CLEAR

What it is

CLEAR is the identity company behind the airport express lanes (Clear Secure, NYSE: YOU). Recruiting teams meet it in one place: the identity verification check built into Greenhouse Real Talent. A recruiter or a stage rule sends the candidate a request; the candidate matches a selfie with liveness detection against a government ID inside MyGreenhouse; Greenhouse writes a pass/fail status back to the candidate profile, marked against the stage where it happened. Greenhouse and CLEAR announced the partnership on June 12, 2025, and the feature is available on the Plus and Pro tiers.

This page covers that hiring use only. CLEAR also sells the same verification as CLEAR1 to IT and security teams, for onboarding, MFA registration, help-desk resets and account recovery, with prebuilt integrations into Okta, Ping and Microsoft Entra. That matters to a recruiting buyer only as a question: does your security team already run CLEAR1, and will they want the hiring check to match it?

CLEAR is not a background check. Greenhouse’s own documentation says it does not query watchlists or criminal records, and the check involves no AI scoring. It answers one question: is this person who they say they are, at this stage?

How it works inside Greenhouse

• Two ways to fire it. A recruiter clicks Request verification on the candidate’s Security screening tab, or a stage transition rule sends the request automatically every time a candidate enters a chosen stage. Admins scope it to specific offices and departments, and Greenhouse recommends piloting with one office first.
• Over 60 signals, one status. CLEAR checks document authenticity and tampering, selfie liveness and face match, and device and network signals such as VPN or proxy use. Greenhouse then cross-checks the verified last name, phone and email against the application. Recruiters see one of six statuses: verification complete, failed, pending, mismatch, verified but VPN detected, or incomplete (declined, expired, canceled, or unsupported location). Clicking through shows which part failed. Interviewers never see the ID or selfie.
• Returning CLEAR members go faster. A candidate who already holds a CLEAR identity usually completes a shorter flow, often a selfie only, and is stepped up to a fresh ID scan if theirs has expired. Given how many US professionals already use CLEAR at airports, this is the candidate-experience edge no standalone vendor can copy.
• Biometrics never reach your ATS. Greenhouse does not request, receive or store biometric data. ID images and selfies stay with CLEAR, which is a data controller with its own relationship with the candidate. Greenhouse keeps the status plus name, phone, email and IP address. CLEAR is certified at IAL2 by Kantara.

Pricing reality

Neither company publishes a price. You do not sign a contract with CLEAR. Verification comes through Greenhouse’s own CLEAR tenant, so the real price is your Greenhouse tier. Greenhouse quotes every plan. Third-party buying data puts Plus at roughly $12,000–$18,000 a year for companies of 100–500 employees, and Pro from about $24,500, with a median contract near $27,000. Sources disagree on whether Real Talent is bundled into those tiers or sold as an add-on. Get it in writing on the order form, and ask whether verifications are metered. The configuration page shows total organization usage, which suggests they can be.

Price it against the standalone path. Persona starts at $250 a month for 500 verifications on a 12-month minimum, and charges $1.50 each after that. If you are already on Greenhouse Plus or Pro and Real Talent is included, CLEAR is the cheapest candidate identity gate you can buy, because the marginal cost is close to zero. If you are on Greenhouse Core, the real cost of CLEAR is a tier upgrade, and that is usually more than Persona costs for a year.

Best for

A talent acquisition lead at a company already on Greenhouse Plus or Pro, hiring remote engineers or other knowledge workers, where proxy interviewers or fake applicants have already shown up. The goal is one gate at the recruiter screen and one at offer, without a new vendor review or a second contract.

Watch-outs

• Mismatches are mostly innocent. The last-name, phone and email cross-check flags maiden names, nicknames, a work address used instead of a personal one, and a different phone. Guard: treat Mismatch and Verified, but VPN detected as a recruiter conversation and a resend, never a rejection. Write that rule into your stage instructions before you turn on auto-send.
• Coverage stops at a published list. Supported device locations are the US and its territories, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, the EU and UK, India, Japan, Singapore, South Korea and Australia. IDs issued by Ukraine, Russia, Syria, Iran, North Korea and Cuba are not accepted. Guard: before you scope verification to an office, check its candidate pool against that list. Then document a manual fallback, such as a live ID check on video by a second interviewer, so an unsupported candidate is not quietly dropped.
• Retention and BIPA are on you to ask about. Greenhouse’s privacy FAQ gives no retention period for CLEAR-held data and does not mention Illinois BIPA. Candidates delete their data through CLEAR, not through you. Guard: get CLEAR’s retention terms in writing during the security review, add ID verification to your Greenhouse “Data to be Deleted” retention rule, and put your own biometric notice in the request email for Illinois candidates.
• It is silent on hired employees. Search filters read only the current stage, so hired candidates can only be filtered as Not verified. Guard: export statuses at offer acceptance into your HRIS if IT or security needs proof of identity at onboarding, or have IT re-verify through CLEAR1.
• Tasks must be on. If MyGreenhouse Tasks are disabled, candidates get the email but cannot complete the check. Guard: confirm the setting in Configure > MyGreenhouse before the pilot.

Alternatives, and when to pick them instead

• Persona: pick it when you run Ashby or Workday, expect to switch ATS, or need configurable retention and redaction. It is the established standalone identity layer, and it does not depend on which ATS you use.
• Nametag Recruit: the fastest-moving new entrant. It launched May 21, 2026, with Workday and Greenhouse integrations, and its docs list Lever, Ashby and Workable connectors too. Pick it when IT already uses Nametag for help-desk identity, or when you want one vendor across several ATSs.
• A general IDV vendor you already run, such as Jumio, Veriff or Sumsub: pick one when your company verifies customers for KYC and can extend the contract to workforce. You will build the ATS wiring yourself.
• Checkr sits beside CLEAR, not instead of it. It runs post-offer screening with an identity add-on. Keep it for criminal and employment history, which CLEAR does not touch.
• GetReal Security covers what an ID check cannot: a verified person who hands the live interview to a deepfake or a proxy.

If you hire in person for hourly roles, you need none of these. Being there in person settles identity. See the hiring integrity stack for where this gate sits, and AI interview fraud for which fraud classes it actually closes.