Talent Directory

The talent directory is a public page on your board where employers can browse candidate profiles. It turns your board into a two-sided marketplace: employers post jobs to reach candidates, and candidates build profiles to be found by employers.

This is a powerful monetization lever. When employers can see active, qualified candidates on your board, they're more likely to pay for job postings or premium access.

Choose who can browse the directory

1. Go to Board settings in the sidebar
2. On the General tab, make sure Candidate profiles is enabled
3. Set Talent directory to one of three options:

• Off: the directory page is hidden and the navigation link is removed.
• Public: anyone visiting your board can browse candidate profiles, including unauthenticated visitors.
• Employers only: the directory is reserved for verified employer accounts. Anonymous visitors and candidate accounts see a sign-up prompt instead of the directory.

The setting saves instantly. The "Employers only" option is only available when Employer accounts are also enabled, since there has to be an employer account type to gate against.

How it works

Candidates who set their profile visibility to public appear in the talent directory. The directory page shows profile cards with each candidate's name, headline, skills, and experience summary. Employers can search by name and filter by skills to find relevant candidates.

Candidates control their own visibility. They can set their profile to:

Public: visible in the talent directory to anyone, including unauthenticated visitors.

Logged-in users only: visible only to signed-in employers, not to anonymous visitors.

Hidden: not shown in the directory at all, but the candidate can still use saved jobs and alerts.

This means the directory grows organically as candidates sign up and choose to make themselves visible.

What employers can search

The talent directory uses the same AI-powered search as your job listings. Employers type free-text queries — like "senior backend engineer with rust experience" or "product designer fintech" — and Cavuno ranks candidates by overall relevance, not just exact keyword matches.

Search looks across the parts of a candidate's profile that describe their skills and background:

• Headline — the short tagline candidates write at the top of their profile
• Skills — both the structured skills list and any skills mentioned in roles
• Work experience — job titles, companies, descriptions, and dates
• Education — institutions, degrees, and fields of study
• Languages spoken
• Location
• Bio / about

Search does not match against private contact details (email, phone), avatar images, or anything the candidate marked private through their profile visibility setting. Hidden profiles never appear in results, and "logged-in only" profiles are excluded for anonymous visitors.

Employers only mode

When you set the directory to "Employers only", anyone who isn't signed in with a verified employer account sees a sign-up prompt instead of the candidate list. Verified means the employer has claimed a company on your board and the membership has been approved (either via matching email domain, work-email verification, or admin approval).

This mode is useful for boards where:

• Employers pay for access and you want the candidate pool to be a paid benefit.
• Your candidate community is closed and you only want vetted employers to see profiles.
• You want to add friction before exposing candidate data to the open web.

What different visitors see:

• Anonymous visitors: the upsell page with a "Sign up" button (creates an employer account) and a "Sign in" button.
• Candidates signed in to your board: the upsell explaining that talent browsing is for employer accounts. To browse, they sign out and create a separate employer account with a different email.
• Employers without a verified company: the upsell with an "Add your company" button that takes them to their account settings to claim a company.
• Verified employers: the full talent directory.

The same gate applies to individual candidate profile pages. A visitor who can't browse the directory also can't see the full profile, but they do see a paywall preview: name, headline, location, and a redacted experience list with the company logos visible (similar to LinkedIn's gated profile views). The same sign-up prompt sits over the preview. If the candidate set their profile to logged-in only or hidden and the visitor isn't allowed to see it under those rules, the page returns 404 instead.

Customize the upsell copy

Open the editor, navigate to your talent search page, and click on the talent search section. Under Employers-only mode in the right sidebar, you can edit:

• Heading: the headline shown above the upsell card.
• Body: the supporting paragraph.
• Sign-up button (anonymous viewer): label for the primary button.
• Sign-in button (anonymous viewer): label for the secondary button.
• Message (candidate-only viewer): the explanatory text shown to signed-in candidates.
• CTA (unverified employer): label for the "Add your company" button.
• Count line: the "N candidates on this board" line above the silhouette stack. Supports {{count}}, {{candidate_label}}, and {{board_name}} tokens.

The same fields are also available on the talent profile page section, and they save independently, so you can have different copy on the directory page versus individual profile pages. Focusing a field in the editor switches the preview to the matching audience so you can see what each viewer will read.

Direct messaging

Once an employer finds a candidate they want to talk to, they can message them directly from the talent profile. This turns your board from a one-way browse into a two-sided marketplace where employers reach out, candidates respond, and your board becomes the hub for hiring conversations in your niche.

How it works

A Message button appears at the top of every candidate profile when the viewer is a verified employer. Clicking it opens a composer prefilled with a templated placeholder — "Introduce yourself, mention the role, and what stage your hiring process is at." On send, the employer lands on the resulting thread at /messages/{id}.

Both sides manage their conversations from /messages on your board. The page has three tabs:

• Inbox — active conversations, sorted by most recent activity, with unread badges in the candidate menu.
• Archived — conversations either side has archived. Archive is reversible; nothing is deleted.
• Blocked — users either side has blocked. Blocked users can't send new messages and the block is silent (the blocked user isn't told).

Threads support edit and unsend within 15 minutes of sending, an "Edited" indicator on edited messages, a [Message deleted] placeholder for unsent messages, "Seen" indicators when the other side reads, and a real-time typing indicator. Send with ⌘ + Enter, or click Send.

Moderation built in

The conversation header (the … button) lets either side archive or block the other. The Block dialog asks for confirmation since it's reversible but disruptive — blocked users see no error, their messages just stop being delivered.

On individual messages from the other person, a per-message … menu (visible on hover) adds Report with four reasons: Spam, Harassment, Misrepresentation, Other. Reporting auto-blocks the reporter from the reported user and notifies you (the board owner) for review.

Email notifications

By default, recipients get an email when they receive a new message, with a link to the thread. Recipients control this from /settings on your board — a single toggle for new-message emails with instant save. Every notification email also includes a one-click unsubscribe link that lands on /settings with the toggle pre-flipped.

Customize messaging copy

Every label in the messaging UI is editable through the visual editor — page heading, tab names, empty-state copy, dialog titles, toast messages, even the "⌘ + Enter to send" hint and the report reason labels.

To edit messaging copy:

1. Open the editor in your board admin
2. Switch the page type to Messages under the Account group (or Settings for the email-preferences page, or Talent profile for the Message button itself)
3. Click the section in the left sidebar
4. Edit any label in the right sidebar — the preview updates in real time

When you focus a label that lives inside a dropdown or dialog, the preview forces that surface open so you see your edit in context. Cancel and Send are shared across the site, so you edit them once and every confirmation dialog and composer updates everywhere.

Direct messaging is included on every Cavuno plan, including the Free plan and Starter at $29/month. By default, there are no per-message fees or volume caps. If you sell talent access plans, you can require employers to use candidate contact credits to start new conversations.

Customize the navigation label

By default, the talent directory page appears in your board's navigation as "Talent." You can change this label in board settings to match your niche. For example, a healthcare board might use "Professionals" and a tech board might prefer "Candidates" or "Engineers."

Grow your talent pool

The talent directory works best when you have a meaningful number of public profiles. To encourage candidates to make their profiles visible:

• Enable the registration wall so candidates create accounts when they apply
• Highlight the talent directory in your board's navigation so candidates know employers are actively browsing
• Mention the talent directory in job alert emails as a reason to complete their profile
• Promote the directory as a feature when pitching to employers, since access to active candidates is a strong selling point