# How to search for candidates

> Search everyone in your OpenATS workspace by description, similarity, job description or Boolean, and narrow it with filters.

Open **AI search** and describe who you need, or switch to **Find similar**, **Job description** or **Boolean search**. Narrow the results with filters (location, title, company, skills, pipeline history and more), each with a live count, and exclude anyone already in a process or contacted recently.

*Search & AI · Last updated 2026-11-11*

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## Ways to search

| Mode | Use it to |
| --- | --- |
| **Natural-language search** | Describe who you’re looking for, in your own words. |
| **Find similar** | Find people like someone you already have, from their title, skills and tags. |
| **Job description** | Paste a job description and find people who match it. |
| **Boolean search** | Write an exact query with AND, OR, NOT, quotes and parentheses. |
| **Filters only** | Skip the words and filter the whole workspace. |

Search matches names, headlines, locations, resumes and tags across everyone you’re allowed to see. Relevance comes first, with a small boost for strong scorecards and for how far someone got in an earlier process.

> **Tip:** To find someone by name or email, use the search bar at the top of any page: people come up as you type. AI search is for describing who you need, and **Advanced search** in that bar hands a sentence over to it.

> **Note:** The page is called **AI search** when AI is on, and **Search** when it isn’t. Searching works either way.

## Filters

Filters run across the whole workspace, with or without search words, and show a live count as you change them. They’re grouped as **General**, **Locations**, **Job**, **Company**, **Skills or keywords**, **Likely to switch**, **Pipeline**, **Rediscovery**, **Education**, and **Boolean & name**. Chips come from what your workspace has, and any chip can be set to exclude instead. Skills can be pinned as required.

### Leave people out

- Anyone **in a process on an open role, or hired in the last year**.
- Anyone **contacted from a project in the last N days**.
- Anyone **at a current client** (agencies).
- **Excluded companies** you list.

> **Tip:** Save a list you use often, such as target companies or schools, with **Save preset**. Presets are shared with the whole workspace.

## Past candidates

On a role’s page, **Find past candidates** opens a search for people from earlier searches who reached a screen or scored 3 or more, and aren’t on this role yet. **Rediscovery** filters do the same anywhere: the furthest stage reached, a minimum scorecard, archive reason and earlier roles.

## Sourcing projects

A sourcing project keeps a search’s criteria, shortlist, owner and outreach status together. Pick one at the top of **AI search**, shortlist people into it from the results, and enroll the shortlist in a [sequence](https://openats.ai/docs/email-and-sequences/sequences).

## Questions about search for candidates

### Why does it say “Not searched on”?

Search leaves out words about who someone is (age, origin, family, health and the like) and tells you which ones it dropped. OpenATS never matches or ranks people on who they are. See [AI safeguards and limits](https://openats.ai/docs/search-and-ai/ai-safeguards-and-limits).

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Still need help? Write to the OpenATS team at https://openats.ai/support (or support@b150.ai). We reply by email.

Source: https://openats.ai/docs/search-and-ai/search-for-candidates
OpenATS help center: https://openats.ai/docs