NextHire — AI-Driven Smart Recruitment & Interview Management System

Full-stack PHP 8.1+ / MySQL 8.0 / Tailwind CSS recruitment platform implementing 42 functional requirements across 6 modules with 5 role portals.

Quick Start

# 1. Create database
mysql -u root -p -e "CREATE DATABASE nexthire CHARACTER SET utf8mb4 COLLATE utf8mb4_unicode_ci;"

# 2. Run schema
mysql -u root -p nexthire < sql/schema.sql

# 3. Run migration (adds dept_manager, shadow roles, invite tokens, email log)
mysql -u root -p nexthire < sql/migration_v2.sql

# 4. Seed demo data
mysql -u root -p nexthire < sql/seed_data.sql

# 5. Update database config
# Edit config/database.php with your credentials

# 6. Start PHP server
php -S localhost:8000

# 7. Open http://localhost:8000

Demo Credentials

Role	Email	Password
HR Admin	hr1@nexthire.com	password123
Dept Manager	dm1@nexthire.com	password123
Interviewer	iv1@nexthire.com	password123
Shadow Observer	sh1@nexthire.com	password123
Candidate	c1@nexthire.com	password123

Architecture (97 files)

recruitment-system/
├── config/            # Database + app constants (5 roles, RBAC permissions)
├── core/              # Database, Router, BaseModel, BaseController, EventBus,
│                        AuditLogger, RBAC, StateMachine, EmailService
├── models/            # 11 data models
├── services/          # 35 service classes across 5 domains
│   ├── pipeline/      # Screening, Skill-Weighting, Approval, Dedup, Shortlisting, Analytics, Job Board Sync
│   ├── assessment/    # Proctoring, Question Bank, Heartbeat, Validator, Plagiarism, Difficulty, Cooldown
│   ├── interviewer/   # Availability, Panel Builder, Briefing, Live Coding, Shadowing, Extension, Load Balancer
│   ├── feedback/      # Aggregator, Normalization, Red Flags, Consensus, Sentiment, Competency Gap, Hiring Rec
│   ├── offer/         # Calculator, Letter Gen, Validity Timer, Negotiation, Referral, Background Check, Onboarding
│   └── admin/         # RBAC, Data Retention, Diversity, Audit Trail, Versioning, DB Integrity, Escalator
├── controllers/       # 17 controllers
│   ├── AuthController           # Login, Register (public), Invite (private), Logout
│   ├── DashboardController      # Role-based dashboards for all 5 roles
│   ├── hr/                      # Jobs, Pipeline, Shortlisting, Analytics, Offers, Onboarding, Compliance, Admin, DeptManager
│   ├── interviewer/             # Scheduling, LiveSession, Feedback, Panel
│   └── candidate/               # Profile, Application, Assessment
├── views/             # Layouts + partials (Tailwind CSS, SVG icons)
├── sql/               # schema.sql + migration_v2.sql + seed_data.sql
└── index.php          # Single entry point

5 Role Portals

Role	Registration	Dashboard
HR Admin	Private invite link only	Full recruitment pipeline management
Dept Manager	Private invite link only	Approve/reject job requisitions
Interviewer	Private invite link only	Schedule, live sessions, feedback
Shadow Observer	Private invite link only	Read-only interview observation
Candidate	Public registration	Job browsing, applications, assessments

Key Features

Registration & Authentication

• Public candidate registration at /index.php?page=auth&action=register
• Private invite-based registration for staff roles
• HR Admin generates invite links from Admin > Invite Links
• Token-based, time-limited (7 days) invite URLs
• CSRF + session regeneration on login

Interview System

• Candidate: Read + write access to code editor
• Interviewer: Read-only view with real-time sync (polls every 2s)
• Shadow: Read-only observation, no extension requests
• Candidate joins via candidate/interview route
• Session extension requests by interviewers only

Assessment Proctoring

• Tab-switch detection with warning modal popup
• Strike system (3 strikes = auto-flag)
• Integrity score deduction per violation
• Real-time strike counter in assessment header
• Server-side logging of all proctoring events

Email Notifications

• HTML email templates for: job creation, interview scheduling, offer letters, account creation, password reset
• Offer letters sent via email with one-click from Offers page
• Email log stored in database for audit

Security

• PDO prepared statements (no raw SQL)
• CSRF token validation on all POST requests
• RBAC middleware enforcement per role
• Password hashing via password_hash()
• Session regeneration on login
• Private invite tokens for staff registration
• k-anonymity for diversity reports
• Append-only audit log