What each one asked for, what came back, and the rewrite. Every quote below was typed by a recruiter into our search box. Every result is what that search really returned.
The job, the level, and how long they have done it.
Must have
Up to 3 things a profile would show: a skill, a licence, a language, a domain.
Where
One city plus a distance, or "remote" plus the countries you can hire in.
Comes from
The companies or industries they work in now, or worked in before.
Leave out
The look-alikes you keep getting: the wrong level, the wrong side of the market.
Salary, perks, mission and "about us" stay in the job ad. No profile contains them.
8 mistakes, in their words
Left: what was typed and what came back. Right: why it went that way and the line that fixes it.
10 of 27Mistake 1
Pasting the whole job ad
"I need $115K-$185K base salary depending on experience. [Firm] also offers 401(k) with 4% company match, medical insurance, 12 paid holidays, 10 days PTO…" (219 words. The city never appears.)
What came back
Personal injury trial attorneys in Indianapolis, Fort Lauderdale and Germantown, Maryland.
Right job, wrong state. The office was in Chicago, and the ad never said so.
Why
A search reads a profile: title, employers, skills, languages, location. Salary, PTO, benefits and the company story describe the job, not the person, so they match nothing and push the real requirements further down. The search can only guess which of 200 words matter.
Compare the pasted ad that worked best. Its first line was "MUST work onsite 4 days a week in downtown Cincinnati, OH (45202)", and all 10 people who came back were in Cincinnati. Put the must-have in line 1.
Rewrite
Who: Plaintiff personal injury litigation associate, 3 to 10 years
Must have: Trial work, fluent Spanish
Where: Chicago, within 40 km
Leave out: Defence-side firms, partners
1 of 27Mistake 2
Burying the must-have
"…Bolingbrook, Palatine, or Naperville, Illinois, with 3-10 years of experience maximum, including 3+ years of plaintiff personal injury litigation… SPANISH SPOE" (Followed by 1,500 more characters of the ad.)
What came back
4 people in total.
None of the 4 showed Spanish on their profile. Two match notes flagged it directly.
Why
"Spanish speaking" was the hardest requirement in the brief: it is what made this role hard to fill. It sat in capitals, misspelt, between a list of 11 suburbs and the salary. The other half of the problem was the suburbs. Listing 11 towns makes every town a separate condition. One city plus a distance covers all of them.
Rewrite
Must have: Spanish (on the profile under languages, or "bilingual" in the headline)
Where: Chicago, within 50 km
3 of 27Mistake 3
Six words or fewer
"On site tutor for math"
What came back
Math tutors in Texas, California, Washington DC, Greece, India, Ireland and Egypt.
The same recruiter searched again: "I'm looking for an onsite Math Tutor in Jakarta Indonesia". All 10 people came back in Jakarta.
A different client typed "property surveyor" (2 words, no place) and got UK building surveyors only.
Why
"On site" only means something with a place attached. With no location the search has to choose one, and it chose everywhere. A short brief isn't wrong. A short brief with no place, level or domain lets the search fill in the blanks for you.
Rewrite
Who: Math tutor or secondary math teacher, 3+ years
Must have: Teaches in person, IGCSE or IB math
Where: Jakarta, within 25 km
1 of 27Mistake 4
Asking a search to interview
"I am hiring for management trainees and want to assess their AI competencies"
What came back
People in Malaysia, India, Australia and the UK.
The first was someone building AI products for poker coaching.
Why
A search finds people from what their profile says. "Assess" is a different job: a profile can say "AI" and mean anything from a weekend course to a shipped product. Split it in two. Search for the evidence a profile can show, then test the skill in a conversation with the same questions for everyone.
Rewrite
Search: Graduates or management trainees, 0 to 2 years,
in [city], who list a project built with AI tools
Then: 15-minute interview, same 3 questions for all:
1. Walk me through something you built with AI.
2. Where did it get things wrong, and how did you check?
3. What would you not hand to an AI tool, and why?
6 of 27Mistake 5
Words no profile contains
"strong hunter mindset" · "we're a rocketship" · "should be able to evolve in a gloablized company" · "worked with VIPs, presidents, princes, sheikhs" (translated from Russian)
What came back
For the VIP brief: people in the US, Saudi Arabia, Spain and France, with VIP work marked unverified on each.
That brief also asked for people from CIS countries. Nationality is not on a profile, and in many countries it can't be a hiring filter. Language is on a profile.
