Chosen Help

Custom fields are columns you add to the candidate record beyond the built-in ones. Define a field once and it applies to every candidate in your organization — as a column in the table, a filter, and something search can match. Resume parsing can fill them in for you.

What you can add

Each custom field has a type, which controls how its values are stored and displayed:

TypeFor
TextFree-form short text.
EmailAn email address.
PhoneA phone number.
URLA link — portfolio, profile.
DateA calendar date.
NumberA numeric value, like years of experience.
Yes/NoA simple boolean.
Single-selectOne choice from a list of options you define.

Pick the type that fits. A "Years of experience" field as a number sorts and filters properly; the same thing as text doesn't.

Adding a field

  1. From the candidate list, open the field manager (the settings control above the table).
  2. Under Add New Field, give it a name and choose a type. For a single-select, add the options.
  3. Optionally write a description — this is what the resume parser reads to know what to extract, so be specific ("Total years of professional engineering experience" beats "experience").
  4. Leave Auto-fill from resume on if you want parsing to populate it; turn it off for fields you'll only ever set by hand.
  5. Save. The field becomes a column on every candidate.

You can edit or hide a field later from the same place. Built-in fields can be hidden but not edited or deleted — only fields your org added are fully editable.

Auto-fill from resumes

A custom field with Auto-fill from resume on gets extracted during resume parsing, in the same pass as the built-in fields. The field's description is the instruction the parser follows — a vague description gets vague results, so it's worth a sentence.

Turn auto-fill off for anything a resume wouldn't contain — an internal rating, a referral source, a recruiter note. The parser then skips it and you fill it in yourself.

Using fields in filters and search

Once a field exists, it's a column you can sort and a filter you can apply. It's also visible to smart and deep search — a single-select "Visa status" or a number "Years of experience" becomes something you can search against directly.

Limits

Custom fields are organization-wide — there's no per-job field set, so a field added for one role shows up on every candidate. A single-select holds a fixed list of options; if candidates need to pick several values at once, that's not what single-select does. And the parser fills fields from resume text only — it can't invent a value the resume never stated.