Manage candidates

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1. Source the candidates you need

There are five ways to add candidates: manually, from CVs, by email, from a CSV file, or from LinkedIn. Pick whichever fits how you already work.

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1.1 Add candidates manually

Add one candidate at a time by entering their details directly. Best for one-off additions where you want full control over the record.

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1.2 Add candidates via CV upload

Upload CVs in bulk and let Spott pull out the candidate details for you, with no manual entry required. You can upload up to 1,000 CVs at once. Above 20 CVs there is no preview step. Duplicate records are flagged in red, and you decide whether to create them anyway.

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1.3 Add candidates by forwarding CVs

Already have CVs landing in your inbox? Forward them to Spott and skip the download-and-upload step entirely. The attachment does not have to be a PDF, Word documents are parsed too. Unlike a drag-and-drop upload, there is no screen where you check the parsed fields before the record is created, so an occasional detail can be missed. Spott replies by email when something goes wrong, for instance when the mail arrived without an attachment.

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1.4 Add candidates from a CSV file

Another way to bring new candidates into Spott is to import a CSV file. This is the route for a list you already hold as a spreadsheet, or for an export out of the system you are leaving behind.

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1.5 Import LinkedIn profiles

Import leads or candidate profiles from LinkedIn, Sales Navigator, or Recruiter into your Spott database using the browser extension. You import one profile at a time, with the side panel open on the profile you are looking at. Saving people to a Recruiter project does not carry them across on its own.

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2. Find the candidates you need

The Candidates page is your database. You can record, update, and access candidate information there, and take action on a candidate in one click, without opening their profile first.

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2.1 Search and filter the candidate database

The search bar at the top left of the candidate table takes names and keywords, and supports full Boolean queries with AND, OR, NOT, and parentheses. To look someone up by email address or phone number, use global search (⌘K / Ctrl+K) instead. The Filters button opens grouped filters: job titles, experience level, company history, location, education, compensation, and your own custom fields. Filters combine with AND/OR logic, or into filter groups for more complex queries. If you would rather not work through the menus, describe your ideal profile in your own words and Spott turns the description into filters for you.

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2.2 Save your table setup as a view

A view stores a whole table setup: its filters, sorting, which columns are visible, their order, and their widths. Frequently used filter combinations can also be saved as preset filters and reapplied in one click. Applying filters does not save them, so press Save view once the table looks the way you want it.

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2.3 Run a deeper search from the Search tab

When filters are not enough, the Search tab runs an AI-ranked search across candidate profiles, notes, and CV attachments. Describe the profile you are after or point it at an existing job description, and Spott proposes pre-filters and ranking criteria for you to review before it runs.

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3. Find your way around a candidate profile

Everything Spott knows about a person lives on one profile, so it pays to know the layout before you start working in it. Open the Candidates page in the left menu and click a candidate’s name. The header shows their name, role, company, and contact details, and the profile below it is organized into three tabs:

• Overview: all information about the person.
• Candidate: their applications, placements, and matching.
• Inbox: the full message history, across all channels.

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3.1 Take action from the profile header

The top right corner of the profile holds the candidate’s LinkedIn profile, the Present button for sharing them with a client, and the Actions menu. From Actions you can send an email, send a calendar invite, add the candidate to a job, add them to a list, add a task, add a note, enroll them in a campaign, or merge two people.

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3.2 Use the side panel

The Overview tab has a row of subtabs on the left and a side panel on the right. That panel holds Details, Activity, and Ask AI, the three things you reach for most often while reading a profile.

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4. Get the full picture on one candidate

Before you call someone or put them in front of a client, this is where you catch up on them: what Spott has picked up automatically, what your colleagues have logged, and anything you want to ask.

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4.1 Review the AI summary and details

The Summary subtab is your starting point. Based on the whole profile it shows a short AI summary of the candidate, their salary expectations, candidate sentiment drawn from recent conversations, upcoming meetings, plus suggested field updates and suggested tasks picked up from recent calls, meetings, and notes. Hover a suggestion to see why it was made, then accept it or dismiss it. The right-hand Details panel holds the candidate’s fields: contact details, location, languages, availability, salary expectation, and any custom fields your workspace uses. Click Show all values to see every field. The applications the candidate is currently in sit on the Candidate tab.

