Overview

Gem custom fields help you capture information that isn’t included in Gem’s default candidate profiles or projects. You can use them to keep your team’s data consistent, make it easier to find what you need, and (for certain field types) improve reporting.

This article covers:

• Candidate custom fields
• Project fields (team-wide)
• Project custom fields (project-specific)
• Searching and reporting on candidate custom fields

Requirements

• You must be an Admin user in Gem, or have a custom role with permissions to manage custom fields.

Different field types

Gem uses several field types. The setup location and behavior are different depending on the field type.

• Candidate custom fields apply to candidates (prospects). Depending on the field type, you can use them in search and reporting.
• Project fields apply to projects across your team (team-wide). You can use them to categorize projects and filter projects in Gem.
• Project custom fields apply to one specific project. These fields are only available within that project and aren’t reportable or searchable.

Types of custom fields

Gem supports the following custom field types:

Set up candidate custom fields

Only admins can create and manage candidate custom fields.

To create a candidate custom field:

1. Navigate to the Prospects tab of your Admin settings page.
2. Under Custom fields, select the + New custom field button.
3. In the confirmation that appears, enter a Field name and select a Type (single-select, multi-select, date, or freeform text).
4. For single-select and multi-select fields, add the values for the picklist in the Options area.
5. (Optional) Select the Required checkbox to make the field mandatory when adding a new prospect to Gem.
6. Select Create.

After you create the field, it appears in your list of candidate custom fields on the Prospects settings page. Admins can also edit or hide existing candidate custom fields from this page.

Use candidate custom fields

After you create candidate custom fields, they appear in the Gem extension under Team custom fields.

Users can fill them out by selecting the text box. If a required field is missing, Gem will prompt users to complete it when adding a prospect.

To fill out a candidate custom field:

1. Open the candidate profile in the Gem extension.
2. Under Team custom fields, select the field you want to update.
3. Enter or select a value.

If your team requires a field, Gem prompts users to fill it out when adding a prospect.

Recommended candidate custom fields (optional)

Depending on your team’s workflows, you may find it useful to create fields like:

• DEI tag: Track diversity-related recruiting efforts.
• Skills: Identify competencies (e.g., Rails, Javascript, Java).
• Discipline: Categorize candidates by specialization (e.g., Frontend, Backend, Infrastructure, Security).
• Department: Aligns candidates with the hiring team (e.g., Engineering, Product, Design).
• Preferred language: Useful for multilingual hiring efforts.
• Location or Region: Helps track geographical availability (e.g., North America, APAC, San Francisco, Dublin).

Project fields

Project fields help teams organize and track projects. Recommended project fields:

• Department or Cost center: Align with your careers page or ATS for consistency.
• Location or Region: Match locations listed in your careers page or Gem ATS.
• Project type: Job, Event, Referral, Talent Pool, Other.

Project fields apply to projects across your team and help you categorize and filter projects based on the attributes that matter most to your workflows.

Project fields can be single-select, multi-select, or freeform text, and can be required for consistency.

Set up project fields (team-wide)

Only admins can create and manage project fields.

To create a project field:

1. Navigate to the Prospects tab of your Admin settings page.
2. Under Project fields, select the + New project field button.

3. In the confirmation that appears, enter a Field name and select a Type (single-select, multi-select, or freeform text).

4. (Optional) Select the Required checkbox to make the field mandatory when adding a new project to Gem.
5. Select Create.

After you create a project field, users can select values for it when creating a project, and you can filter projects using these fields on the Projects page.

Best practices for using project fields

• Start simple: Use the minimum number of fields needed to support your workflows.
• Make key fields required: This helps keep data consistent across projects.
• Use intuitive field names and values: Choose terms your team already uses.
• Iterate over time: As your team scales, adjust fields based on usage.

Set up project custom fields (project-specific)

In addition to team-wide project fields, you can also create custom fields within a specific project. These fields apply only to prospects in that project and aren’t reportable or searchable in Gem.

To create project custom fields:

1. Navigate to the project you want to update.
2. Select the Options dropdown and select Edit project custom fields.
3. Select + New custom field.
4. Enter a Field name and select a Field type (single-select, multi-select, date, or freeform text).
5. For single-select and multi-select fields, add values for the picklist in the Options area.

Check the Allow anyone to add options box if you’d like non-admin users to add values to multi- and single-select picklists. Check the Required box to make filling out a custom field mandatory when adding a prospect to Gem. You can also create custom field categories to better organize your custom fields and reduce clutter.

After you create the field, it appears in the Project custom fields section in the Gem extension for prospects in that project.

Search and report on candidate custom fields

You can search on single-select and multi-select candidate custom fields from the Prospects page in Gem under the Custom fields section.

You can also report on candidate custom fields in Gem’s Pipeline Analytics by filtering, grouping, or breaking down by the custom field you want to report on.

“(No Value Set)” indicates the number of prospects that don’t have a value entered for a field that is not required.

Using prospect custom fields

After creating prospect custom fields, they will show up in the Gem Extension under Custom Fields. You can fill them out by clicking on the text box.

Gem will prompt users to fill out any required fields once a prospect has been added to the platform.

Project custom fields

In addition to prospect custom fields, Gem allows you to create custom fields at the project level so that you can track project-specific information (like the quality of profile or hiring manager feedback). Only prospects in the project will be able to have these project custom fields available. These fields are currently not reportable or searchable in Gem.

Creating project custom fields

To create project custom fields:

1. Navigate to the Project where you’d like to use custom fields
2. Click the Options dropdown and select Edit Project Custom Fields
3. Click + New Custom Field

Type in the Custom Field Name and select the Field Type (single-select, multi-select, date, freeform text). For multi-and single-select fields, add the values for the picklist in the Options box. Project custom fields cannot be required.

Have any issues or questions on this topic? Please feel free to contact your dedicated Gem Customer Success Manager directly or our Support team at support@gem.com.

• Overview
• Requirements
• Different field types
• Types of custom fields
• Set up candidate custom fields
• Use candidate custom fields
• Recommended candidate custom fields (optional)
• Project fields
• Set up project fields (team-wide)
• Best practices for using project fields
• Set up project custom fields (project-specific)
• Search and report on candidate custom fields
• Using prospect custom fields
• Project custom fields
• Creating project custom fields