Hard vs. soft filters
Filters work in one of two ways, and knowing which is which is the key to widening or tightening a search:Hard filter
Narrows your results. Candidates that don’t match are removed from the list.
Soft filter
Shapes ranking. Matching candidates move up the list, but non-matching candidates can
still appear. Clarvo matches these by meaning, not exact text.
Several criteria you might expect to be strict (job titles, industries, and a
candidate’s field of study) are deliberately soft. Clarvo matches them
semantically and uses them to rank candidates, so a strong match with a differently-worded
title or a related industry still shows up instead of being filtered out.
Job title & role
Clarvo matches titles by meaning, not exact wording, and uses them to rank
candidates. Someone whose title is phrased differently but does the same work still appears.
Narrows to the seniority levels you select, with a little tolerance for the levels just
above and below.
Candidates well below your minimum are filtered out; the exact amount of experience also
influences ranking. You can set a maximum too.
Narrows to candidates whose average time per role meets your minimum.
Limit to or exclude current freelancers, useful when sourcing for contract work.
Preferences like remote work shape ranking rather than strictly excluding candidates.
Industry
Industry experience is matched semantically and shapes ranking. A candidate from a
closely related industry still appears, ranked by how relevant their background is.
Location
Keeps only candidates in the cities or countries you choose. Add several locations for a
broader or remote-friendly search.
Skills
Skills are the most flexible filter: they can narrow or just rank, depending on the mode and how you group them.In Loose mode the skills filter is broad: it splits your skills into two buckets,
required and nice to have (below). In Strict mode it becomes a hard filter built
around your skill groups (Must / Can groups, further below).
Required vs. nice to have in Loose mode
In Loose mode your skills sit in two buckets, and they behave very differently. Drag a skill between buckets, or use the Add skill button in each, to decide which is which.Shown under “Must have at least one of these skills.” Clarvo keeps only candidates who
match at least one of these skills, no matter which you list. It’s an any-of match
(OR logic) across the whole bucket, not an all-of one, so adding more required skills
widens the pool rather than narrowing it. Leave this bucket empty to skip skill-based
narrowing entirely.
Shown under “Preferably has some of these skills.” These never exclude anyone, they only
lift matching candidates in the ranking. A search with only nice-to-have skills (no
required ones) applies no skill filter at all and simply ranks everyone by how well they
match.
Skill groups as boolean logic (Strict mode)
Strict mode turns your skills into a boolean expression. You build it by sorting skills into groups and marking each group Must or Can:- Within a group, skills are OR. A candidate qualifies for the group by matching any one
of its skills. Put interchangeable skills together, like
ReactORVueORAngular. - Between Must groups, the logic is AND. A candidate must satisfy every Must group to appear. Use a separate group per distinct requirement.
(React OR Vue) AND (TypeScript) AND (AWS OR GCP): a frontend
framework, and TypeScript, and a cloud platform. Drag skills between groups, or use Add
new group, to shape the expression. Loose mode is the special case where every skill shares
one big OR.
In Strict mode, a candidate must match at least one skill from every Must group to
appear (OR within the group, AND across groups).
Can skills sit outside the AND requirement: they only affect ranking, lifting matching
candidates without excluding anyone.
Setting a desired minimum experience for a skill (the clock icon) influences ranking.
Companies
Keeps only candidates who have worked at the companies you choose (at any point in their
history), great for targeting competitors.
Removes candidates who currently work at the companies you choose. Switch the recency to
also exclude anyone who worked there in the past.
Narrows by how large a candidate’s company is, or how recently it was founded.
Education
Narrows to candidates at or above a minimum degree level (or, optionally, excludes anyone
with a higher degree).
Narrows by when candidates finished their most recent education.
Matched by meaning and used to rank candidates. A related field still appears, it just
ranks accordingly.
Treated as preferences that inform ranking rather than strict cut-offs.
Languages
Candidates must speak every required language (at a reasonable proficiency).
A bonus that improves ranking but never excludes anyone.
Interaction filters
These narrow results based on your team’s prior activity, so you don’t reach out to the same person twice. Each can be scoped to this project or your whole organization.Limit to or exclude candidates you (or your team) have already contacted or viewed,
optionally within a recent time window.
Limit to or exclude candidates who are already LinkedIn connections.