Can I collect candidate profiles before my wider launch?

Yes. Publish your board with Job seeker profiles enabled so candidates can create real accounts before your wider launch. Set Talent directory to Off if you do not want employers browsing profiles yet. Accounts remain available at launch; completing profile fields is voluntary.

Are candidate profiles available on every plan?

Yes. Job seeker profiles are available on every paid plan. Your board itself is public from the Starter plan upward.

Can a candidate control who sees their profile?

Yes. Each candidate sets their own visibility: hidden, visible to logged-in users only, or public. New profiles default to hidden until the candidate changes it.

What decides whether an employer can message a candidate?

A candidate is reachable when their job-search status is open (actively looking or open to offers), their profile is visible to the employer, and neither side has blocked the other. A candidate set to not looking cannot be cold-messaged.

Can I add custom fields or a phone number to candidate profiles?

No. Candidate profiles currently use a fixed set of fields, and operators cannot add custom profile fields or a phone-number field. Custom fields for job posts and checkout collect information about a listing or purchase; they do not add fields to a candidate's profile.

Where can I review a job seeker's consent choices?

Cavuno stores each choice separately. Use GET /v1/marketing-permissions for marketing email consent, Job alerts for alert status, and the Job seekers CSV export field keep_resume_on_file for résumé retention. There is no combined consent page.

Does a job seeker profile let someone apply on my board?

On a native-application job, yes. A signed-in candidate applies from their profile, and the employer sees that application in the applicant pipeline. On a job with an external application URL or email, including every backfilled job, Apply still opens that destination. The profile does not collect the application, because it is completed in the company's ATS. See [Job pages](/docs/your-job-board/job-pages).

Candidate Profiles

What job seekers can put in a profile, how resume parsing fills it in, how native apply uses the profile, the three visibility levels, job-search status, and what makes a candidate reachable.

By Abi Tyas Tunggal and Jack Walsh

When candidate accounts are enabled, job seekers can build a profile on your board. This is the foundation for AI job matching, the talent directory, employer messaging, and native applications, and it gives you a candidate database you own.

Prerequisites

Job seeker profiles must be enabled under Settings → Features. To test public discovery, also enable the talent directory and use a candidate account whose email you can verify.

What is in a profile

A profile holds a headline, bio, location, skills, work experience, education, and languages, plus links such as LinkedIn and a portfolio. Candidates manage all of this from their account on your board.

Location, commute distance, and Open to relocate sit together. The candidate picks their location from suggestions as they type. For a city or town they can then set how far they are willing to commute, in miles in the United States, United Kingdom, Liberia, and Myanmar and kilometres elsewhere (25 mi or 50 km if left empty). The candidate's country, which is checked against country-limited jobs, is their picked place's country, so the profile form hides the country field while a place is set; it only asks for a country when there is no picked place. Open to relocate tells employers they would move, and also widens their on-site job matches to their whole country. See AI job matching for how these settings affect matches. If you had customised the old Open to relocate description, your text is kept.

For a trade-focused board, candidates can describe their trade in the headline, skills, and experience. Job-search status records whether they are actively looking, open to offers, or not looking; it is not a schedule of available days or a start date.

Build a candidate database before launch

Start with a published board offering useful jobs, enable the registration wall, and invite candidates to apply. They can also sign up directly and complete their profile from their account. These are real accounts that remain available at your wider launch, not a separate waiting list.

Keep Talent directory set to Off if you want to collect profiles without opening candidate discovery. This leaves candidate accounts available while disabling the directory and public profile pages. Follow the launch marketing guide for the setup.

Account creation does not guarantee a completed profile. The registration wall prompts authentication at Apply; candidates choose which profile details to add afterward.

Resume upload and parsing

A candidate can upload a resume, and AI resume parsing reads it to pre-fill the profile (skills, experience, education, and links) so they do not start from a blank form. The candidate can then edit anything the parser filled in.

Applying from a profile

On a job that uses native applications, a signed-in candidate applies from this profile. Cavuno uses their account name and email. They can add an optional cover note and a resume for that application. The employer then sees them in the applicant pipeline. Repeat applies for the same job stay on that one application.

A profile does not override an external application URL or email. Those jobs, including every job added by backfill, send Apply to the company's applicant tracking system. Cavuno records the click and does not receive the completed application. See Job pages.

