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Tips to improve your search results

Tips to improve your search results

Find great matches from the get-go with these pro tips from our team
Robyn Luyt avatar
Written by Robyn Luyt. Updated over a week ago

Location searches

Focus on the specific locations that the candidate must be located in first

  • Start with the specific locations where you want candidates to be based. The engine will expand the search to include candidates in the proximity of the searched locations and categorise them as 'Close matches'.

For example, when searching for Amsterdam, Netherlands, candidates located in Almere, Amstelveen, etc will also appear in the list.

Combine 'Based in' locations and 'Remote' to target specific groups of candidates.

When searching for candidates for remote work, focus on specific areas that suit the 'flavour' of remote the company is looking for.

For example, companies looking to hire candidates:

  • Based in countries where they have legal entities

  • Based in countries where they can leverage price arbitration — e.g.

    • Based in: South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria

    • Wants to work in: Remote

  • Based in locations within specific timezones

  • Based in locations where the company would like to strategically expand or grow an employee base

  • Based in tech hubs or locations known for having a strong supply

Combine 'Based in' and 'Wants to work in' locations to target candidates according to relocation requirements or constraints.

  • If not looking to relocate candidates, specify the same city in 'Based in' and 'Wants to work in' criteria to focus on candidates already based in the city where the job is to be held — e.g.

    • Based in: Cape Town, South Africa

    • Wants to work in: Cape Town

  • When open to relocating candidates, specify the locations you're looking to relocate them from in the 'Based in' criteria in conjunction with the city the job is to be held in as part of the 'Wants to work' in criteria — e.g.

    • Based in: Netherlands

    • Wants to work in: Amsterdam

Role and skills searches

Include ‘generic’ and ‘specific’ roles together

Pair tech-specific roles with their ‘generic’ counterpart as well as the main required languages or frameworks in the skills criteria.

The following are examples of the above:

Java Developer

  • Roles: Java Engineer + Backend Engineer + Full Stack Engineer

  • Skills: Java

Full stack JavaScript / NodeJS Developer

  • Roles: JS FE Engineer + JS Node Engineer + Full Stack Engineer

  • Skills: NodeJS, JavaScript

PHP Developer

  • Roles: PHP Engineer + Backend Engineer + Full Stack Engineer

  • Skills: PHP, Laravel

Boost candidates in the results by combining ‘must have’ and ‘nice to have’ skills

Candidates are only included in the results if they match at least 1 ‘must have’ skill. And the more ‘must have’ skills they have, the higher up in the results they will appear.

‘Nice to have’ skills have a similar effect. The more ‘nice to have’ skills a candidate matches, the higher up in the results they appear.

For example, if you’re looking for candidates with the following skills:

  • ‘Must have’: Java, Spring, and SpringBoot

  • ‘Nice to have’: Liquibase, Flyway, JPA, JTA, and Spock

The top of your results will be:

  • Candidate A: matches Java, Spring, SpringBoot, Liquibase, JPA, JTA, and Spock

  • Candidate B: matches Java, Spring, SpringBoot, Flyway, JPA, and Spock

  • Candidate C: matches Java, Spring, SpringBoot, Liquibase, and Spock

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