Skip to main content
Availability helps you decide who to approach and when. FreshTalent brings together signals from LinkedIn, GitHub, and our own AI analysis of current profile text and recent changes. Each badge tells you something different about the evidence available for that person.

​
The four flags

LinkedIn and GitHub icons identify those sources. The radar icon identifies FreshTalent’s Exploring signal.

​
Open to work

This flag comes from the LinkedIn open-to-work value supplied with profile data. It is a source-reported status; FreshTalent does not infer it from words in a headline or from a gap in employment. Someone can be Open to work while still employed. If the source does not supply the field, that is missing information, not evidence that they have switched it off. A profile refresh that omits the field preserves the last known value.

​
Between roles

FreshTalent checks the positions on the indexed LinkedIn profile. A person qualifies when they have at least one position and none is marked current. A profile with no work history does not qualify merely because its information is missing. When an end date is available, since shows the latest recorded position end month. The flag describes the work history we have: a person may have started a role that is not yet reflected in their profile, or may be taking a break without seeking a job.

​
Available for hire

This flag comes from the hireable value on the GitHub account associated with the person. It is separate from LinkedIn’s Open to work flag and can appear alongside other availability badges. It does not specify a start date, preferred contract type, or whether the person is actively interviewing. An absent flag may mean the field is unset or GitHub data is unavailable.

​
Exploring

Exploring is FreshTalent’s AI-powered assessment of current employment openness. We ask whether someone looks open to a new role now, not whether they became more open recently. Current profile text can qualify even when unchanged, with recent changes and current roles providing context. This can surface a useful reason to start a conversation before someone declares Open to work. It is an inference from observed profile evidence, not confirmation that they are searching or planning to leave.

​
How detection works

  1. Read current text and recent changes. We examine headline, About, and current role descriptions observed within the last 30 days, with job moves and current roles as context. A role description must be matched to the same role to count as a rewrite. Missing text is treated as unknown.
  2. Shortlist relevant evidence. Initial rules consider current openness language and employment logistics, as well as substantial edits and combinations of signals. A new profile or an unchanged statement can qualify without any diff history. Punctuation-only edits do not qualify on their own. People already marked Open to work or Between roles are excluded.
  3. Have AI evaluate the context. The model considers business promotion, a completed career move, routine maintenance, and unclear evidence alongside current openness to employment. It must identify supporting evidence and consider the strongest alternative explanation. Existing or reinstated openness counts when still present; a new cue is not required.
  4. Validate the supporting evidence. A positive classification needs an explanation anchored to exact quotes from current snapshots or comparable recent changes. The evidence must still support the latest available profile. Withdrawn cues cannot support the badge, but restored openness present now can.
  5. Show the explanation on the badge. Only a qualifying AI assessment with validated evidence produces an Exploring badge. Classification runs in the background; an incomplete or failed assessment does not create a badge.
Longer descriptions, more achievements, removing a company name, or adding keywords can prompt a closer look. Those changes alone do not establish openness, even when several happen together. For example, “open to opportunities” could refer to new clients for a business. A founder or someone who recently changed jobs can still qualify if there is independent current evidence of employment openness. A completed job move by itself does not qualify. Work authorization, relocation, or availability can contribute in context, but do not automatically establish openness.

​
A worked example

This is an illustrative profile, not a real person’s record or a guaranteed model result. The person remains a Software Engineer at ExampleCo and is not marked Open to work or Between roles. The phrase names an employment direction. It can qualify while still current, even on later refreshes when the headline has not changed. An AI explanation could read:
Their profile suggests they may be open to a new role: their headline says “Open to engineering roles in climate technology”.
The quoted phrase would be selectable in the popup, revealing the current headline snapshot and its observation date, or the full before/after text when a change is cited. The model also considers the other supplied evidence and current roles before deciding whether to flag the profile. By comparison, “Building climate software at ExampleCo” could simply describe current work. “Open to climate consulting clients” points toward business promotion. Neither phrase alone establishes openness to a new employment role.

​
Inspect the evidence

Hover over or select the Exploring badge to open its AI interpretation. Hover over, focus, or select highlighted text in the explanation to inspect:
  • The evidence field: headline, About, or role description.
  • Current observed text, or before/after text for an actual change, with the cited phrase highlighted.
  • The date the evidence was observed.
The explanation helps you understand why this person was flagged. The evidence lets you judge whether it is relevant to your outreach.

​
Dates and freshness

For Exploring, observed is the earliest observation date among the evidence cited in the AI interpretation. It is not the date the person started looking for work. The API retains the field name exploring_since for compatibility. For Between roles, since comes from the latest recorded position end month. Availability reflects the profile data FreshTalent has observed. Changes may have happened before our observation date. New snapshots can trigger reassessment, including unchanged text, and Exploring badges expire as supporting observations age out of the 30-day window. Re-running a backfill does not make old observations fresh. A badge is also cleared when the person becomes Open to work or Between roles. Open Availability in the Search filter bar and select a flag. You can combine it with company, role, skills, and location filters. For example:
Multiple availability filters require a person to match all selected flags. Open to work and Between roles can overlap, and Available for hire can accompany either or Exploring. Exploring excludes Open to work and Between roles, so combining those filters will not yield qualifying Exploring profiles. The same filters are available through GET /people and MCP: open_to_work, between_roles, exploring, and github_hireable. No badge means there is no qualifying signal in the data currently available to us. It does not mean the person is unavailable. Use the flags and their evidence to inform a conversation, and confirm interest with the person.