What is SeekOut Workspaces?
SeekOut Workspaces is an AI-powered recruiting workflow that keeps everything for a single open role: your search, candidate evaluations, shortlist, and outreach: organized in one place. Instead of jumping between tools and tabs, Workspaces guides you through a structured process from finding candidates all the way to sending your first message.
Think of a Workspace as a dedicated project folder for each role you're hiring for. Every action you take: searching talent pools, scoring candidates against criteria, building a shortlist, and running email campaigns: happens within that Workspace, so your team always has a single source of truth.
Who Can Use Workspaces?
Workspaces is available to all SeekOut customers with a paid license. It's included at no extra cost with your paid SeekOut Recruit subscription.
Key benefits:
Stay organized. All activity for a role lives in one place, making it easy to collaborate and track progress.
Start faster. Two setup paths let you choose how hands-on you want to be — use the guided setup to define your own criteria, or let AI generate a full search instantly from a job description.
Evaluate objectively. A customizable AI scorecard evaluates candidates against your must-have criteria, removing guesswork from profile reviews.
Engage smarter. AI-assisted outreach sequences are tailored to different candidate sources, helping you write more relevant, effective messages.
Creating Your First Workspace
Follow the steps below to create a new Workspace and complete the initial setup. You only need to do this once per role.
To get started, navigate to Workspaces in the left sidebar of your SeekOut
A pop-up window will appear with three options. Pick the one that fits your situation:
A | Paste a Job Description or Describe Your Ideal Candidate Type a description of the candidate you're looking for or paste an existing job description into the text field, then press enter. SeekOut's AI will instantly analyze the input and generate a complete search (including criteria, filters, and your AI scorecard), dropping you directly into the Search tab with results already loaded. This is the fastest way to get started. |
B | Use the Guided Setup Click Use the guided setup if you want more control over your initial search inputs and scorecard criteria. This launches a step-by-step wizard that walks you through defining job titles, required skills, preferred employers, location, experience, education, and more before generating your search. Best for recruiters who want to fine-tune every input upfront or are working without a formal job description. |
C | Start with a Blank Workspace Click Start with a blank workspace to skip setup entirely and manually configure all search criteria yourself from scratch. This option gives you a completely open canvas with no AI-generated defaults. |
💡 Tip: If you're new to Workspaces, Option A is the quickest way to see results. You can always refine the AI-generated criteria once you land in the Search tab.
If you chose the guided setup path, Workspaces will walk you through each of the following steps. Move through them in order, and feel free to adjust any AI suggestions: they're a starting point, not a final answer.
Review the job description: confirm the role details look accurate
Select job titles: choose the titles that best describe what you're hiring for
Select two to four key skills or experiences: focus on your most important must-haves
Select preferred previous employers: optionally identify companies whose employees tend to be strong fits
Set education requirements (optional)
Set years of experience (optional)
Set location requirements (optional)
Review the generated search: inspect the search Workspaces built from your inputs and make any adjustments
Set up your AI scorecard: Workspaces generates five evaluation criteria based on your inputs, phrased as Yes/No questions. Review and edit these before finalizing. These criteria are used to score candidates in the Evaluate tab later.
📝 Note: If you used Option A (paste a job description or describe your ideal candidate), Workspaces handles these steps automatically. You'll still have the opportunity to review and adjust the generated scorecard before your search launches.
Once setup is complete, Workspaces will automatically drop you into the Search tab with your initial results already loaded. Your AI-generated search criteria will appear in the left panel, and matching candidate profiles will populate on the right.
From here, you're ready to start reviewing candidates. The next section explains what each Workspace tab does and how to move through the workflow.
Understanding the Workspace Tabs
Each Workspace is organized into a series of tabs that guide you through the full hiring workflow: from sourcing candidates to sending outreach. You'll find the tabs at the top of the Workspace screen.
Here's a quick overview of what each tab does and when to use it:
Overview Tab The Overview tab is the first tab in every Workspace. It gives you a high-level dashboard showing your current talent pool size by source, outreach campaign stats, and AI-recommended profiles from your Evaluate tab. It also surfaces recommended next actions to keep your search moving forward. Refer back to it anytime you want a quick status check on your role. |
🔍 Search Tab Your primary sourcing engine. After setup, this is where your AI-generated search criteria come to life. Browse candidates across multiple talent pools (Public Profiles, your ATS, Alumni, and more), refine your search using filters or natural language via SeekOut Assist, and begin building your shortlist as you go. You can also switch between Smart Match (AI-powered) and Boolean search modes depending on your preference.
Full guide: Workspaces: Search Tab → |
⭐ Evaluate Tab AI-powered candidate scoring. Use this tab to score shortlisted candidates against the scorecard criteria you defined during setup. Each candidate receives a numerical score and a Yes/Partially/No rating for each criterion, with plain-language explanations you can hover over. Evaluate helps you quickly identify your strongest matches without manually reading every profile.
