Careers
How to Build a Strong Candidate Profile
Employers search Found Next by skill and availability, not by name. Here is what actually decides whether your profile comes back in a search — and whether someone opens it when it does.
On Found Next the people are the listings. An employer does not post a job and wait — they search, and what they search on is what you have written down. That changes what a good profile looks like, and it is worth ten minutes of your time to get right once.
Your skills decide which searches you appear in
This is the part most people rush. Employers filter by skill, so a skill you leave off is a search you do not appear in — and it is invisible to you, because nothing tells you about the search you missed.
Pick the skills you actually use, not the ones that sound impressive. If you do more than one kind of work, say so: most jobs have two or three sides to them and employers look for each one separately.
- Name the specific systems, subjects, tools or equipment you work with. Those are what people type into a search box.
- Add anything the list does not offer. A skill you type yourself is searched exactly like one we suggested.
- Leave off the ones that describe everybody. “Hard working” is not a search anybody runs.
Your job title is read before anything else
Write the title you would use to describe yourself to someone in your own trade. It is free text on purpose — if your job is not on anyone’s list, that is a problem with the list, not with your job.
Availability is the first thing an employer checks
Being straight about when you can start saves everyone a wasted week, and it is the one field that goes stale on its own. An employer can see how recently you confirmed it, and a date confirmed this month carries more weight than the same date set and forgotten.
You decide who sees you
Employers never see your name, your photograph or your contact details from a search. They see the work. If a business wants to reach you they send a request, and you decide whether to answer it and what to share.
If you are looking while employed, you can also hide your profile from your current employer specifically, and stay visible to everyone else.
Read your own profile as a stranger would. From the skills, availability and history alone, could someone tell whether you are the person for the job they are trying to fill this week?