> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.clarvo.ai/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Evaluation criteria

> Tell Clarvo what matters most for the role, and it evaluates and surfaces candidates against those criteria.

**Evaluation criteria** are the specific things that matter for your role: the skills,
experience, and qualifications you'd weigh up yourself when reviewing a candidate. You write
them in plain language, and Clarvo evaluates every candidate against them.

## Adding criteria

Before your results appear, Clarvo asks you to **Add Your Evaluation Criteria**. Add each
requirement as a short, plain-language statement, for example *"Has led a team"* or
*"Experience scaling a B2B SaaS product."*

<Steps>
  <Step title="Write what matters">
    Add criteria for the skills, experience levels, and qualifications that count most for
    this role.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Order by priority">
    Drag criteria to rank them. The ones at the top carry the most weight.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Confirm to continue">
    Results are shown once you've confirmed your criteria, so the candidates you see are
    already considered against them.
  </Step>
</Steps>

## What it does

Clarvo assesses each candidate against every criterion you set, and shows the outcome on the
candidate's **Evaluation** tab, criterion by criterion, so you can see *why* someone is a
fit, not just that they are. See [Tracking candidates](/shortlist/tracking-candidates).

## How it affects your results

Criteria don't work like [hard filters](/search/filters); they don't remove anyone. Instead
they shape **which candidates surface and in what order**:

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="Surfacing" icon="arrow-up-wide-short">
    Candidates who best match your criteria rise to the top of the list, so the most relevant
    people are the first you see.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Signal, not a cut-off" icon="signal-stream">
    Each criterion acts as a **signal** that steers the search toward the qualities you care
    about. A candidate who misses one still appears, just lower down.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>

Because criteria are ranked, the higher-priority ones influence surfacing more than the
lower ones, so leading with what truly matters has the biggest effect on your results.

<Tip>
  Keep each criterion focused on a single idea and phrase it the way you'd describe an ideal
  candidate. Specific, well-ordered criteria surface better-matched people.
</Tip>