The term “talent” in Pool refers to all your contact records, while individual talent records are called Talent Profiles. Talent Profiles are an aggregate of a person’s applicant records, worker records, and/or prospect records; those that are found with matching email addresses. In this article, we’ll discuss how to manage and review your talent in Pool.
Talent Page Navigation
To access the Talent page, click Pool in the left side panel and then Talent.
There are three tiles at the top, which will show how many people in your talent pool are workers, applicants, or prospects. The tiles update as you filter the table, so they always describe the list you are looking at.
Above the table you will find two controls:
Columns — choose which columns appear. The count beside the label shows how many are currently shown.
Show ineligible talent — include or exclude contacts who are not eligible to receive campaigns. This is off by default.
A Missing Contact May Just Be Hidden
Ineligible contacts, and contacts marked as do not contact, are hidden from this list unless Show ineligible talent is switched on. If someone you expect to find is missing, turn it on before concluding they are not in Pool.
Below the tiles, you'll find a table of the individuals in your talent pool, including their name, city, state, zipcode, open and click rates for email campaigns, the last time they interacted with a campaign message, and the type of talent (applicant, worker, or prospect).
To find a specific individual, use Search talent at the top of the table.
To open an existing audience, go to Pool > Audiences and click its name. Learn more about audiences in this article.
To import talent manually as "prospects", click Import talent at the top right of the Talent page. Learn more about manually adding prospects in this article.
Filter the Talent Table
Use + Add condition above the talent table to narrow the list in real time. Choose an attribute, an operator, and a value, and the table updates as you go, with no separate submit step and the table visible the whole time. Add more conditions with the + button, or remove one with the ✕ on its row.
The More actions (⋯) menu at the right of the filter row offers three further actions:
Add new group — broaden rather than narrow the result, returning talent who match either group.
Clear this group — remove the conditions in the current group.
Reset filters — return the table to its unfiltered state.
Filtering here is for exploring your talent on the fly, and it is separate from creating an audience. Nothing is saved until you choose to save it, so an unsaved filter does not create or clutter your audiences.
Filtering Is Separate From Audiences
Filtering the talent table is for ad-hoc exploration and does not create or change an audience on its own. To turn a filtered view into a reusable group you can send campaigns to, save it as an audience.
Talent Profiles
To open a Talent Profile, click the individual’s name on the Talent page table. The Talent Profile will open to the right.
Above the tabs, every profile shows the contact's type, email address, and phone number, followed by three dates:
Last updated — when the underlying records last changed.
Last activity — when the contact last did something, such as applying or engaging with a campaign.
Expires on — when the contact becomes ineligible if no further activity is recorded, based on your account's data retention window. New activity resets this date.
Summary
The Summary tab shows an overview of this talent individual's information:
Do not contact reason(s) — appears only when the contact is flagged, listing everything currently blocking messages to them.
Position & Opening Matches — Based on the contact's skills and availability, positions and job Openings that are a match are listed with their match percentage. Highest percentage matches are listed first. Each match shows the required skills for the position, the number of active Openings, and nearby opening matches with distance.
Contact — The contact's address, phone number, and email address.
Employment History — Previous employment records for this individual with your company, including their position, company, employment status, start and end dates, and separation reason.
Application History — Any current active or past applications from Fountain Hire, with the position, location, status, application date, and current stage. Click View to open the application.
AI Recruiter Interviews
Competencies
The Competencies tab displays AI-inferred competencies for this talent contact based on their application history, employment background, and profile data. Pool's AI analyzes this information and identifies standardized competencies from the U.S. Department of Labor's O*NET database that may align with the contact's demonstrated skills and experience.
Ask Cue About Roles and Local Labour Markets
Cue can answer questions about occupations, typical wages, and employment projections using O*NET and Bureau of Labor Statistics data. Useful when you are judging whether a competency profile fits a role you are hiring for.
Competencies Are AI-Inferred Suggestions
The competencies shown are generated by AI and may not always be accurate. Review them alongside other profile information when evaluating a talent contact.
Use the controls at the top of the tab to find and filter competencies:
Search — Find a specific competency by name
All competencies — Filter the list by competency type
Skill — Sort entries by skill category
Each competency entry shows:
The competency name
A category tag (for example, Skills)
An importance percentage indicating how strongly the competency aligns with this contact's profile
A brief description of the competency
An Evidence field showing the specific profile data points that informed the inference
Attributes
The Attributes tab displays all custom attributes associated with this talent contact in a single consolidated view. This includes attributes from worker records, prospect imports, and Fountain Hire applicant records.
Use the controls at the top of the tab to find and filter attributes:
Search — Find a specific attribute by name
All sources — Filter attributes by their source (for example, Applicant, Worker, or Prospect)
Alphabetical — Sort attributes alphabetically by name
Each attribute entry shows:
The attribute name and its dynamic field syntax (for example,
{{ attribute_name }}), which can be used to reference the attribute in campaign messagesThe current value of the attribute
A source tag indicating whether the value originated from an applicant, worker, or prospect record
Most Recently Updated Value Is Used
When the same attribute appears in multiple data sources, Pool uses the most recently updated value as the current value for filtering and campaign personalization.
Applicant Data Keys
Applicant data keys are custom attributes collected during the Fountain Hire application process, such as answers to screening questions, self-reported certifications, or other applicant-provided data. When an applicant record is linked to a Talent Profile, these keys appear in the Attributes tab alongside worker and prospect attributes, giving you a more complete picture of each talent contact.
