How to Set Up a Job Search Profile That Gets You Better Matches

Your search profile is the single thing every job is scored against. Get it right and the top of your board is roles genuinely worth applying to; get it vague and everything scores the same and the ranking stops meaning anything. It takes five minutes, and the trick is knowing what each field is for.

Target titles — a few real roles, not a wish list

These are the job titles you actually want. Keep it to your two or three real targets — "Data Analyst," "Business Intelligence Analyst." Each title is its own search across every job source, so a focused list gives you sharp, relevant results; a scattershot list of ten loosely-related titles just dilutes the board with roles you'd never take.

• Do: Supply Chain Coordinator, Logistics Coordinator
• Don't: Coordinator, Manager, Analyst, Operations, Logistics, Planner, Specialist…

Must-have skills — your few non-negotiables (these heavily drive scoring)

This is the most important field, and the most misused. Must-haves are the handful of skills a role must center on for it to be a fit — and they heavily affect your match scores. A job that's built around your must-haves scores high; one that misses them drops, even if the title matches.

That's exactly what you want — if you keep the list tight. The mistake is pasting your entire skills section in here. If you list 20 must-haves, no real posting covers all 20, so everything scores low and the signal collapses. Keep it to your true non-negotiables — around 3 to 6.

• Good (Power BI analyst): Power BI, DAX, Data Modeling, SQL
• Too much: Power BI, DAX, Power Query, SQL, Excel, SharePoint, Azure, ETL, Python, Tableau, Storytelling, Stakeholder Management, … — now a role has to hit all of that to score well, so nothing does.

A good gut check: if a role had only these skills listed and nothing else, would you still want it? If yes, it's a must-have. If it's just "nice if they use it too," it belongs in the next field.

Nice-to-have skills — everything else that's a plus

This is where the rest of your skills go. Nice-to-haves are a softer, bonus signal — a role that mentions them scores a little higher, but missing them doesn't hurt. This is the right home for the long tail: the tools you know but don't need, the adjacent skills, the "would be cool." Load it up as much as you like; it won't crush your scores the way an overloaded must-have list does.

The rule of thumb: must-have = the role won't work without it; nice-to-have = it's a plus.

Remote, location, and salary floor

• Remote preference: if you set "remote required," on-site and hybrid roles are capped low automatically — a perfect-skills match you'd never take is not a good match.
• Countries: keeps foreign listings off your board when you want a specific market.
• Salary floor: most postings don't list pay, and an unlisted salary is treated as neutral (it won't hurt a score). A floor only pulls down roles that state a salary below it — so set it to your real minimum without worrying it'll hide good jobs.

Putting it together

A strong profile is specific where it counts and generous where it's cheap: two or three real titles, a tight set of true must-have skills, and a big pile of nice-to-haves. That combination is what makes the fit score a signal you can trust — the roles at the top of your board are the ones that genuinely fit what you're looking for, not just the ones that share a job title.

You can change any of it any time, and re-scoring your board against the new profile takes seconds.