Match score ranks how well someone in your talent pool fits a job. Pool's talent matching engine reads what is on a person's record, builds a list of their competencies, and blends that with when they can work, how close they live, and how recently they applied to this kind of work into a single score. You control how much each category counts.
Match score does not make hiring decisions and does not contact anyone. It ranks talent so you can decide who to reach first.
How Match Score Works:
Understand What Match Score Measures
Match score compares a talent contact against a job or Opening and scores the fit across these categories. On a Talent Profile, the Opening Matches tab shows the score for each category.
Competencies — how well the competencies on the person's record align with the competencies the job requires.
Availability — when the person can work, compared with the shift on the Opening. If the Opening has no shift attached, this category is ignored. In Match Score settings, this category is called Work availability.
Proximity — how close the person lives to the job location.
Job Interest — how recently the person applied to this kind of work. The signal fades gradually as the application ages.
You set how much each category counts in Match Score settings. See Adjust the Balance Between Categories below.
Understand How Competencies Are Built
The engine reads the content on a talent record, including application answers, AI Recruiter conversations, work history, and uploaded documents. From that content it builds a list of competencies for the person.
Each competency is typed as a task, a tool, a technology, a skill, or a work context. Each one carries a confidence level, a quoted piece of evidence from the record it came from, and the government occupational code it maps to.
The evidence is what lets you explain a score. Open a Talent Profile to see each competency with the line on the record that produced it, and a per-category breakdown of how each match score was reached.
Competencies Are Inferred From the Record
Competencies are generated by AI from the content on a record and may not always be accurate. Read the quoted evidence before relying on a competency.
Competencies on Jobs and Openings
The same extraction runs on your jobs and Openings. The engine reads an Opening's title and description to infer the competencies the role requires, and links them to the occupation the job was matched to. Both halves of a match can be inspected: what the engine understands about the person, and what it understands the role to require.
A one-line description gives the engine little to read and produces vague matches. A fuller description gives it more to work with, and the matches sharpen.
To control which competencies appear on a job profile, use Job Profile Competencies in Pool Settings.
Adjust the Balance Between Categories
Different jobs weigh the categories differently. A role where travel distance decides whether someone accepts may need Proximity to count for more. A role that depends on specific experience may need Competencies to count for more.
By default, the weights are Competencies 75%, Work availability 5%, Proximity 15%, and Job Interest 5%.
To change the weights, follow the steps below.
Click Pool in the left side panel, then Settings.
Click Edit on the Match Score tile.
Under Match Score Weights, click the padlock on each category you want to change to unlock it, then set its weight. Unlock several categories at once to adjust them together.
Make sure the weights total 100%. The category weights cannot be saved until they do.
Click Save in the Match Score Weights section.
The Competencies category needs substance on the record to be effective: completed applications, screening answers, AI Recruiter conversations, work history, and parsed resume fields.
Where your talent is mostly imported prospect lists or short application records, the Competencies category has less to read. Lower its weight if you want Work availability, Proximity, and Job Interest to count for more.
Set a Match Score Threshold
The Match Score Threshold hides matches below a score you choose, so lists of matches show only talent at or above that score.
Click Pool in the left side panel, then Settings.
Click Edit on the Match Score tile.
Under Match Score Threshold, enter the lowest score to show next to "Only show matches with a score at or above:".
Click Save in the Match Score Threshold section. The threshold saves separately from the weights.
Understand When a Score Is Not Shown
Match score shows a number only when the record gives it enough to assess. Two states take the place of a number.
Not enough signal — the record carries too little to assess. A prospect imported with only a name and a ZIP code is a typical example. Adding substance to the record, such as a completed application, gives the engine something to read.
Still processing — the engine has not finished reading the record.
A score is either calculated from the record or shown as still processing. Pool does not substitute an estimate for a missing score.
See Match Scores on the Talent Page
A match score always compares a person with a specific Opening, so the Match Score column on the Talent page shows a dash until you filter the table by an Opening. A person's Talent Profile can still list match percentages, because its Opening Matches compare them with your Openings.
To see scores in the column, follow the steps below.
Click Pool in the left side panel, then Talent.
Click + Add condition and choose Opening.
Select the Opening, then set the minimum match score.
The Match Score column shows each person's match for that Opening, and a tile above the table shows the Average match on this page.
Understand How Match Score Affects Audiences
Audiences can filter on match score for an Opening or a Position. A talent contact with no extracted competencies does not appear in an audience filtered on a competency-based match score, rather than appearing in it with a low score.
Because scores move when records, job descriptions, or weights change, an audience built on a match score threshold can return a different set of people over time. Review the audience before activating a campaign to it. See Build and Manage Pool Audiences.
Competencies are extracted as applicants arrive and as records are updated, so the share of your talent with competencies grows over time rather than being fixed.
Know What Match Score Does Not Use
Match score reads only what is in your Fountain records. It does not know whether someone would accept the pay, or anything about them that is not recorded.
The AI-generated talent description on a Talent Profile does not feed match score or audience membership. It is a reading aid only.
For troubleshooting changed scores and thin profiles, see Troubleshoot Pool. For the settings page, see Pool Setup and Settings.