Why
Nobody writes "hunter mindset" on their profile. They write what a hunter does. Translate every trait into the evidence that proves it.
hunter mindset → new business or new logo titles, net-new targets
globalized → worked at a multinational, or in 2+ countries
VIP clients → luxury hotels, royal or government projects
from CIS → Russian and English on the profile
1 of 27Mistake 6
An acronym with two meanings
"Job Role: Oracle Cloud GTM Functional Consultant. Location: Remote (ET Timezone)… should either be based in Morocco or have hands-on experience working with Morocco-based projects"
What came back
0 people.
Searched as a title, "GTM" mostly finds go-to-market people: sales and marketing, not trade compliance.
Why
GTM here meant Oracle Global Trade Management, a supply-chain module, and the brief spelled that out only in the description, below the title. It also asked for two different people at once: someone living in Morocco, or someone anywhere who worked on Moroccan projects, on Eastern Time. That's two searches, and each one is small. Run them separately and name the sister module (OTM) that the same consultants usually list.
Rewrite
Search A
Who: Oracle Global Trade Management (GTM) functional consultant
Must have: Trade compliance, OTM also counts
Where: Morocco
Search B: same, Where: anywhere, worked on projects in Morocco
1 of 27Mistake 7
A company list with nothing else
"Looking for sales reps from the following companies: ADP, Alliance HCM, Empower HR, BambooHR, Deel, TriNet, Insperity, CornerstoneOnDemand, Rippling, Justworks, Dayforce, Justworks, Gusto, Paycom, Paylocity"
What came back
People in Portland, Salt Lake City, Dallas and Italy, including a head of sales now at an outdoor app and a sales enablement manager.
The next brief added "in a sales role, live in Waco, TX, within 200 km". Everyone came back from Waco, Austin and Dallas.
Why
A company list says where they came from. It doesn't say what they did there or where they are now. "Sales reps from ADP" also matches ex-ADP reps who now run sales teams somewhere else entirely. Add the role they hold now, the place, and whether they must still be there.
Rewrite
Who: Quota-carrying payroll or HR software sales rep
Comes from: ADP, Paychex, Paylocity, Paycom, Gusto (now or before)
Where: Waco, TX, within 150 km
Leave out: Sales managers, enablement, recruiters
1 of 27Mistake 8
Pasting the outreach email
"…We are currently looking for a motivated and driven Sales Representative… Given your background, I thought you might be an excellent fit… Are you open to a brief, 10-minute introductory phone call this week?"
What came back
Sellers in the right town: a payments account executive, plus a pharma territory manager and a beauty educator.
Point-of-sale selling was not shown on most of them.
Why
An email to a candidate is written to sound open and friendly, so it says "motivated and driven" where a brief needs "has sold POS or card processing to restaurants". The one hard fact, selling point-of-sale to local merchants, was in the middle of the second paragraph.
Rewrite
Who: Outside B2B sales rep, 2+ years
Must have: Sold POS systems or merchant card processing
Where: Coral Springs, FL, within 40 km
Leave out: Retail floor sales, call-centre roles
Same role, written twice
One recruiter, one business development role in Delhi NCR, two briefs. The only change was how the brief was written.
First try · the job ad, 423 words
"[Company] is looking for a Business Development professional to drive the expansion of our Customer Experience (CX) business… This is a market-building and new-business acquisition role…"
Business development at a digital ad agency
A web-design firm's business developer
A performance-marketing BD manager
Match notes on most of them: CX services selling not shown.
Second try · must-haves and exclusions
"Must-have: Currently or previously worked with a BPO / BPM / Contact Centre / CX services company… Exclude: Pure product sales, SaaS-only sales, inside sales, telesales…"
Head of business development with years at a large BPO
A revenue leader with enterprise services and BPO history
An enterprise hunter with BPO-services exposure
Match notes: BPO history, services sales, RFPs, revenue targets.
The one that got it right
The best of the 27, word for word. All 20 people it returned were in the US or Canada, with titles like "Lead Electrical Engineer (Renewables)" and "Manager, High Voltage Development Engineering".
"Find me a senior electrical engineer with 10+ years experience1 designing high voltage substation and power transmission infrastructure for renewable energy (solar) and energy storage projects2. ideally experience with power system studies experience as well. Someone who is a lead, principal or engineering manager (title not people leader)3 at an engineering consultancy or someone who works at an IPP or Developer of Clean Energy projects4. The role is fully remote and candidates can be based in the US or Canada5"
1Level and years in the first line.
2The work itself, in the words engineers use on their own profiles.
3Three titles that count, and a note that "manager" means the title, not managing people. That one line stops the search returning department heads.
4The two kinds of employer these people work for. The strongest signal in the brief.
5Remote, with the exact countries it can hire in.
+"Ideally" marks the nice-to-have, so it can rank people without cutting anyone.
