search
Understanding and Using Contact Type

Last Updated:

The Beamery contact profile collects a very important element of data called Contact Type. This field helps organizations manage duplicate contacts and can be managed by an integration and/or recipe. It allows end users to distinguish between the 4 types of contacts they will encounter in the Beamery CRM and is visible on the contact profile, in quick search results, and can be used in searches and filters. These 4 contact types are:

  • External Applicants
  • Internal Applicants
  • Employees
  • Alumni

Internal vs External Applicants

External Applicants are those contacts who are not associated to the organisation and are synced into Beamery via the ATS Integration.

Internal Applicants however are those contacts who are already employed by your organization, but have applied using their candidate details (i.e. their personal email and address etc), and are synced into Beamery via the ATS Integration. These Workday profiles have a WorkerID that will be used to trigger the Internal Applicant label on an applicant profile in Beamery.

Internal Applicants vs Employees

Internal Applicants are pushed to Beamery via the ATS Integration. Employees (or Workers) are synced to Beamery from the HCM.

An Employee record will have the worker’s details (i.e. their work email, work history as per their Worker profile in the HCM etc). Whereas the Internal Candidate will have their personal non worker details synced from the ATS Integration.

Using the Contact Types 

Contact TypeUI Label How is it ManagedHow to Activate
Internal Applicant
Screenshot 2025-12-03 at 10.43.25 AM.png

ATS Integration (ideal)

If a WorkerID is present on the candidate

Contact Importer or Recipe

Added to contacts via CVS import and/or managed via Recipe

Submit a support ticket to have the feature activated
External Applicant
Screenshot 2025-12-03 at 11.34.17 AM.png

ATS Integration (ideal)

If no WorkerID is present on the candidate

Contact Importer or Recipe

Added to contacts via CVS import and/or managed via Recipe

Submit a support ticket to have the feature activated
Employee
Screenshot 2025-12-03 at 10.46.10 AM.png

HCM Integration (ideal)

If an Employee Pull is configured with the HCM and a Worker ID is present

Contact Importer or Recipe

Added to contacts via CVS import and/or managed via Recipe

Contact your CSM for details
Alumni
Screenshot 2025-12-03 at 10.47.04 AM.png

Contact Importer or Recipe

Added to contacts via CVS import and/or managed via Recipe

Automatically Available

Updating Contact Types without an ATS or HCM Integration

Though it is Beamery best practice to integrate your HCM and ATS, the Contact Type field can be managed manually via a recipe. When building a recipe, admins should use the action Update Contact Type to control the Contact Type without an integration.