Full guide: Workspaces: Evaluate Tab → |
📋 Shortlist Tab Your central hub for top candidates. All profiles you've shortlisted from Search or Evaluate are collected here. Use this tab to review your picks, fetch contact information (email and phone), track outreach statuses, and manage candidates in bulk. You can also add shared comments for your hiring team or private notes for yourself.
Full guide: Workspaces: Shortlist Tab → |
✉️ Outreach Tab Your built-in email campaign tool. Once your shortlist is ready, move to the Outreach tab to create and launch personalized email sequences. You can build campaigns from scratch, use AI to generate tailored messages, or select a saved template from your Sequences Library. Candidates are grouped by source so AI can generate more targeted messaging for each group.
Full guide: Workspaces: Outreach Tab → |
Additional Tabs (ATS Integration)
Candidates tab: If your ATS is connected, candidates who reply to your outreach are automatically added here and linked to the open role in your ATS.
Pipeline tab: Gives your full hiring team visibility into where each candidate stands across all ATS pipeline stages. Requires ATS integration and that your Workspace was linked to an ATS role during setup.
These tabs are only available when SeekOut is connected to your ATS. See What Integrations Does SeekOut Support? for setup details. |
Your Workspace Workflow: Step by Step
Workspaces is designed to move you through the hiring process in a natural sequence. Here's the recommended order of operations after your setup is complete:
🔍 Search | → | ⭐ Evaluate | → | 📋 Shortlist | → | ✉️ Outreach |
Phase 1: Search: Find Your Candidates
After setup, start in the Search tab. Review the AI-generated results, refine the criteria as needed, and browse candidates across your available talent pools. Shortlist profiles as you find strong matches: you don't need to finish searching before shortlisting. You can also send profiles to the Evaluate tab for AI scoring directly from Search.
Phase 2: Evaluate: Score Your Candidates
Once you've sent profiles to the Evaluate tab, your AI scorecard gets to work. Candidates are ranked by how well they match your criteria, with a score and detailed tag breakdown for each. Use this tab to quickly identify your strongest candidates and shortlist the best ones. You can request more AI recommendations here if you need a broader pool.
Phase 3: Shortlist: Manage Your Top Picks
The Shortlist tab collects all candidates you've flagged from Search or Evaluate. From here, fetch contact information for candidates, review their outreach status, and prepare for outreach. You can add shared comments for your hiring team and private notes for yourself. Use bulk actions to fetch contacts and push candidates into outreach campaigns efficiently.
Phase 4: Outreach: Reach Out to Candidates
With your shortlist finalized and contact info retrieved, move to the Outreach tab to launch your email campaign. Create a sequence using AI (which uses your job description and recruiter input to generate personalized messaging), build one from scratch, or select a saved template. Set your send schedule and launch. Track open rates, replies, and engagement as responses come in.
⚠️ Before you begin: You'll need to connect your email account to SeekOut before sending outreach. Follow the Email Connection guide to complete this one-time setup. |
Sharing Your Workspace with Your Team
Workspaces supports real-time collaboration. Invite hiring managers and teammates so they can view candidates, see outreach statuses, and contribute to shortlisting decisions without needing their own separate search.
To add participants:
Click the Add Participants icon at the top of any Workspace screen
Search for teammates by name or email, or select them from the dropdown
📝 Note: You can only share a Workspace with people inside your organization. Sharing outside your org is not currently supported. |
AI Credits in Workspaces
Some Workspaces features use AI Credits, which are separate from your standard SeekOut contact credits. Here's what you need to know:
Monthly allocation | 10,000 AI Credits per user, per month |
What uses AI Credits | Profile Evaluation (Evaluate tab) and AI email generation (Outreach tab) |
Credit notifications | Before any AI action runs, a notification shows you how many credits the action will use and your remaining balance |
If you have questions about your AI Credit balance or usage, contact SeekOut Customer Support.
Tips for New Users
💡 You don't have to go through the tabs in strict order. You can shortlist candidates directly from Search without going through Evaluate first, or jump back to Search to refine your criteria after reviewing Evaluate results. |
💡 Your initial search criteria are a starting point, not a final answer. Expect to adjust titles, skills, and filters based on what you see in the results. Most recruiters refine their search 2–3 times before settling on a strong pool. |
💡 Check your ATS tab in Search before sourcing externally. Past applicants are already warm leads who know your company: they're often the fastest to convert. |
💡 If you're recruiting for a role outside your area of expertise, use the Describe the Ideal Candidate option at setup. Describing what you need in plain language is often easier than building a search from scratch. |
💡 Share your Workspace with hiring managers early. Getting stakeholders aligned on the candidate pool before outreach begins saves time and reduces back-and-forth later. |