Pin (formerly Hiring Copilot) can search your whole candidate database for you. Describe the person you’re looking for in plain English. Pin finds matching candidates, summarizes the results, and helps you act on them without leaving the conversation.
Pin searches across all jobs and applications, so it’s useful for finding people you already have, like a candidate whose CV mentions a tool you've just started using or a near-miss from your last hiring round.
✅ Permissions
Pin needs to be enabled for your account. You'll also need the Access Pin permission to use it!
Starting a search
To start a search, open Pin and describe who you're looking for the way you'd describe it to a colleague.
For example:
"Find candidates who've worked in fintech."
"Show me candidates in the UK with Python and Kubernetes."
"Who applied to the backend role and got to interview stage?"
"Find candidates I haven't contacted in the last 30 days."
There's no syntax to learn and no particular way to phrase things, though keeping it short might get you better results!
ℹ️ Note
Pin only searches candidates you can already see in Pinpoint. Its results are limited to your company account and your user permissions.
If your company uses anonymised screening, Pin leaves concealed applications out of its searches and doesn’t show concealed names in its results.
Reading the results
When you describe who you're after, Pin searches everything your candidates gave you:
AI-extracted fields (if you have AI Match Score set up)
Application answers (including anything written in response to your screening questions)
Cover letters
CV and résumé text (full body of the document rather than just the file name)
Email addresses
Locations
Names
Previous job titles
Skills
Pin summarizes search results instead of listing them. It tells you how many candidates match, what they have in common, and which one or two are most worth your attention. To see the full list, use candidate search in Pinpoint.
To find out more about a candidate, ask Pin about them. Pin shows their profile, CV, previous applications, scorecards, and comments.
✅ Tip
CV text tends to make the biggest difference. Your search can reach into what a candidate said about their own experience, instead of only matching the fields someone remembered to fill in.
Narrowing down results
Pin combines your description with filters, and works out which filters to apply from the way you phrase your request.
It can narrow by:
Country
Skills
Stage they reached on any previous application
Whether they applied to a particular job
How recently they were active
You can combine these in a single sentence.
For example, you can ask for "candidates who reached interview stage on any role last year but weren't hired, who know Kubernetes." Pin works out that it needs a search for Kubernetes, a stage filter, and a date range, then applies all three.
If you don't give it a description or any filters, you'll get your most recently active candidates, which is a reasonable place to start browsing.
Finding similar results
Once you've found someone good, you can ask Pin for more people like them.
It compares that person's CV and application content against everyone else in your database and brings back the closest matches. Those results can be narrowed down in all the same ways as any other search!
Getting better results
We've put together some tips you can follow to get better search results out of Pin.
Use the words on a CV.
Job titles, tools, technologies, and skills search best, because that’s what candidates write.
Keep it short.
A short list like "Python, UK, active in the last 90 days" works better than one long sentence.
Ask for fewer skills if results are low.
Pin only returns candidates who have every skill you ask for. For example, "Python and Go" finds candidates with both, not either. If you get fewer results than expected, search for the most important skill on its own.
Start broad, then narrow down.
Pin remembers the conversation, so you can refine your results without starting again. For example, ask "Now just the ones in Manchester".
Frequently Asked Questions
Does Pin search inside CVs?
Yes. It searches the full text of the CV document, along with cover letters and application answers.
Will a candidate who's just applied show up?
Yes. New candidates can be searched straight away.
Can Pin see candidates I'm not allowed to see?
No. Every search is filtered to your own permissions, and anonymised screening is respected.
Can I use it to work through a long list of candidates?
Pin is best at finding people and pointing you towards the ones worth a look. To work systematically through a large list, use the candidate search screens.