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The Candidates page gives you three ways to find people: the search bar for quick lookups, structured filters for precise slices of your database, and the Search tab for deep, AI-powered sourcing across the whole pool. Open the Candidates page from the left menu (shortcut: G then A; see all keyboard shortcuts).
The Candidates page with the search bar and Filters button
The search bar sits in the top left of the candidate table. Type a name or keyword to narrow the list as you type.
Looking up who owns an email address or phone number? Use global search (⌘K / Ctrl+K) instead. It finds the person an identifier belongs to across the whole database.
The search bar supports full Boolean queries with AND, OR, NOT, and parentheses. Spott switches to Boolean mode automatically as soon as your query contains double quotes:
This gives you precise control when a plain keyword search returns too much.
A Boolean query in the candidate search bar

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Apply structured filters

Click the Filters button above the table to add a filter. Filters are grouped by the kind of data they match. The menu is built from your own workspace, so it is longer than any list here: custom attributes and the fields your integrations add show up in it as well. The groups worth knowing about are these.
  • Current Job Title, Years of Experience, and Keywords. See keywords
  • Dates, including Current Job Start Date: when the candidate started in their current role. See current job start date
  • Company, with industry and past companies
  • Location and Education
  • Compensation and Last Interaction
  • Jobs: everyone who is in a process for a specific job or company, or currently sitting in a specific stage
  • Rejected: everyone whose application was closed, filtered by who ended it, By Us, By Candidate or By Client, and by the rejection label that was recorded. The two together are how you find the people worth going back to: someone the client turned down because the role was already filled is a different prospect from someone who withdrew, and both are different from a candidate your team rejected on skills.
  • Lists and Source
  • For candidates synced from the VDAB CV database, the date their CV was last updated on VDAB, which you can filter and sort on as well as the date the record was first created in Spott. The two answer different questions: creation date tells you how long you have had the profile, the VDAB date tells you how fresh it actually is. Sort on it to work the recently refreshed profiles first.
  • Phone number, including its area code, so you can cut a list by dialling code when the location field is thin
  • Any custom fields your workspace has configured
  • Compliance filters such as consent status, when consent tracking is enabled
The filter menu with its filter groups
By default, results match all applied filters. Use the three-dot menu on an applied filter to combine filters as any instead, for example “Paris or London”. For more complex slices, combine filters into filter groups: each condition in a group is joined with AND or OR, and you click the operator in front of a condition to switch it.
A filter group combining degree, location, and experience conditions with AND
Location offers Set location for a radius around a point, and Set area for a named area, which can be a city, a region, or a country. As you type, each suggestion is labelled with what it is, such as Region, Municipality, or Place, so you can tell “Flanders, Belgium” the region from a town of the same name before you pick it. Locations are geocoded, so both “London” and “Greater London” resolve to the same area. To switch a location filter between a radius and an area, change its operator on the filter chip. You no longer have to delete the filter and add it again, which also keeps the place you already picked. Set area also accepts whole continents: Europe, North America, South America, Asia, Africa, and Oceania. Useful for the coarse cut you make before anything else, such as everyone outside Europe on a role that cannot sponsor a visa. Location also filters on ZIP or postal code, which is the precise cut when a named area is too broad and a radius is too round. It is the filter to reach for when a client recruits by postcode district, or when a shift pattern only works for people in specific codes. The same Location filter behaves this way everywhere in Spott, on contacts, companies, and jobs, not only on candidates. There is no “has received an email” filter as such. Last Interaction is the one to reach for, since email is one of the touchpoints that moves it: filter on Last Interaction At for when you were last in contact, Last Interaction With for which colleague it was, or the broader Last Activity Date for any activity on the record.

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Include or exclude keywords

The Keywords filter takes three operators: contains, is similar to, and does not contain. The last one is the cut you make after a search returns too much: everyone with “Java” in their profile who does not contain “JavaScript”, or a sales search that leaves out “recruitment” so you are not calling other agencies.
  • Enter up to five keywords. With does not contain, a candidate is left out when their profile contains any of them.
  • Each keyword is matched as an exact phrase, so “account manager” does not match a profile that only has “account” and “manager” apart.
  • Keywords search the profile: name, email addresses and phone numbers, job titles, descriptions and company names, location, education, and your custom text fields. They do not search inside CVs or other files, or in notes.
does not contain is on the candidate Keywords filter only. Other text filters keep their usual operators.

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Current job start date

Current Job Start Date, in the Dates group, filters on when a candidate started the job they hold now. It is the filter for timing an approach: someone who started a new role three weeks ago is rarely ready to move, and someone two or three years in may well be.
  • A current job is one that has started and has no end date. When a candidate has two, only the one with the most recent start date counts.
  • Operators: is, is not, before, after, between, not between, is empty, and is not empty. Values are Today, This week, This month, or a custom date.
  • A job without a start date does not count as current. Those candidates match is empty, is not, and not between, so add is not empty when you only want people with a known start date.
It is on candidates only, including the candidate filters inside a job pipeline. Contacts do not have it.

