Searching for Candidates

Find Candidates Using the Look Up Tools

You can use the “Look up a candidate”, “Look up a candidate (Detailed)”, and "Find Submission" search tools to quickly find a specific candidate or submission that you know exists in the database.

Look Up a Candidate

When you use the "Look up a candidate" search tool, you can enter the first name, last name, middle name, email address, user name, or candidate identification number of the candidate you’re looking for in the Search field. You can also use the AND and OR operators along with partial names and wildcard. However, a best practice is to enter complete names to obtain better results.

Look Up a Candidate (Detailed)

If you want greater precisions in your search results, you can use the “Look up a candidate (Detailed)” search tool where you can enter a value in more than one of these fields: first name, last name, middle name, email address, and candidate identification number of the candidate you’re looking. If there’s an exact match, you’re taken directly to the candidate’s general profile.

Find Submission

This search tool is similar to the "Look up a candidate" feature except that, instead of displaying a resulting list of candidates, it displays a list of submissions.

Find Candidates Using Search

Use Search when you need to find candidates with a specific profile for an existing or upcoming requisition.

The Search tool is available on the core navigation bar. When you click Search, the New Search Criteria page appears. This is where you select criteria to find candidates.

When you define your search, the more you add search criteria, the narrower the scope of your search will be, typically resulting in fewer but more pertinent results. By adding multiple occurrences of the same criteria, you broaden the scope of your search, typically resulting in more search results.

A best practice is to start your search with only a few criteria, and to narrow your search down by going back to your search query and entering one or more additional search criteria. Your search results will then contain fewer candidates. It’s simpler and more efficient to start with a general search and narrow down the results to a manageable candidate pool than to start with a tightly defined narrow search and then need to broaden the search to obtain a viable candidate pool.

Search criteria are organized into different categories or types.

Search Criteria Presets

These are criteria set by your administrator. You can’t change them, they’re shown only for informational purposes. The presets may affect search results.

Required Criteria

These criteria have a red asterisk beside them. They were added to the search form by your administrator. You can’t change them.

Required, Excluded, or Desired Criteria

For many search fields, you can specify one of these criteria:

Required: Only candidates with that criterion are retrieved.
Desired: Candidates with that criterion are considered more relevant than those without the criterion.
Excluded: Candidates with that criterion are excluded.

Customize Search Parameters

If you have the required permission, you can add more criteria to the search form. Click the Customize Parameters icon and select the desired criteria. Criteria are added to their respective section automatically.

Default Value

You can select a value for a search criterion and make that value the default value when creating a new search query. Let’s say that for the External/Internal Candidates criterion, you want the External value to be the default value. Select External, then click Make Default.

Keyword Search

You use the Keyword search when you want to search candidates based on specific terms, related terms, or a block of text in the candidate profile. These keyword search types are available:

Exact Terms: The search engine returns words that match exactly the terms you entered.
Related Terms: The search engine searches for occurrences of the word you entered but also searches for occurrences of related terms determined by the system.
Conceptual: The search engine finds the right concepts to search for based on the text you entered and then broaden its search by searching documents or attachments with relevant ideas and concepts to the text you provided. For example, you could use text from a candidate’s resume or job description to search for candidates.

To help you select the proper search type, an information icon provides details about the Related Terms and Conceptual search.

Filter Candidate Search Results

You can use filters to narrow down the list of candidates found after performing a candidate search.

When you click the Search button to find candidates, candidates meeting the selected search criteria are listed in the Search Results page.

Click the Filters tab to filter results using keywords or specific criteria.
Click the Advanced Filters tab to select more criteria to further refine your search results.

Note: Advanced filters must be enabled by your administrator. You also need the permission to access advanced filters.

Save Your Candidate Search Query

You may want to save a candidate search query because you want to use it frequently or to potentially share it with other recruiters.

Go to the Search menu.
In the New Search Criteria tab, enter values in the search criteria.
Click the Customize Parameters icon to add more search criteria.
Click Save.
In the Save Search Criteria window, enter a name for your search.
Select a folder to save your search. Personal search queries are only available to you. Shared queries are available to other recruiters.
Click Done.

Access Your Candidate Search Queries

You use the Saved Searches tool to quickly access your saved candidate search queries.

Go to the Search menu.
Click the Saved Searches tab.
Use the Folder menu to display personal searches, shared searches, or both.

Organize Your Candidate Search Queries into Folders

You can organize your candidate search queries into folders.

Go to the Search menu.
Click the Saved Searches tab.
Select a search query.
Click the Move Saved Search icon.
Decide if you want to copy or move the search query.
Select a folder.
Click Done.

When you view the folder structure, click the More Actions icon next to a folder to access more actions such creating a new folder, share an existing folder, view folder properties, move and delete the folder.