Applicant data keys are useful for:
Targeted audience building: Filter audiences based on applicant-provided information, such as specific certifications, qualifications, or screening question responses, to identify the most relevant talent for a role.
Personalized campaigns: Reference applicant data in campaign messaging using the attribute's dynamic field syntax to tailor outreach based on what you already know about a candidate's background or preferences.
Richer match scoring: Applicant Q&A responses are factored into Pool's match score algorithm, improving the accuracy of talent-to-job matching alongside job titles and descriptions.
Audience
The Audience tab shows all audiences this contact currently belongs to or has previously belonged to. A count badge on the tab indicates the total number of audience memberships.
Use the controls at the top of the tab to find and filter audience entries:
Search — Find a specific audience by name
All memberships — Filter the list by membership status
Audience name — Sort entries alphabetically by audience name
Each audience appears as its own card, showing the audience name and a status badge reflecting the contact's current standing: Entered audience or Exited audience. Click the audience name to go to that audience's page.
Membership History
Expand a card to see a chronological timeline of membership events for that audience:
Entered audience (green indicator) — The contact joined the audience, with the date and the reason for entry
Exited audience (amber indicator) — The contact left the audience, with the date and the reason for exit
The reason shown alongside each event reflects what triggered the membership change. Examples include Audience criteria changed, Matched audience criteria, Talent profile changed, and Talent eligibility changed.
A contact can enter and exit the same audience multiple times. All events stack in that one card in sequence rather than creating a second card, giving you a complete picture of how this contact's membership has changed over time.
Several Audiences Exiting at Once Points at Eligibility
When a contact exits every audience at the same timestamp with the reason Talent eligibility changed, an eligibility rule or a do-not-contact flag caused it rather than any change to the audiences themselves. Check the Do not contact reason(s) section on the Summary tab.
Below the membership timeline, the Campaigns During Membership section lists any campaigns the contact was enrolled in while a member of that audience. Each campaign entry shows the campaign type and its current status. If no campaigns were sent during the membership period, this section displays "No campaigns during membership."
Campaigns
The Campaigns tab shows all campaigns this contact is currently enrolled in or has previously been part of. A count badge on the tab indicates the total number of campaign memberships.
Use the controls at the top of the tab to find and filter campaigns:
Search — Find a specific campaign by name
All statuses — Filter campaigns by status
Campaign name — Sort entries alphabetically by campaign name
Each row in the list shows the campaign name (with an icon indicating email or SMS type), the campaign's audience mode (Dynamic or Static), and a status badge. Click the campaign name to go to that campaign's page. Each row automatically expands to show the full engagement history for that campaign.
Campaign Engagement History
Each campaign entry shows a timeline of this contact's engagement with that campaign:
Entered campaign (green indicator) — The contact was added to the campaign, with the timestamp and the reason for entry (for example, Matched audience criteria)
Message events (blue indicator) — Each message sent to the contact appears as a numbered entry (for example, Message 1, Message 2). Each message entry shows the timestamps for the following delivery events where applicable: Sent, Delivered, Opened, and Clicked
A Status field at the top of each campaign entry shows the contact's current standing in the campaign — for example, Currently in campaign or Campaign completed.
Correct or Remove Contact Information
Correct an email address or phone number on a talent record, or stop contacting a record entirely, when a recipient reports that your message reached the wrong person.
Act Before the Next Send
A dynamic campaign picks up records continuously. If a record is reaching the wrong person, stop contact first and correct the data second.
Stop Contact Immediately
Open the Actions menu on the contact's row on the Talent page and choose Mark as do not contact. The same action is available in bulk after selecting multiple rows.
Pool confirms with "Talent marked as do not contact". The contact gains a Do not contact badge on their profile, gains a Do not contact reason(s) section at the top of their Summary tab, exits every audience they currently belong to, and is hidden from the Talent page list unless Show ineligible talent is switched on.
Correct the Data at Its Source
Pool assembles Talent Profiles from applicant, worker, and prospect records, so correcting a profile means correcting the record underneath it.
Applicant records are corrected in Fountain Hire. Editing an applicant's email address and SMS consent is Hire behaviour, not Pool behaviour.
Worker records are corrected wherever worker data is maintained in your account.
Prospect records are corrected by reimporting with the corrected value.
Applicant corrections reach Pool through the sync, in a few minutes up to an hour depending on volume.
What Changing an Email Address Does
Email is the key Pool uses to merge records. Changing a contact's email address changes which records merge into that profile, so a correction can split one profile into two or merge two into one. Check the profile after the change rather than assuming it looks the same.
If the wrong person received a message because two people share an inbox, correcting the address does not fix it on its own. The profile carries both histories. Flag it do not contact, correct whichever underlying record holds the wrong address, then check the resulting profiles.
Everyone in Pool Sees the Same Talent
Pool's talent list is shared. Every Pool user in your account sees the same contacts, audiences, and campaigns, so filtering your own view does not change what anyone else sees.
Export Pool Data Through Analytics or the API
Pool does not have an export button on the Talent page. To export Pool data, use Fountain Analytics (open the Pool Overview standard dashboard, drill into a metric, and click Download) or the Fountain API's Pool endpoints.