Recruiting pipeline: Gmail → Notion ATS → Calendar

Filter and label inbound applications

Settings → See all settings → Filters and Blocked Addresses → Create a new filter. Matches: to:jobs@acme.com has:attachment. Apply the label Inbound/Applications and skip the inbox. Labels are what your watch subscribes to. The intermediate "See all settings" click is the one people miss.

to:jobs@acme.com has:attachment filename:pdf -label:Inbound/Processed

Create the Pub/Sub topic and let Gmail publish to it

Create the topic in your Cloud project, grant the Pub/Sub Publisher role on it to gmail-api-push@system.gserviceaccount.com, then add a push subscription pointing at your endpoint. Miss the grant and users.watch simply returns an error and intake never starts — it is the single most common reason a first run does nothing. Scopes while you are here: gmail.readonly covers both the watch and the attachment fetch, and you only need gmail.modify if you also write labels back. The Calendar half needs calendar.events plus calendar.freebusy.

Watch the label via Pub/Sub

users.watch pushes change notifications to the topic you just granted. The subscription expires after 7 days, and Google's own advice is to renew it once a day — a weekly renewal has no margin at all, and intake stops silently on day eight.

{
  "topicName": "projects/acme-hiring/topics/gmail-inbound",
  "labelIds": ["Label_8823714590213"],
  "labelFilterBehavior": "include"
}

Pull the résumé attachment

users.messages.get with format=full gives you the part ids; then users.messages.attachments.get for the bytes, which arrive base64url-encoded. Keep the message id — it is your dedupe key alongside the email address.

Create the "Candidates" database

Properties: Name (Title), Email (Email), Role (Select), Stage (Status: Applied → Screen → Onsite → Offer → Hired / Rejected), Source (Select: Inbound / Referral / Outbound), Résumé (File), Applied On (Date), Screen Booked (Date), Panel (Person), Notes (Text).

Dedupe on email before inserting

Query by Email first: POST /v1/data_sources/{data_source_id}/query with Notion-Version: 2026-03-11 (retrieve the database once for its data source id; /v1/databases/{id}/query is deprecated). A repeat applicant should append to the existing row's Notes with the new date and role, not create a second candidate — nothing damages trust in an ATS faster than two rows for one person.

{
  "filter": { "property": "Email", "email": { "equals": "lee@northwind.co" } },
  "page_size": 1
}

Upload the résumé straight to Notion

Notion hosts the file for you — no bucket, no signed URLs, no expiry to outlive. Three calls: POST /v1/file_uploads to get an upload id, POST /v1/file_uploads/{id}/send with the bytes as multipart/form-data, then PATCH the page with the property below. The gotcha to design around is the clock: attach the upload within one hour or it expires and you start over. Résumés over 20 MB need mode "multi_part"; free workspaces cap a single file at 5 MiB.

{
  "properties": {
    "Résumé": {
      "type": "files",
      "files": [
        {
          "type": "file_upload",
          "file_upload": { "id": "a3f1c7e2-59b4-4d80-9c16-2e7ab5d43f08" },
          "name": "lee-okafor.pdf"
        }
      ]
    }
  }
}

Check free/busy before offering slots

freebusy.query across the whole panel in the candidate's timezone. Offer three slots, never one — a single proposed time turns scheduling into a week of email. A group address in items expands to its members, so mind two ceilings: groupExpansionMax tops out at 100 identifiers, and free/busy comes back for at most 50 calendars. Calendar does ship a native booking page that would let the candidate self-book, but an appointment schedule publishes one person's availability and does not aggregate a panel's — which is exactly what this step needs, and why it asks freebusy instead.

{
  "timeMin": "2026-04-06T09:00:00-04:00",
  "timeMax": "2026-04-10T18:00:00-04:00",
  "timeZone": "America/New_York",
  "items": [{ "id": "rae@acme.com" }, { "id": "eng-panel@acme.com" }]
}

Create the event with a Meet link

Pass conferenceDataVersion=1 on the insert or the requested Meet link is silently dropped and you send the candidate an event with no way to join.

{
  "summary": "Acme — 30 min screen — Lee Okafor",
  "start": { "dateTime": "2026-04-07T14:00:00-04:00", "timeZone": "America/New_York" },
  "end":   { "dateTime": "2026-04-07T14:30:00-04:00", "timeZone": "America/New_York" },
  "attendees": [{ "email": "lee@northwind.co" }, { "email": "rae@acme.com" }],
  "conferenceData": {
    "createRequest": { "requestId": "screen-lee-okafor-0407", "conferenceSolutionKey": { "type": "hangoutsMeet" } }
  },
  "reminders": { "useDefault": false, "overrides": [{ "method": "email", "minutes": 1440 }] }
}

Write the booking back to Notion

Set Screen Booked and put the Meet link in Notes. The candidate row should answer "when is this person talking to us" without opening a calendar.