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AI text to filters

You do not need to know where each filter lives. Keep typing a description in the filter box, for example “React developer with 5+ years of experience, living in California”, and Spott converts it into filters for you with AI Text to filters. Locations follow what you actually wrote. Ask for “within 30 km of Ghent” and you get a radius filter around Ghent; name a place without a distance, such as “living in Flanders”, and you get an area filter for that place.
AI Text to filters converting a description into filters

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Preset filters

A filter set you use often can be saved as a preset filter, so you apply it in one click instead of rebuilding it. With your filters applied, open the filter menu, hover over Preset filters, and choose Save current filter set.
The Preset filters submenu with Save current filter set
Give the preset a name and save. From then on it appears under Preset filters, ready to apply.
The Save preset filter dialog
Where a view saves the whole table setup, a preset saves just the filter set. Presets are also available when editing the pre-filters of a search, so you can reuse the same filter set for deep sourcing:
A saved preset filter available in the Edit pre-filters dialog

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Save filters into Views

Save a set of filters as a view to come back to it later. You can create as many views as you want:
  • Click the view picker (it shows All at first)
  • Set your filters
  • Click Save view
  • The saved view is now available from the dropdown
When you change filters, sorts, or columns on a view, a save / discard prompt appears at the top of the table. Changes only stick after you save them. See using views for everything a view holds.
The view picker with saved views

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Deep sourcing with the Search tab

Where the search bar and filters match profile fields, Search runs an AI-ranked search across every candidate in your database, including their notes and the attachments labeled as CVs (other attachments are not searched). Open it from Search under Tools in the left menu, or from the Search tab next to All candidates at the top left of the Candidates page.
The Search tab with the prompt box and recent searches
Describe your ideal profile in your own words, or use Start from to base the search on an existing job in Spott or on a pasted job description. Spott turns your input into pre-filters and criteria that you review before running the search, then ranks the results by match score. Nothing Spott picks up is fixed: you can add, edit, or remove any pre-filter or criterion, both before you run the search and afterwards. The tags under the prompt box, for example Job Title, Location, and Experience, light up as Spott recognises those details in your description. They let you check what was picked up before you run the search.

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Recent searches and history

Your recent searches sit under the prompt box, each with its pre-filters and criteria, its top match, and the number of candidates found. Click one to reopen it instead of describing the profile again. Search History, in the top right, shows the full list. Give a search a name you will recognize later, such as the client and the role, rather than picking it out by its prompt. A search started from a job carries a link to that job, so you can get back to the role it was run for in one click.
The Search tab with Search History open on the right

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Reading the results

Search and Matching run on the same engine and return the same result table. How the two halves of a search work together is explained in full there:

Filters vs criteria

Why pre-filters narrow the pool and criteria rank what is left.

Read a match score

Scores from 0 to 100, the thumbs rating per criterion, and the reasoning behind them.
The pre-filters and criteria chips above the results stay editable. Open either one to adjust the search and run it again, rather than describing the profile from scratch.

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Act on the results

Work through the list with the All, To Review, and Reviewed tabs. Tick the candidates you want, and an action bar appears at the bottom of the table.
The bulk action bar with Accept, Mark as reviewed, and Enrich
  • Accept moves the selected candidates into a pipeline. A stage picker opens so you choose where they land, using the stages your workspace has configured.
  • Mark as reviewed moves them to the Reviewed tab, so you can keep working through the ones you have not judged yet.
  • Candidate Actions and Communication Actions hold the bulk operations on the selected records, including Generate Shortlist, which writes the selection into a Word shortlist for a client.
  • Enrich looks up missing emails and phone numbers for the selection. See contact enrichment.
The stage picker that opens from Accept

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Change a field on many records at once

The same action bar carries an attribute update, which opens a dialog called Update Candidate Attribute. Pick the attribute, set the value, and it is written to every record you selected. The picker covers your custom attributes and Main Contact, which makes it the way to hand a batch of candidates to a different consultant after an import, or to set a custom status across a list without opening the records one by one. It works on candidates and contacts. Companies have no equivalent yet, so an off-limits flag across a few hundred companies still has to be set record by record. Bulk actions that write to records, such as updating a field or creating tasks, handle 1,000 records at a time. Larger jobs have to be split, or handed to support. The exceptions: adding to a list, adding to a job, and enrolling in a campaign take up to 9,999 records in one go, running in the background above 1,000, and bulk delete takes up to 10,000. Those limits hold wherever you start: a candidate or contact table, a list, a job pipeline, or Add recipients inside a campaign. A bulk email reaches each person on their work address first, then their personal one, taking the address marked primary where there is more than one. Somebody whose address sits only in the personal field is still reached. That resolution is described in full under which address a recipient is reached on, and unlike a campaign, a bulk email gives you no control over it. People whose address is suppressed are skipped, and Spott tells you how many.
A bulk email from Communication Actions is paced deliberately, leaving 30 to 90 seconds between messages so your provider does not read the burst as spam. A send to 50 people takes the best part of an hour, and there is no way to speed it up. Nothing is stuck: watch them leave rather than sending again.
Use Share Search, in the top right, to hand the search over to a colleague.

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Organize results

  • By default the table is sorted by last activity, so recently active candidates come first.
  • Sort on any sortable column from its header menu. Sorts are saved as part of the view.
  • Results in the Search tab and in matching are always ranked by match score.
  • Clear all filters to return to the full candidate list.
Two ranking rules override a column sort without saying so. A similar to filter on job title orders the results by similarity, so clicking a column header appears to do nothing; switch that filter to is, or add a last interaction filter, and the sort comes back. The Search and matching tabs behave the same way, ranked by match score. To count the results of a search, select all: the count appears with the selection. There is no total on the table itself. Every other place Spott uses AI is mapped out in AI in Spott.