Haley
Writing good requests
How to ask Haley for the people you want, with example requests for every level of hiring.
Haley understands plain English, so there’s no syntax to learn. But the way you phrase a request decides which filters Haley uses. This page covers what makes a good request, then gives examples for every level of hiring, from freshers to the boardroom.
The three things to include#
Most good requests name three things. Anything more is a bonus.
| Part | Examples | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| The role | Sales executive, staff nurse, CNC operator, CFO | Matched as whole words in job titles. CFO also finds Chief Financial Officer. |
| The place | Pune, Delhi NCR, Hosur, Tamil Nadu | A metro includes its suburbs. Add “and nearby” for towns within about 150 km. |
| The kind of company | FMCG, Series B fintech, listed pharma, 1k–5k staff | Narrows to the employer’s sector, funding stage or size. |
Then add what makes this role different, as long as it’s in the data:
- Current or past employer: “at Tata Motors”, “ex-Flipkart”, “has worked at Big 4”.
- Investors behind the employer: “at companies backed by Peak XV”.
- Founders or board members: “who founded a company”, “board members of listed companies”.
- School: “IIT alumni”. School is only on record for about 2 in 100 people, so use it to narrow, not to find.
Examples for every level#
Haley works the same way for an intern as for a CEO. Here are requests that work well at each level.
Freshers, interns and trainees
Support roles like interns and trainees are left out of title searches unless you ask for them, so say “interns” or “trainees” when that’s who you want.
Frontline, technicians and operators
Individual contributors
Asking for SDE 1, 2 or 3, or a junior engineer, searches the title Software Engineer, which also matches SDE. If that finds fewer than 30 people, Haley searches engineering individual contributors more widely.
Supervisors and team leads
Managers
Heads, directors and VPs
When you name a level without a role, such as “finance VPs”, Haley uses the level itself. “Head of” titles sit between director and manager, and asking for “leaders” or “senior people” includes them.
CXOs, founders and board
Words Haley understands#
| You can write | Haley reads it as |
|---|---|
| CEO, CFO, CTO, COO, CMO, CIO, CPO, CHRO, CRO | The full chief title as well. CHRO also finds Chief People Officer. |
| MD, GM, VP, SVP, EVP, AVP | The full title as well. VP doesn’t match AVP, because titles match as whole words. |
| SDE | Software Engineer, and the other way round. |
| Bangalore, Gurgaon, Bombay, Madras | Bengaluru, Gurugram, Mumbai, Chennai. Both spellings work. |
| Delhi NCR, Mumbai region | The metro and its suburbs. Naming a single town covers only that town. |
| Last mile, last-mile, lastmile | The same word. Spaces and hyphens don’t matter. |
| Series B and later | Series B, C and beyond. Early VC means Series A and B, late VC means Series C and beyond. |
Refine instead of starting over#
Your first request rarely needs to be perfect. Ask, look at the table, then tell Haley what to change:
- Add: “also include Noida”, “add Dabur and Marico”.
- Remove: “drop the ones at consulting firms”, “without interns”.
- Replace: “only those in Gurugram”, “instead, look for plant heads”.
- Go further: “show the next names”, “which of these founded a company?”.
If a follow-up could mean either, such as “what about managers?”, Haley asks whether to add them to the table or start a new one. See Working with results.
What to avoid#
| Instead of | Try |
|---|---|
| “Good sales people” | “Sales managers at FMCG companies in Delhi NCR who have worked at HUL or ITC”. Quality isn’t a filter, but a pasted brief is ranked. |
| “Java experts” | “Java developers” or “backend engineers”. Skills aren’t in the data, so Haley matches the words in titles and headlines. |
| “Under 30”, “female candidates” | Leave it out. Haley never filters by gender, religion, caste, age, ethnicity, health, marital status or family. |
| “Expected salary under ₹12 LPA” | Leave it out. Salary isn’t in the data. |
| “Write a JD for a QA lead” | Write the JD yourself, then attach it. Haley reads JDs but doesn’t write them. |
Long brief? Paste it
Any message over about 300 characters is treated as a brief: Haley searches for the role and ranks every match against it. You can also attach the file. See Searching from a job description.