Transferring a candidate from General Applications to Zero Deposit

Why this exists

Agencies sometimes add a candidate against a general (UK Skilled Worker, Poland, Germany, etc.) pipeline and only later realise the candidate is actually a Zero Deposit fit. Re-keying the candidate by hand is slow and error-prone, so we built a built-in transfer wizard that moves the candidate into a Zero Deposit programme in one go.

Important: this transfer is only available for candidates your agency added directly. Partner Network leads are NOT eligible — they already have a Zero Deposit pathway through the lead-acceptance workflow.

Where to find it

Agency Dashboard → Candidates. Above the candidates table you'll see a banner titled 'Need to move a candidate to a Zero Deposit programme?'. Tick the candidates you want to transfer using the new checkbox column, then click 'Transfer to Zero Deposit'. You can also use the per-row Zero Deposit transfer icon (the small globe icon in the Actions column) to start a single-candidate transfer without ticking checkboxes.

What the wizard does, step by step

Step 1 — Pick the target country and role per candidate. Each candidate in the batch gets their own dropdown. Closed or fully booked programmes are disabled in the picker.

Step 3 — Submit. The wizard issues one bulk request to the backend. You get a per-row results screen showing successes (with the new application id and copied documents list) and any failures with a short explanation.

What happens to the original general candidate? The original agency_candidates row is flagged 'Transferred to Zero Deposit' and a link to the new Zero Deposit application is stored on the record. Nothing is deleted, so your reports and historical assessments stay consistent. The candidate's pipeline status is set to 'zd:pending_verification'.

Bulk transfer limits A single batch can transfer up to 50 candidates. For larger moves run several batches in sequence.

Common questions

Q: Do I need a separate signature per candidate? A: No. One signature on the standard Zero Deposit agency agreement covers every candidate in the batch.

Q: What if a programme runs out of slots mid-transfer? A: The slot reservation is atomic per candidate. If the programme fills before a particular candidate is processed, that one candidate fails with a clear error message ('the programme is currently closed or fully booked') and the rest of the batch succeeds.

Q: Can I undo a transfer? A: Once the Zero Deposit application is created and the candidate marked 'transferred_to_zd', the transfer is permanent in the same sense that any Zero Deposit submission is permanent — slots are reserved and the agreement is signed. If a transfer was created by mistake, contact Workium ops at support@workium.co.uk with the application id; we will reverse the record and free the slot manually.

Q: Will the candidate be notified? A: Yes — they'll receive the standard Zero Deposit application confirmation email and the candidate-side individual ZD profile will be linked if they already have a Workium account.