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4.2 Review the activity timeline

Activity in the side panel is a timeline of everything that happened on the record, and who did it: attribute updates, notes, tasks, meetings, emails & messages, calls, applications including stage moves, and contacts. Use the Filters button at the top of the timeline to show only the event types you care about.

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4.3 Ask AI about the candidate

Ask AI is a personal agent that knows the whole profile: details, experience, notes, emails, and applications. Ask it things like “Summarize the situation with this candidate”, “Give me an application overview”, or “What should I do next with this candidate?“.

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4.4 Read and add notes

All notes linked to the candidate appear on their profile, and they double as context for the AI features. You can create notes manually at any time, and notes and emails can be docked into a floating window that stays on screen while you move around the rest of the profile, which is handy for taking notes while reading a CV.

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5. Keep a profile up to date

A profile is only as useful as it is current. These are the tabs you work in to keep a candidate’s history, documents, and permissions accurate. This walkthrough covers the files, tasks, consent, and references subtabs, plus the Communication subtab that section 5 picks up.

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5.1 Update experience and CV information

The Experience subtab shows the candidate’s skills, work experience, and education with tenure statistics, built from their CV, LinkedIn updates, and other files. You can also enter or adjust anything manually. When the candidate has a CV on file, switch on the Latest CV toggle at the top left to read the CV document itself instead of the parsed profile, without leaving the record. The company names in the work experience are clickable. Clicking one opens a preview of that employer with its description, industry, headcount over time, funding rounds, and the employees you already have in Spott. From that preview, Add as company turns the employer into a client record, which is handy when a candidate’s current employer turns out to be a prospect. The buttons at the top of the tab keep the profile fresh: Add note, Request updated CV to send the candidate a link to upload their latest one, Update with new CV to upload a newer one yourself, Check for updates to refresh the profile from LinkedIn, and Generate CV to create a formatted CV in your agency’s template.

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5.2 Manage files

The Files subtab holds everything attached to the candidate, starting with their CV. Click the three dots next to a CV to generate a formatted version, so every CV you share with a client follows the same template.

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5.3 Track candidate tasks

The Tasks subtab holds the follow-up actions for this candidate. Assign them to yourself or a teammate, set due dates, and track completion.

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5.4 Record consent

The Consent subtab tracks the candidate’s consents, meaning GDPR and other compliance requirements with type, source, and validity period, and their marketing opt-outs, so they can be excluded from marketing emails. The subtab appears once consent tracking is enabled for your workspace.

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5.5 Add references

The References subtab is where you log references for the candidate and add comments per reference.

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6. Get in touch

Everything you send a candidate happens from their profile, so the conversation and the record stay in one place and your colleagues can see the history.

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6.1 Message from the candidate profile

The Communication subtab holds your full message history with the candidate across email, linked emails, WhatsApp, and SMS, with the channels listed down the left and split into your workspace ones and your personal ones. You can reply from here without leaving the profile. Synchronisation runs both ways: messages sent outside Spott show up here too, and vice versa. For the full-screen version, open the Inbox tab. WhatsApp threads stay private to each user, so a colleague’s WhatsApp conversations are not visible to the rest of the team.

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6.2 Find a missing email or phone number

When a candidate’s contact details are incomplete, enrichment looks them up for you across multiple data providers in turn. Open the profile, click the empty email or phone field, and use the purple Enrich button that appears. The Candidates table does the same in bulk: select up to 1,000 people with the checkboxes, then use the Enrich menu to target personal emails, work emails, phone numbers, LinkedIn URLs, or a full profile update. Enrichment is switched on per workspace under Settings → Features.

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7. Put a candidate forward for a job

This is where the profile turns into a placement: find the jobs a candidate fits, then get them in front of the client.

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7.1 Match a candidate to a job

From the profile you can find jobs that match the candidate, find similar candidates to widen a shortlist, present the candidate, and take many other actions.

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7.2 Present candidates to a client

The Present button in the top right sends the candidate to your client contacts for a role, with their CV or a generated report attached. You can present to several contacts at once, either from a contact list or with the bulk email option inside the Present dialog. From a multi-candidate selection, Generate Shortlist produces one client-ready document covering the whole group: a cover page plus the individual profiles, grouped by company. Choose the job, the template, the language, and whether to anonymize the candidates. It runs in the background, and the Word document is ready to download when it finishes.