Build your 5-line brief
Fill in the role you're working on. The brief updates as you type and flags anything a profile can't show.
brief.txt
Fix any job ad in one paste
A Claude skill that turns a job ad, an email or a one-liner into the 5-line brief and tells you what it had to drop. Save it as SKILL.md in a folder called brief-fixer.
brief-fixer/SKILL.md
---
name: brief-fixer
description: Turns a job ad, hiring-manager email, outreach message or one-line request into a 5-line sourcing brief (Who, Must have, Where, Comes from, Leave out). Use when a recruiter pastes a role and wants to search for people.
---# Brief fixer
You rewrite hiring requests into briefs that a people search can act on. A search reads profiles: titles, employers, dates, skills, languages, certifications, location. Anything a profile cannot show is either translated into evidence that can be shown, or moved to "For the interview".
## Output (always this shape)
Who: [job title as people write it] , [level] , [years]
Must have: [max 3 items a profile shows]
Where: [one city + km radius] | [remote + countries]
Comes from: [employers or industries, now or before; say which]
Leave out: [look-alikes]
For the interview: [things only a conversation can test]
Dropped: [what you removed and why, one line each]
Questions: [max 2, only if a line above is blank]
## Rules
1. Read the whole input before writing. The hard requirement is often buried: in capitals, misspelt, in a benefits paragraph or in the last line ("SPANISH SPOE" = Spanish speaking). Pull it into Must have.
2. Drop salary, benefits, PTO, mission, "about us", growth claims ("rocketship"), team culture. List them under Dropped.
3. Location: never list suburbs one by one. Use the main city plus a radius that covers them. If the input says onsite or hybrid with no place, ask for the place. Never guess a country.
4. If the input says "based in X OR has worked on X projects", write two briefs, A and B.
5. Expand acronyms that have two meanings, and put the expansion in Who: GTM (go-to-market or Oracle Global Trade Management), CX (customer experience services or software), PE (professional engineer or private equity), SE (sales engineer or software engineer), PM (product, project or program). If the input doesn't settle it, ask.
6. Translate traits into evidence:
- hunter / new business → new-logo or new business titles, net-new targets
- globalized / international → multinational employer, or roles in 2+ countries
- startup mindset → worked at companies under 200 people
- senior stakeholder exposure → titles that report to C-level, or client-facing at enterprise accounts
- "worked with VIPs" → named luxury, government or royal projects
Anything you cannot translate goes to For the interview.
7. Never filter on nationality, ethnicity, age, gender, religion or family status. If the input asks for one, replace it with the job-related thing behind it (usually a language or work authorisation) and say so under Dropped.
8. "Assess", "evaluate", "test" a skill = For the interview, plus the profile evidence that makes testing worthwhile.
9. A company list alone is not a brief. Add the role they hold now, whether they must still be at that company, and the place. "Sales reps from ADP" also matches ex-ADP reps who now run sales elsewhere: decide and say which.
10. "Manager" or "lead" can mean a title or a team. Write "title, not people leader" when the input says so.
11. Nice-to-haves stay out of Must have. Put them after Must have as "Ideally: ..." on the same line so they rank people without cutting anyone.
12. Max 3 Must have items. If the input has more, keep the three that are rarest and easiest to see on a profile, and list the rest under Ideally.
## Check before you answer
- Could a stranger read only the 5 lines and picture the same person you do?
- Is every Must have item something a profile could literally say?
- Is there exactly one place, or two searches?
- Did any word you dropped carry a real requirement? If yes, put it back as evidence.
## With The Cognitive connector
If The Cognitive is connected (needs a free account at app.thecognitive.io first, 7-day trial), pass the finished brief to search_external_candidates as the brief. If the search comes back with a question instead of people, the brief was too vague; answer it in the brief, not in a new search. Every person shown costs 1 credit.
Where the 27 were typed
Paste the 5 lines into The Cognitive
Every brief on this page went into the same search box. It reads plain English, searches past employers as well as titles, and shows the line in each profile that made the person a match.
Example
Senior data engineer, 5+ years · dbt, Snowflake, payments data · Toronto, within 40 km · banks and fintech · leave out analysts
Senior Data Engineer · Payments companyToronto, OntarioWhy this match: "Built the dbt models behind settlement reporting on Snowflake"
Data Engineer II · Canadian bankMississauga, OntarioWhy this match: "5 years on card transaction pipelines, now on Snowflake"
If a brief is too thin, it asks one question first and charges nothing for it.
The skills a profile can't show (Mistake 4) go to the AI interviewer: candidates book their own slot, every claim on the CV gets probed, and you get scores, a recording and the transcript.
The Cognitive