> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.miraday.ai/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Must-haves & Dealbreakers

> 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 Ideal Candidate Profile with the Must-Have, Nice-to-Have, and Avoid lists, and the Edit and Search actions](https://mintcdn.com/forward-ai-labs/If_K_8Hs5y-s1pix/docs/three-lists.png?fit=max\&auto=format\&n=If_K_8Hs5y-s1pix\&q=85\&s=f5a25793f8e9a46d958f092b1bfc437c)

| 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.

> [!NOTE]
>
> 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.

## 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](https://docs.miraday.ai/en/docs/sourcing/agentic-search.md)).

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

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

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

* **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

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


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