Profile visibility

Every candidate controls their own visibility, with three levels:

Hidden: not shown in the talent directory at all. The candidate can still use matches, saved jobs, and alerts. Hidden is how a candidate leaves the talent pool without deleting their account. Account deletion is a separate Settings action. See Account settings.
Logged-in users only: visible to signed-in employers, not to anonymous visitors.
Public: visible to anyone, including anonymous visitors.

New profiles default to hidden. The per-board default is hidden and is not exposed as a dashboard setting.

Job-search status

A candidate also sets a job-search status, one of actively looking, open to offers, or not looking. They can choose whether this status is shown to everyone or to employers only.

Turn job seeker profiles on

Job seeker profiles are enabled by default on new boards. To turn them on or off:

Go to Settings in your dashboard sidebar.
Open the Features tab.
Toggle Job seeker profiles on (or off).

The setting saves instantly. Once on, your board shows sign-in and sign-up for job seekers. Turning it off hides sign-in and profile options and also disables the registration wall, which depends on candidate accounts. Existing candidate data is preserved if you turn it off and back on.

Where job seekers appear in your dashboard

When job seekers sign up, they appear under Job seekers in your dashboard. From there you can view registered job seekers, search by name or email, see when they signed up, and remove a profile if needed.

Cavuno stores each type of consent separately rather than presenting a combined consent page:

Marketing email consent: call GET /v1/marketing-permissions with an API key that has marketing_permissions.read. Filter by status or an exact email. A person who has never made a choice is absent from the response; absence does not mean consent. Operators can withdraw a recorded permission, but only the signed-in person can grant it. The marketing_permission.granted and marketing_permission.withdrawn webhook events can keep another system in sync.
Job alerts: open Job alerts in the sidebar to see whether an address is Active, Pending confirmation, Waitlisted, or Unsubscribed. You can search by email and export the list. See Manage subscribers.
Résumé retention: export Job seekers and inspect keep_resume_on_file. This records whether the candidate asked Cavuno to retain the uploaded résumé. Profile fields created by parsing are separate from the original file and remain if that file is deleted.

The consent record stores the decision, not the disclosure wording shown on your board. Keep the wording and any additional evidence your organization requires in the system responsible for that disclosure.

Candidate reachability

Whether an employer can reach a candidate through messaging depends on three things together:

Job-search status must be open, meaning actively looking or open to offers. A candidate set to not looking cannot be cold-messaged.
Profile visibility must let that employer see the candidate.
Blocks: neither side can have blocked the other.

This is the candidate's only lever over inbound contact. The matching gates on the employer side are covered in messaging.

Availability

Plan: All paid plans. Job seeker profiles (and AI resume parsing) are available on every paid plan.
Setting: Settings, then Features, then "Job seeker profiles."
Setup required: None.

Limitations

New profiles default to hidden, so candidates are not discoverable until they raise their own visibility. The per-board default cannot be changed from the dashboard today.
Candidate profiles use a fixed set of fields. You cannot add operator-defined profile fields, including a phone-number field. Custom job and checkout fields belong to job listings and purchases, so they do not extend a candidate profile.
A profile is only as complete as the candidate makes it. Resume parsing helps, but fields the candidate leaves empty stay empty.

Verify candidate profiles

Open the public board in a signed-out window and confirm candidate sign-up is available. Create a test candidate, verify the email, and confirm the profile starts hidden. Change it to Public and verify it appears only when the talent directory is also enabled; switch it back to Hidden and confirm it disappears without deleting the candidate account.

Example

For example, a candidate can upload a resume, correct the parsed headline and skills, set their status to Open to offers, and choose Logged-in users only. Approved employers can then discover the profile while signed-out visitors cannot.

If a profile is missing

Confirm candidate profiles and the talent directory are enabled, the candidate verified their email, and their visibility permits the current viewer. Resume parsing fills only information it can extract; if a field is missing or wrong, the candidate should edit it rather than upload the same file repeatedly.

Next steps

Open AI job matching to see how a completed profile fills Matches. Configure Talent directory visibility, then read Messaging to understand when an employer can contact a visible candidate. For how Apply uses the profile, see Job pages. For password, email, and account deletion, see Account settings.