Connect your agent with MCP
Connect an AI assistant to First and ask about your hiring in plain language, instead of clicking through screens.
Claude, ChatGPT and Slackbot can all be connected. Once one is, it can read your reporting, search people who have already applied, research the talent market, and turn a set of notes into a drafted role with suggested criteria. You do not need a developer, and you do not need us to set anything up.
Once it is connected, an assistant can answer questions about your hiring across every role you can see, not just the one you have open. Ask what has stalled, how a particular role is going, or how this month compares with last, and it reads your reporting to answer: applications received, how candidates moved through your stages, where they dropped out.
It can also search people who have already applied to you and match them against a role’s criteria, using the CV and assessment First already holds for them. Give it a role and a location and it will research the talent market: demand, pay, who else is hiring. And you can turn a hiring manager’s notes or an intake call transcript straight into a drafted role with suggested criteria, instead of starting from a blank form.
Connect it in Slack and the whole team can ask without logging into First at all.
It can act as well as answer. It will draft a role, change one, publish it and add candidates to it. What it will not do is move anyone through your pipeline. Shortlisting, rejecting and deciding stay with you, in First.
There are just two things to have ready.
An address to paste in. When the tool you are setting up asks for a server or connector address, this is what you give it. It is the same one for everyone, and it will not change:
https://api.firststage.co/mcpA way to sign in. Most assistants will send you to First to sign in, the same way any other app does, and you approve the connection there. If yours asks for a key instead, create one in First under Profile, then Personal access tokens.
That is everything. This is all possible because First supports MCP, the standard that makes it work, but you will not need to think about that again after this page.
On a Free, Pro or Max account, in Claude go to Customize, then Connectors.
- Select +, then Add custom connector.
- Paste the server address above.
- Select Add, then sign in to First when Claude asks.
On a Team or Enterprise account an owner has to add it once for everybody, under Organization settings, then Connectors, then Add, Custom, Web. After that each person connects themselves from Customize, then Connectors.
ChatGPT tucks this away under developer settings, so there is one switch to turn on first. Use the web app.
- In Settings, open Apps, then Advanced settings, and turn on Developer mode. You will be warned that custom connectors run code on your behalf.
- Add a connector and paste the server address above.
- Sign in to First when ChatGPT asks.
This is available on Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise and Education accounts. On Business and Enterprise an administrator may have to allow it before you can see the switch. OpenAI has renamed these screens more than once, so if the names do not match, look for developer or advanced settings near apps and connectors.
Slackbot can connect to First on its own, so your whole team can ask about hiring right there in Slack without anybody installing a separate assistant. This is the easiest route for a team, and it puts the answers where your day already happens.
First is already registered with Slack, so there is nothing to set up at Slack’s end and no developer console to visit.
- Install the First app in your Slack workspace, following Connect Slack. If it is already installed, reconnect it there so it picks up the permission Slackbot needs.
- Each person opens Slackbot, selects Apps in the toolbar, and adds First with +.
- Sign in to First when asked.
Everyone signs in as themselves, so nobody inherits the access of whoever installed the app. Ask in plain language from there. Slackbot asks before each tool it runs, offering Allow Once, Always Allow or Deny, and it will list its tools if you ask.
/first-summary. Most teams want both: updates arriving on their own, and the ability to ask a question. Both are covered in Connect Slack.You cannot connect First to the ordinary Gemini app today. The connectors it offers are arranged by Google with each company one at a time, and there is no way to add your own.
If your organisation uses Gemini Enterprise, an administrator can connect First there, because it lets them register the connection directly. Developers can also use First from the Gemini CLI or the Gemini API. We will update this page if Google opens the consumer app up.
These are the same starting points the First agent offers in the app, so they are a good way to see what a connected assistant is like to use. Type them as they are, or in your own words.
What needs my attention right now?▼
The best opener, and the one worth keeping. It reads across every role you can see and tells you where things have stalled: roles taking applications nobody has reviewed, candidates sat in a stage too long, roles about to close.
Follow it with why for anything that looks wrong. The answer usually names a specific role, which you can then ask about directly.
Research the talent market for a role▼
Demand, pay and who else is hiring, before you commit to a salary or a job title. Give it the role and the location.
Most useful before writing the role, when the numbers can still change your mind. Ask it what it would expect to pay in your city against the national picture.
Turn an intake call into a role▼
Paste a hiring manager’s notes, a brief, or a call transcript, and ask for a role. You get a draft with suggested criteria rather than an empty form.
Spend your time on the criteria, not the prose. They are what candidates get sourced against and, once the role is live, what every applicant is assessed against. Nothing is published until you say so.
Search our candidate database▼
Finds people who have already applied to you and matches them against a role’s criteria. Everyone it returns is someone First already holds a CV and an assessment history for, which beats cold-sourcing a stranger.
Worth doing before you advertise. Ask it to search against a role you have already drafted so it uses the criteria you agreed.
Run a retro on one of my roles▼
Why a role is or is not producing candidates. It reads the role alongside how applications actually moved, so the answer is about this role rather than hiring in general.
The useful follow-up is what you would change. Ask whether the criteria are too strict before you conclude nobody good applied.
How is hiring going this month?▼
Your reporting in a sentence: applications received, how they moved, where people dropped out. Ask it to compare with last month and it will.
Good for a standup or a board update, where the number matters more than the chart.
One thing a connected assistant cannot answer yet is candidate feedback, such as which roles are getting the poorest ratings from applicants. That question still lives in the First agent in the app.
Stuck connecting something?
Tell us which assistant you are using and how far you got, and we will help. Email support@first.cx