Creating and Deploying a Sage
Overview
A Sage is a purpose-built AI screening agent configured to evaluate candidates for a specific role within your organization. Each Sage inherits its foundational capabilities from a Sage Mentor, a base model trained in structured behavioral interviewing, and is then shaped by your inputs to reflect the role, culture, and evaluation standards you define.
The lifecycle of a Sage follows a deliberate sequence: design, build, test, deploy. Design determines what the Sage evaluates. Build translates your inputs into a functioning interview agent. Testing lets you experience the screening firsthand. Deployment makes it operational. Once deployed, a Sage is locked; every candidate is evaluated against the same criteria.
Designing the Evaluation Framework
Role Context
Role Context tells the Sage what it is evaluating for. You provide:
Write the job description as if you are briefing a senior colleague who will conduct the interview on your behalf. That is exactly what you are doing. A vague, copy-pasted description produces a generic interview. A precise, honest description produces questions that surface real signal.
Cultural Alignment
Cultural Alignment shapes how the Sage interviews and evaluates, beyond technical fit:
Strong cultural inputs are specific and intentional. "Be friendly" is a tone selection. "Prioritize candidates who demonstrate ownership over projects, not just participation" is an instruction that changes what the Sage listens for.
Review and Build
Review
Before build begins, you review a complete summary of every input you have configured: role context, cultural alignment, tone, evaluation guideline, and instructions. This is your last opportunity to adjust. Once the build starts, these inputs are committed.
Build
Once confirmed, the system enters an automated build phase that typically takes approximately ten minutes. During this process, the Sage Mentor uses your inputs to construct:
The build runs in the background. You can close the page and continue working; you will receive an email notification when the build completes. "Build complete" means the Sage is ready to conduct interviews. It does not mean the Sage is deployed or visible to candidates. Nothing happens until you explicitly move forward.
Validation and Testing
Testing is optional but strongly recommended. It is the only way to experience the screening as your candidates will.
When you initiate a test, the system sends you an invitation email identical to what candidates receive. You click the link, enter the screening, and experience the full interview: same questions, same evaluation, same interface. There is no abbreviated or simulated test mode; each test link is unique and single-use, just like a candidate's.
Test screens are functionally identical to live screens with one distinction: they are flagged internally and excluded from all reporting, statistics, and candidate dashboards. Your test results exist for your review only.
If you choose to test, evaluate the following:
If testing reveals problems, resolve them before deploying. Once a Sage is deployed, its evaluation framework is locked and cannot be changed.
Deployment
Activation
Deployment is a status change. During deployment, you choose one of three states:
At deployment, you configure or confirm the email invitation template that candidates receive. This template supports dynamic variables for personalization and can be customized per Sage or default to your organization-level settings.
Immutability After Deployment
Deployed Sages cannot be modified. This is intentional. Allowing changes to a live Sage would mean candidates screened at different times could be evaluated against different standards. That compromises the integrity of the process and makes it impossible to fairly compare candidates. By locking the Sage after deployment, every candidate is evaluated against the exact same baseline.
The only change you can make to a deployed Sage is its voice; the evaluation framework, questions, scoring rubric, and instructions remain fixed.
Managing a Deployed Sage
From the Sage detail page, you can:
When to Create a New Sage
Because deployed Sages are immutable, iteration means creating a new one. Create a new Sage when:
Setting the original Sage to Inactive retires it cleanly. Its historical data, completed screens, reports, and results remain accessible. The new Sage starts fresh with its own screening history.
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