For Companies
A guide for prime contractors, subcontractors, and partner networks using Illumera to staff projects, manage their talent bench, and source from the federated marketplace.
Company Setup Wizard
New company accounts are guided through a three-step setup wizard before accessing the full
portal. Users are redirected to the wizard automatically when the Company Dashboard detects
no active company membership for the current user (i.e., useActiveCompanyId() returns
no result).
- Basics — Legal company name, display name, website URL, industry, and company size.
- Identity — EIN (Employer Identification Number), headquarters city, and country. The EIN field is optional during initial setup; you can add or update it later from your company profile.
- Confirm — Review all details entered in the previous steps and accept the terms of service before submitting.
EIN values are currently stored as plain text in the database (company_profiles.ein). At-rest
encryption for EIN is planned but not yet implemented. Do not treat the EIN field as encrypted
at this time.
Company Profile
After completing the wizard, manage your company profile from Company → Profile. From here you can:
- Upload or replace your company logo (JPEG, PNG, WebP)
- Edit your company description
- Update your Work Environment CVF profile
- Configure network visibility — whether your talent bench is searchable by partner companies in the broader marketplace, or kept private for internal use only
Project Creation
Projects represent contract vehicles or specific task orders. Navigate to Company → Projects → New Project to create one. Define:
- Title — A clear internal name for the project.
- Start & End Dates — The contract period of performance. Start date must precede end date.
- Overall Budget — The total contract value (optional).
- Status — One of five states (see table below).
| Status | Description |
|---|---|
| Draft | Private. Only visible to your company admins. Not surfaced in the marketplace. |
| Active | Open for talent matching. Unfilled slots appear in the marketplace. |
| Paused | Temporarily on hold. Slots are not shown in marketplace searches. |
| Completed | All work is finished. Read-only. |
| Archived | Permanently closed. Removed from active views. |
Slot Management
A Slot is a single staffing requirement within a project — think of it as a role or position. Each slot drives an independent matching run. Open a project and click Add Slot to create one.
Per slot, configure:
- Title — The role name (e.g., "Senior Cloud Architect").
- Required Skills — Select from the standardized taxonomy. Skills are stored as a list; the person's own self-rated proficiency on each matched skill is weighted in the Skill Match score.
- Hours Per Week — Expected weekly hours. The Availability dimension of match scoring compares this against each candidate's available hours.
- Target Rate / Max Rate — The target hourly rate and the ceiling rate for the slot
(
targetRateCents/maxRateCents). The Cost Efficiency dimension scores candidates whose rate falls at or below the target, with a bonus, and degrades as rates approach the ceiling. - Status — Open (accepting candidates), Filled (engagement accepted), or Cancelled.
Example: A "Cloud Migration" project might have three slots — one Senior Cloud Architect requiring AWS and Terraform, two Data Engineers requiring Python and Spark.
Talent Marketplace
Once a slot is configured, navigate to Company → Marketplace to search talent across the federated network. Candidates from your own bench, partner companies, and independent professionals are all scored against the slot requirements.
For each candidate the platform shows:
- Overall Match Score (0–100%) — The composite score across all six dimensions.
- Spider Chart — A visual overlay of the candidate's strengths (filled area), the slot requirements (dotted outline), and your company's culture profile. The three-profile overlay gives you an explainable, defensible basis for each hiring decision.
- Profile summary, skills, seniority, location, and availability status.
You can filter results by skill, availability, rate range, and location. Results include talent who have expressed interest in your specific slot as well as the broader network.
Shortlisting and Inviting
When you identify a strong candidate, click Shortlist to add them to your review list without committing. You can shortlist multiple candidates per slot and compare them side by side.
When ready to make an offer, click Invite. This creates a formal Engagement and sends the candidate a notification. The talent reviews the terms (rate, start date, expected hours) and can Accept or Decline.
- Accepted — The slot is marked as Filled and the talent's availability is updated across the network.
- Declined — The slot remains Open and you can invite other candidates.
Engagement Management
Track all active and historical contractor engagements from Company → Engagements. The engagements pipeline shows all eight lifecycle stages:
| Stage | Description |
|---|---|
| Shortlisted | Talent added to review list; no commitment made. |
| Invited | Formal invitation sent; awaiting talent response. |
| Accepted | Talent accepted; slot is filled. |
| Active | Engagement is underway. |
| Paused | Engagement temporarily on hold. |
| Completed | Engagement concluded successfully. |
| Declined | Invitation was declined by the talent. |
| Terminated | Active engagement was ended early by either party. |
The engagement detail view shows the talent's profile, the agreed rate and hours, and the current status. Project status transitions are recorded in the project status history, accessible from the project detail view.
Financials and Invoicing
The Company → Financial section tracks invoices and spend across your active and completed engagements. You can view total committed spend, invoiced amounts, and per-engagement breakdowns.
Full payment rail integration is in development. The database schema and stub API endpoints are in place. When live, Stripe Connect will handle the B2B payment flow — automated invoice generation from approved hours, payout routing to contractors, and fee splits. This section will be updated with full setup instructions when the payment rail is available.
Work Environment Compatibility
Culture alignment is a first-class feature in Illumera, not an afterthought. Complete your company's Work Environment Compatibility assessment from Company → Profile → Culture & Values.
The assessment captures your organization's archetype across four CVF dimensions: Collaborative (people-first, consensual), Innovative (creative, risk-tolerant), Results-Driven (competitive, performance-oriented), and Structured (process-driven, controlled). Every candidate is scored on how well their work-style preferences align with yours, with an explainable breakdown of alignment and potential friction areas visible in the spider chart.