one company show side by side to the recruiter, which is fine.
On this site
Tailor rewrites your resume and cover letter against the posting before you open the form, so the words you paste in are the ones the posting used. When you send it, add the row in Track, with the ATS score you sent it at. We do not fill the form for you: the pledge on this site says we will not apply on your behalf.
Before you open the form
The tailored resume exported and named. The cover letter in a text file, if you have one, because a card takes a paste and the page loses a draft on reload. The answers to the standard cards written down: right to work, location, start date, the salary range from the guide on salary expectations. With those ready, the form takes ten minutes. The card that asks for a sentence or a paragraph is where the time goes, and it is time well spent, because a hiring manager reads it.
Questions
Do I use "apply with LinkedIn"?
Only when you have no resume file. The profile import pulls a profile that was written for a different reader, with no tailoring and often old dates. The resume you tailored is the better document, and the form takes it.
Is there a word limit on the cards?
Some have one, shown under the box. Most do not. Keep a short-answer card under 150 words anyway. The reader is a recruiter with a pile.
Can I attach a cover letter?
Some employers add a card for it. When there is none, the additional information box takes two sentences, and the letter stays in your file for the interview.
The form says the posting is closed. I saw it an hour ago.
The posting closed at the source, and the copy you saw was stale. The guide on where listings come from has why. The board on this site removes a closed role on its next refresh.
Does Lever show the employer where I came from?
Yes, as a source field. It does not change the outcome.