# Must-haves & Dealbreakers

Source: https://docs.mira.day/en/docs/sourcing/search-filters-and-criteria

> How Mira turns your requirements into an Ideal Candidate Profile. What goes in Must-Have, Nice-to-Have, and Avoid, and how each one shapes the search and the ranking.





Before it searches, Mira turns your brief into an **Ideal Candidate Profile**: a structured summary you review and confirm. It's three lists, and each one steers the search differently. Getting your requirements into the right list is how you control the results.

The three lists [#the-three-lists]

<img alt="The Ideal Candidate Profile with the Must-Have, Nice-to-Have, and Avoid lists, and the Edit and Search actions" src="__img0" />

| List             | What goes here                                                                        | How it shapes the search                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            |
| ---------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Must-Have**    | The non-negotiables a candidate has to meet                                           | The hard bar. A candidate who clearly fails one is filtered out. Rows phrased as a preference ("ideally...") are treated as preferences, and criteria public profiles rarely show, like salary expectations, don't rule anyone out when the information is missing. |
| **Nice-to-Have** | Preferences that make someone stronger, but won't rule them out                       | Broadens the search and lifts matching candidates up. It never excludes anyone.                                                                                                                                                                                     |
| **Avoid**        | Dealbreakers: a competitor to steer clear of, an agency or consulting-only background | Not used to search. Mira applies it after retrieving candidates, to filter out or downrank anyone who matches.                                                                                                                                                      |

The lists are independent, and the same criterion shouldn't sit in two of them. Any list can be empty, as long as one isn't.

<Callout>
  Keep protected characteristics out of your criteria. Age, gender, race, religion, nationality, disability, and similar traits aren't valid requirements: Mira is designed not to filter or rank on them, and in most markets using them in hiring criteria is unlawful.
</Callout>

Hard filters vs reasoned criteria [#hard-filters-vs-reasoned-criteria]

You don't have to sort your requirements into "filters" and "fuzzy" yourself. Inside **Must-Have**, Mira reads each row and decides how to use it:

* **Literal filters** for things that map to a field: a title, a seniority, a location, a company.
* **Reasoned criteria** for the rest, the implicit ones like "took a product from 0 to 1" or "high-growth background", which Mira interprets rather than keyword-matches (see [How MiraDay Searches](/en/docs/sourcing/agentic-search)).

So you just state the requirement in plain language. Mira handles whether it's a hard filter or something to reason about.

Review, edit, and confirm [#review-edit-and-confirm]

Mira proposes the Ideal Candidate Profile on a card before it searches. You're in charge of it:

* **Click Edit** to change any list: add a **Must-Have**, delete a row and re-add it under **Nice-to-Have**, or add a competitor to **Avoid**. While editing, **Undo** and **Redo** step through your changes.
* When it looks right, click **Search**. Whether you took it as-is or edited it first, the search runs against the profile on the card. Criteria you delete stay out of the search.

Change the profile after a search [#change-the-profile-after-a-search]

Once results come back, the profile stays at the top of the results panel as a collapsed **Ideal Candidate Profile** bar that shows how many must-have, nice-to-have, and avoid criteria it holds. Expand it to add, edit, or remove criteria one by one, then click **Search** (it turns active once you've changed something). Mira starts a new search in the conversation with the updated profile; the earlier results and their profile stay as they were. If the previous search is still running, Mira asks whether to **Wait** for it to finish or **Start new search** right away. You can also keep adjusting the profile by telling Mira in the conversation.

Tips [#tips]

* **Put non-negotiables in Must-Have, not Nice-to-Have.** A requirement in Nice-to-Have won't gate anyone out; it only boosts.
* **Use Avoid for what rules a candidate out**, like a specific competitor or an off-target industry, rather than burying it in the description.
* **Keep each row to one atomic criterion**, so Mira can weigh them cleanly.

What's next [#whats-next]

* [How MiraDay Searches](/en/docs/sourcing/agentic-search): how the confirmed profile drives a multi-source search.
* [Inside a Candidate Profile](/en/docs/sourcing/candidate-profile): how to read the candidates that come back.
* [How MiraDay Matches Candidates](/en/docs/match-quality-and-trust/understanding-ai-matching): how MRE reasons about your criteria.