Migrating from another data provider
Translation tables for the filter vocabularies that differ between providers (departments, seniority levels, job-title matching), so a search means the same thing here as it did there.
Migrating from another data provider
Every provider invents its own filter vocabulary, and a straight port of your old values quietly changes who you're targeting. This page translates the three vocabularies that differ the most (departments, seniority levels, job-title matching), so your first searches here return the people you meant. For the broader checklist (exact counts, current vs any job, benchmarking), see getting accurate results from search.
Departments
People search has a dedicated department filter: jobFunction. It takes
include/exclude lists over 44 department values, and about half of profiles
carry one today.
Translate your old department values to ours:
| Value from another provider | Fiber value(s) | Notes |
|---|---|---|
human_resources | Human Resources | |
accounting | Accounting | |
finance | Finance | |
legal | Legal | |
engineering | Engineering | |
information_technology | Information Technology | |
sales | Sales | |
marketing | Marketing | |
support, customer_service | Support, Customer Service | Send both — we keep them separate |
operations | Operations | |
education | Education | |
healthcare, medical | Healthcare Services, Health Care Provider | Send both |
creative, arts_and_design | Arts and Design, Design, Art / Creative | Three values cover the old "creative" |
consulting, professional_service | Consulting, General Business | "Professional services" has no direct equivalent — General Business is the nearest |
public_service, community | Community & Social Services | Closest match |
trade, fulfillment, logistics | Distribution, Supply Chain | |
real_estate | Real Estate | |
administrative | Administrative | |
manufacturing, production | Manufacturing, Production | |
quality_assurance | Quality Assurance | |
research, science | Research, Science | |
entrepreneurship | Entrepreneurship | |
product, program, project | Product Management, Program & Product Management, Project Management | Send all three for the old "product/program" bucket |
military, law_enforcement | Military & Protective Services | |
purchasing, procurement | Purchasing | |
public_relations, communications | Public Relations | |
strategy | Strategy / Planning | |
writing, content | Writing / Editing | |
business_development | Business Development | |
analyst | Analyst | |
training | Training | |
media | Advertising, Public Relations, Writing / Editing | No single equivalent — pick by the roles you mean |
energy, construction, hospitality, transportation | — | No department equivalent; filter on the employer's industry instead. See industry filtering |
The full valid list lives in the API reference. An invalid department value
returns a 400 listing every valid value; use that to validate a
translation table you're building programmatically.
For reach, you can widen any department with title keywords in a
functional block, useful when a department's roles are titled
inconsistently. See departments as keywords.
Seniority levels
People search has a seniority filter: jobSeniority, with six values
(jobInferredSeniority complements it with Fiber-inferred levels). Other
providers use around ten, so several of their levels collapse into one of
ours:
| Value from another provider | Fiber value | Notes |
|---|---|---|
entry | Entry level | |
intern | Internship | |
training, unpaid | Internship | Closest match — both mean "not yet a full professional role" |
senior | Mid-Senior level | The boundary case: heavier "Senior …" titles land at Mid-Senior, lighter ones at Associate. When in doubt, send both |
manager | Mid-Senior level | |
director | Director | |
vp | Executive | Closest match, but see the callout below |
cxo | Executive | |
associate | Associate | |
owner | — | No equivalent. Use title words: owner, co-owner, founder, proprietor |
partner | — | No equivalent. Use title words: partner, managing partner, principal |
Owners and partners aren't seniority levels here; they're title words.
Filtering owners of small businesses or partners at firms by Executive
misses most of them, because "Owner" and "Partner" carry no C-suite title.
Add them as plain title terms next to your seniority filter; the recipe
is in seniority and levels,
and it returned nearly three times as many partners in our tests.
Job title matching
Title matching differs provider to provider more than any filter. Here:
- Terms match whole words, in any position, AND-ed together. A term
like
hr directormatches "Senior HR Director" and "Director, HR". exact: truerequires the whole title to equal the term (case ignored); use it only for like-for-like comparisons.- No prefix or substring matching:
engindoesn't matchengineer, and keywords don't match inside words either. - Word forms aren't expanded automatically.
engineerdoesn't match "Engineering Manager". Add the forms you rely on as extra terms (engineer,engineers,engineering), or resolve real titles with the job title typeahead and send those.
The details, with a worked example of each behavior, are in job titles.
What doesn't translate
- Protected characteristics: gender, age and similar attributes aren't available as search filters.
- Multiple size or revenue ranges in one request: run one search per range. Arbitrary single ranges are fine; see sizing and locating companies.
Related
- Getting accurate results from search — how every filter matches, with worked examples
- Industry filtering — person vs employer industry
- Typeaheads — resolve titles, companies, cities to exact values
- Search counts — exact vs estimated numbers
Industry filtering
The two meanings of "industry", which filter expresses each, and how to pick valid values so an industry filter never silently matches nothing.
Sizing and locating companies
Filter companies by headcount with any range you need, and by headquarters location down to city level — both fully supported on company search and combined search.