What Is a Job Applicant?
Every hire on your payroll started out as one name in a much larger pile.
A job applicant is any person who formally applies for an open role by sending in a resume, filling an application form, or submitting a profile against a vacancy. In India that vacancy usually sits on Naukri, Indeed, Apna, or the government’s National Career Service, and applicants also walk in during hiring drives, come through staff referrals, or land in the HR WhatsApp group as a forwarded PDF.
So an applicant is not the same as a candidate. Applying is the entry point. Everything after it (screening, interviews, an offer) is what carries a name in your inbox through the hiring process and onto someone drawing a salary.
What Does a Job Applicant Submit?
There is no single government-set format for what someone must submit, but across Indian SMEs the same pieces show up whether the role is a factory line supervisor or a retail cashier.
| Document or item | What it usually holds |
|---|---|
| Resume or CV | Work history, education, contact details, current location |
| Application form | Role applied for, expected CTC, notice period, availability |
| Cover note | A few lines on why the person fits the role |
| Certificates or portfolio | Trade certificates, FSSAI food-handler cards, work samples |
| References | Names and numbers from a previous employer |
Identity proof like Aadhaar and PAN is not needed at this stage. Those come later, at the document-collection stage, once an offer is on the table.
Job Applicant vs Candidate
People use the two words as if they mean the same thing. In a hiring pipeline they do not, and the gap matters when you are reporting how many people you actually need to interview.
| Aspect | Job applicant | Candidate |
|---|---|---|
| Stage | Just submitted an application | Shortlisted and moving through the process |
| Volume | Large, unfiltered pool | Small, filtered set |
| Screening | Not yet screened | Passed the first screen |
| Data on file | Basic application only | Interview notes, reference checks |
| Rough example | 63 resumes in the Naukri inbox | 5 people called in for a face-to-face |
Put simply: every candidate started as an applicant, but very few applicants become candidates, and fewer still reach a job offer.
Job Applicant Example
Note: this is an invented example for illustration only. The name, figures, and outlet are not real.
A bakery-and-cafe chain in Indore’s Vijay Nagar, part-way through hiring counter staff, posts an opening on Apna in March 2025. Here is what one applicant’s record looks like the moment it lands, before anyone has screened it.
She is one of about sixty who applied for two openings. Until someone reviews this record and marks it “shortlisted”, Meghna stays an applicant, and her data sits in your system whether she is hired or not, which is exactly why storing and clearing that data cleanly is not a small question.
Why Tracking Job Applicants Matters for Indian Businesses
The first reason has nothing to do with compliance. A strong applicant who is not right for today’s opening is often a good fit for the role you post six months from now. Businesses that keep a searchable record can reach back to past applicants and match them against a fresh vacancy, instead of starting every hunt from an empty inbox.
There is a numbers reason too. If you cannot tell how many of them turned into interviews, and interviews into hires, you cannot work out your real cost per hire or fix a leaky hiring funnel. A clean applicant list is where recruitment actually starts, and it feeds straight into interviews, an offer, and eventually the new hire’s payroll record.
Then there is the law. The moment someone sends you a resume, you are holding their personal data, and the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 treats a resume like any other set of personal information. In plain terms, it expects you to:
- collect the data only for a stated hiring purpose
- keep it only as long as the role genuinely needs it
- avoid letting it float across three managers’ phones indefinitely
Turn a New Hire Into a Clean First Payslip
Attendo (formerly Petpooja Payroll) plays no part in sourcing, screening, or interviewing applicants; that work stays with your hiring team. It starts only once someone is actually hired. From that point, Attendo takes the new employee’s Aadhaar, PAN, bank details, and salary structure into one employee database record, works out PF and ESI from the state and salary bracket, and switches on biometric attendance from the first shift. Across 40,000+ Attendo clients, from restaurant chains to Mapro’s kind of manufacturing setup, we see the same thing: when the data captured at hire lands cleanly in payroll, month-two salary corrections nearly disappear.
Frequently Asked Questions
Passing the first screen. When someone reviews the application and decides the person is worth an interview, the applicant becomes a candidate. Until then, they are just one name in the pool.
Yes, mainly around data. Under the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, you must handle their resume data responsibly. On selection, the Equal Remuneration Act, 1976 bars gender-based discrimination in recruitment, though India has no broad private-sector law covering caste or religion (the Constitution’s protections there apply to government jobs).
Only as long as there is a genuine reason to. Many Indian SMEs hold unsuccessful applicant details for six months to a year in case a similar role opens, then delete them. Keeping resumes forever, with no purpose, is what the DPDP Act discourages.
Not until it is recorded. A walk-in becomes a formal application only once the person’s details are logged against the vacancy. A verbal “are you hiring?” at the counter, with nothing written down, does not count.
For a handful of roles a year, a shared spreadsheet with columns for name, role, source, and status works fine. The cost is not the tool; it is forgetting to update it, which is how good applicants slip through the cracks.
