What Is a Potential Match in Recruitment?
This article is part of the Potential and Expandable Matching guide.
A potential match is a candidate whose profile meets an employer’s requirements and who is relevant to the role — but where one specific element of the employer’s current offer does not align with the candidate’s stated intent.
This is different from a poor match. It is a strong match with a single, identified, addressable gap.
What a potential match looks like
Examples of potential matches:
- A candidate with the right skills, qualifications and location who has stated a minimum salary of £38,000 — and your current band tops out at £36,000
- A candidate who meets every requirement but has a maximum patch preference of 30 miles, and your current patch extends to 40
- A candidate who wants a role with no on-call, and your role currently includes an on-call rota that you could potentially restructure
In each case, the candidate is not a mismatch. They are a match with a gap that the employer can choose to address or not.
Why potential matches are valuable
In a skills-short market, candidates who are a near-perfect match are rare. Potential matches — candidates who are very close and whose gap is closeable — represent a significant proportion of the available talent pool.
Employers who can identify and act on potential matches have a materially wider hiring funnel than those who only pursue direct matches. Optio surfaces potential matches with full explainability, so employers can make informed decisions about whether and how to close the gap.
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