How matchwire works: FAQ

matchwire is not a product where companies find candidates and contact them. It is a product that brings candidates and job postings together through matching. If you are used to other recruiting services, parts of this design may make you ask “why?” This page collects those questions for candidates and hiring teams alike. If you are using matchwire for the first time, start with Getting started.

Why can't companies search for candidates?

Companies cannot search for candidates. A person appears in front of a hiring team only through a match. A hiring team meets candidates in exactly three places: the per-job list under People for this job (matches and people who told the team they were interested from search, told apart on the list), people the team has placed On hand, and people waiting under Decisions. From that list the team opens the candidate detail page, which shows the anonymous profile and the comparison of the job's conditions with the candidate's preferences, and which is where a proposal starts. There are no filters for searching for candidates and no way to save such a search.

For candidates: companies cannot search for you. You appear in front of a company when the job posting and your profile are compared and you are matched to that job, or when you take a step yourself by choosing Tell them you're interested. Expressing interest is your application. Candidate-side job search and expressing interest remain available as before.

The reason is that matchwire is a matching product: registered conditions make a candidate and a job visible to each other, and a fixed computation over what both sides registered orders the list. matchwire's LLM does not select, recommend or rank. It is not a sourcing tool for finding people and sending first contact.

Why can't a company send a scout?

What other services call a “scout”—the first contact from a company to a candidate—does not exist in matchwire. Contact always starts with a step from the candidate: Tell them you're interested on a job posting.

The hiring team's only move inside a match is a Proposal: it picks one or more of its published jobs, or terms independent of any job posting, and proposes them. No message rides along. Only the proposal reaches them, and they answer each row in Decisions with interested or pass. Interested on terms independent of any job posting is mutual interest that holds no job: the chat opens with "Agreed terms" as its topic from the start. A team may propose only to a candidate matched to one of its jobs or a person who first approached the company by expressing interest, and a job the person's registered conditions exclude shows only "Cannot propose". A pass leaves no trace and the team may propose again. At mutual interest—the candidate's interest and the company's proposal both present, in either order—one chat opens between the candidate and the company. Jobs are topics inside it, and the company can propose again from the chat.

Why did someone we declined appear again?

When a hiring team declines a candidate, it must choose one of three reasons; only the Pass on a matched candidate's card carries none. Each record controls how long the person stays out.

• Not a company fit — the person stays out of every job at the company indefinitely. Only an explicit staff release ends it.
• Does not meet this job's requirements — the person stays out of this job only. They can return after changes to their work history, skills, preferred conditions, or to the job's requirements or offered conditions remove the reason for the decline.
• Not the right timing now — the person stays out of this job only. They return as a suggestion to reconnect when the date chosen at the decline arrives.
• Passed on the matched candidate — the record of pressing Pass on a matched candidate's card or on the per-job list under People for this job; the person stays out of this job only. It carries no reason, returns neither by the clock nor on a content change, and stays until a staff member releases it on the candidate detail page. The candidate learns neither the reason nor the fact.

Only the timing reason returns by the clock. When a person returns after a reasoned decline, the previous reason and the new change always appear in one line: re-entered after the job changed, re-entered after a profile update, or re-entered after a staff release.

A job-scoped decline for requirements or timing does not stop matches to the company's other jobs. If the same person appears for another job, the candidate detail page shows only one line noting the earlier decline on the other job.

Candidates never see that they were declined or why. As the internal note field says: This is an internal note that is never shown to the candidate. Record the basis for the decision clearly.

Why doesn't the same candidate match several jobs at our company at once?

matchwire holds one active match at a time between the same company and candidate. While that person is in selection for one of the company's jobs, they are not shown for another of its jobs. The exclusion reason shown on the job's match list is In an active process on another seat. Once that process ends, another match can follow.

A proposal is exempt. The company may still propose another of its published jobs to that person—from the candidate detail page or from the chat—and the candidate answers it in Decisions as usual. The candidate detail page then carries one line noting the selection already in progress for the other job.

How does a candidate's refusal of a company work?

Candidates can register a company under Companies you don't match with on the Privacy page. Matching with a registered company stops in both directions. The governing copy is one sentence: The company is never notified and sees nothing. Only matching stops. The company gets no refusal trace and cannot distinguish the candidate from someone who simply did not match. To tell a registered company you're interested yourself, remove it from the list first. A refusal can be removed at any time, after which matching with that company resumes.

Registering a company also governs intent visibility: that company—its staff and their representative AI—will not see the candidate's job-search or side-work intent. The former separate Intent privacy setting is folded into this one list — a single registration stops matching and hides intent. A candidate's current company never sees their job-search intent, with or without a registration.

What does “Show this job to assignees only” do?

Job assignees can enable Show this job to assignees only. When enabled, staff outside the assignees cannot see this job at all — lists, counts, and notifications included. Administrators are not exempt: this is a visibility rule, not a role permission. Opening a hidden job's URL is treated the same as opening a job that does not exist.

Only when no assignee remains active does the job appear to active administrators as No active assignee. This is a recovery door. Once an administrator adds an assignee, the job returns to assignee-only visibility. Adding someone as an assignee is the only way to let that person see it.

This setting does not affect candidates or matching. A published job posting appears to candidates and is matched as usual.

Why did a ranking or comparison change?

Ranking and comparison are different readings, and neither is an assessment of fit.

Ranking orders results by how strongly work history matches the job posting. The match list says: Ranked by how strongly work history matches the job — a separate read from the condition filter. A ranking may move after the job posting changes, after any relevant profile changes, after the daily full recomputation, or after the other side's ordering changes because ordering is balanced in both directions. Only what both sides registered enters the ranking; nothing produced by matchwire's LLM does. Each job match row also carries one of three bands: Match: high, Match: mid, or Match: low. These bands interpret the same similarity value that determines ranking, so a recomputed value can move the band too.

Comparison is the side-by-side display on the candidate detail page of the job's conditions and the candidate's preferences, item by item—occupation, location, annual salary, employment type and office frequency—produced mechanically from what both sides registered. It changes only when the job's conditions or the candidate's preferences change, and it never moves the ranking. It is not a verdict: matchwire does not decide whether terms fit. The people and their representative AI read the comparison and decide for themselves.

Disappearing and reappearing are not ranking changes. They follow the eligibility rules described in questions three, four, and five.

For developers, the decisions behind this page are recorded as ADRs in docs/decisions/: ADR-0134, ADR-0135, ADR-0136, ADR-0137, ADR-0149, ADR-0072, and ADR-0129.