What is Calibration?

Calibration is where you tell Eightfold what a strong candidate for a position looks like. It captures the job requirements as agreed with the hiring manager, and Eightfold's AI uses them to find, rank, and recommend matching talent for that position's pipeline.

Instead of relying on a job description alone, you set the skills, experience, education, and location preferences that matter. The result is a pipeline that reflects what you're actually looking for. Each position has one calibration, and changes save automatically as you work — the page shows All Changes Saved as you go.

Why it matters

• Better matches. A well-calibrated position surfaces the right candidates first, so your top matches reflect your real requirements.
• Less manual screening. Preferences like location, seniority, and education feed the ranking, so you spend less time filtering out people who were never a fit.
• Shared alignment. Recruiters and hiring managers agree on the same criteria up front, then confirm and share the calibration before sourcing begins.

How it works

Getting to Calibrate position

1. Go to Talent Acquisition and open the position you're hiring for.
2. Select Calibrate position to open the calibration page.
3. Work through the sections below, setting the criteria that matter for the role. Everything is optional — fill in what's relevant and leave the rest.
4. Watch the completeness indicator and live metrics on the right update as you go.

Who do you want to hire?

• Position — the role you're calibrating.
• Job location(s) — one or more locations for the position. Add locations here in addition to any that come from your applicant tracking system.

Who is your ideal candidate?

• Ideal candidate — add example people who represent a great hire: candidates you've hired before, made an offer to, or would hire in the future. Eightfold learns from these examples to shape matching.

Refine your requirements

This part of the page is organized into collapsible sections. Open each one and set what applies.

Skills/Keywords

• Skills — the skills a strong candidate should have. Where your organization enables it, you can mark skills as preferred or required and set a proficiency level.

Experience

• Job titles — titles strong candidates for this role tend to hold.
• Companies — companies where strong candidates tend to work.
• Industries — industries strong candidates tend to come from.
• Preferred seniority level — the career levels you'll consider. Select one or several, for example CXO, Vice President, Director, Manager, Senior, Mid-Level, Entry, or Intern. The exact list reflects your organization's own level taxonomy, so it matches the language your company already uses.
• Years of experience — a range from 0 to 30 or more. Choose whether the range applies to total years of experience or years relevant to this position.

Education

• Schools — specific universities or colleges you'd prefer candidates to have attended.
• Degrees — the degree level candidates should hold, for example Doctorate, Masters, Bachelors, or Certificate.
• Degree majors — the fields of study candidates should have, where your organization enables majors.
• Certifications or licenses — professional certifications or licenses the role requires, where enabled.
• Graduation year — an optional range, with an N/A option when it shouldn't apply.

Advanced options

• Location preferences — allow candidates who can relocate for the role by selecting Relocation allowed.
• Location flexibility — where your organization enables it, choose how far beyond the position's location to look: Not flexible (the position's location only), Flexible within country, or Flexible globally. A related location distance setting lets you filter by how far candidates are from the position when you want a tighter radius.
• Workplace type — describe how the role is worked: Onsite, Hybrid, Remote within country, or Remote globally.
• Exclude short tenures — screen out candidates with short average tenure across their most recent three positions. Choose Do not exclude, Less than 6 months, Less than 1 year, or Less than 2 years.
• Settings — mark the position as Confidential or Priority, and choose whether to allow it as a reference calibration in the Calibration Assistant so it can guide other calibrations.
• Candidate position visibility — make the position accessible via a private link only, so it isn't searchable without the link.

Depending on your organization's setup, you may also see sections for military experience, diversity, and additional requirements. Set these the same way — open the section and add what applies.

Calibration notes

A rich-text space to capture what you and the hiring manager agree on: mission, objectives, hiring plan, and anything the AI can't infer. Notes keep everyone aligned on the same definition of a great hire.

Track completeness and preview impact

The panel on the right helps you see how complete and how effective your calibration is.

• Calibration completeness — a running indicator with a checklist of high-impact steps, such as adding job locations, at least three ideal candidates, at least three preferred skills, at least three alternate job titles, and a range of experience.
• Live match metrics — as you adjust criteria, Eightfold updates the estimated number of matching candidates, how many are likely to respond, and the diversity of the matched pool.
• Calibration Assistant — preview and copy criteria from similar roles in your company, add sample candidates as ideal candidates, and accept suggested job titles, skills, and companies with a single click.

Confirm and share

• Share with hiring manager — send the calibration to the hiring manager so you both review the same criteria.
• Confirm calibration — lock in the agreed definition and refresh the pipeline against it.
• More actions — from the page's menu you can view analytics, save the calibration as a role, manage the hiring team, build an interview plan, archive or merge the position, and review calibration history.

FAQs

Do I have to fill in every section?

No. Every field is optional. Set the criteria that matter for the role and leave the rest. The completeness indicator shows how much you've defined and which high-impact steps remain.

Why don't my seniority level options match another team's?

Seniority levels come from your organization's configured taxonomy. Your admin defines the list, so it reflects your company's own levels and may differ between organizations.

What's the difference between location flexibility and workplace type?

Location flexibility decides how far out the AI looks for candidates who can relocate. Workplace type describes how the role is worked — onsite, hybrid, or remote. They complement each other, so setting both gives the AI a precise picture of your geographic and work-style needs.

Do my changes take effect right away?

Your edits save automatically, and the page confirms with All Changes Saved. The live metrics update as you go. Confirming the calibration refreshes the pipeline against your latest criteria.

Can the hiring manager see my calibration?

Yes. Use Share with hiring manager so you both align on the same criteria before sourcing begins.