Alongside standard fields on a Beamery Profile, Super Admins are able to create additional fields to capture your organization’s custom data. Once created, these fields appear on a contact’s profile, within the Beamery Extension and can be viewed as columns within the People Grid and used as criteria within the filter panel.
Note: it is possible for Custom Fields to be hidden from certain users based on their access permissions; this is useful if the Custom Fields contain sensitive information such as diversity data.
Below we will explore some of the use cases for Custom Fields and how you can leverage them for various Beamery workflows. For guidance around creating and managing custom fields, click here. To take the online training for this topic, click here.
Table of Contents
What are Custom Fields?
Why are Custom Fields Useful?
How Can Custom Fields be Filled?
Top Tips
What are Custom Fields?
Custom fields are any fields that have been created by an Admin user. They do not include standard fields such as Name, Phone Number, Current Title, etc.
In most cases, custom fields are very specific to the workflows and needs of your organization. For example, a North American company which has contracts with the US government will need different custom fields than a Europe-based technology company which focuses their hires on recent university graduates.
Custom fields are visible under the Custom Fields tab on all candidate profiles in Beamery. They can be organized into distinct filters and easily searched by name.
There are four types of custom fields:
- Single-Select - A field where the options are a set of predefined values, of which only one can be chosen at a time. For example, the field could be "EU National?" with the values "Yes", "No", or "Dual Nationality".
- Multi-select - Also a field where the options are set of predefined values, however, more than one can be chosen. For example, you could have a field called "Desired Location" with the values "United Kingdom", "United States", "France", "Germany", "Italy", "Canada".
- Short Text - A field where the value can be added as any free text; they are essentially open-ended. For example, a free text field such as "Preferred Name" would allow for the entry of any name the contact prefers.
- Date - A field where the value must be a specific date selected from a calendar. For example, a field for "Expected Graduation Date" would be helpful for campus recruiting.
Why are Custom Fields Useful?
Searching and Filtering
Custom fields enable users to capture data in a more structured way that can then be used within the filter panel to identify relevant candidates. Any custom field that has been created by a Beamery Admin will also create a filter within the filters panel. This means those fields can also be displayed as columns within the grid view of the CRM module.
As filters, both dropdown and multi-select custom fields will show filter options showing the values available as options for that field. Free text fields allow you to search for text values that are an exact match for what is typed into the filter. Date fields allow for the selection of exact dates or date ranges, as well as relative dates. Like all filters, custom field filters also include options for "is not", "is filled" and "is empty" (or for dates, "never").
Example: A recruiter looking to fill entry-level roles in Chicago filters a pool of contacts from campus recruiting events based on a date custom field for "Expected Graduation Date" and a dropdown custom field for "Preferred Office" that includes an option for Chicago.
Workflow automation
Custom fields can be used as filters in Recipes to control the contacts to whom the recipe is applied. This means that contacts can be automatically actioned based on data contained (or not contained) within a specific custom field on their profile.
Example: Your organization is hosting a lunch-and-learn event and you want to send a triggered campaign only to those who indicated "Yes" to having dietary restrictions when completing the event registration form, but who do not yet have the "Food Allergy" free text field filled.
Campaigns
Any short text custom fields that are created in your instance of Beamery will also be available as custom variables when creating a campaign. This allows you to use custom field data in crafting personalized messaging for your outreach campaigns. It is important to make sure that any possible value within a custom field will make sense within the context of your message. For custom variables, you must always choose your own fallback text, as no default fallback will be generated for you.
Example: Your company uses a custom field for "Referrer" and you are creating a campaign that will be sent only to those contacts who have this field created. You use "Referrer" as a custom variable in a sentence to indicate who recommended them as a potential fit for the organization, lending extra personalization to your messaging.
Reporting
Custom Fields can be used in conjunction with Data Explorer reports to narrow down the data displayed in the charts. Just like how custom fields can be used as filters in the CRM module, you will also see them available when opening the filters options (funnel icon) for these reports (click 'Show filters' to expand the filters tab).
Example: You are looking at a report of contacts who have a status of "Current Candidate" and you want to see how many of them have expressed interest in each of the departments under the "Department of Interest" multi-select custom fields in order to determine which department is most compelling to candidates.
Convert Flows
Questions on Convert Flows must be linked to Custom Fields in Beamery. This allows you to gather actionable and reportable data from candidates. Learn more about Convert Flows here.
Forms
Custom Fields can be linked to Form questions to capture candidate data in a structured manner. This means that when a contact completes a form, their answers will be entered directly into the Custom Fields tab of their profile, rather than as an event on their timeline.
Note that only dropdown or free-text custom fields can be linked to Form questions.
Example: You have a question on your Talent Community sign-up form that asks candidates about their job search status, allowing you to then filter your contact database by those who selected "Actively pursuing new opportunities" and prioritize them for further engagement (perhaps even automated via a recipe).
How Can Custom Fields be Filled?
Use this list to understand how the values of custom fields can be populated.
Custom Fields can be filled by:
- Beamery Extension
- Profile
- Convert Flow
- Recipe (excluding multi-select fields)
Custom Fields can not be filled by:
- Bulk Action
Top Tips
- Think about whether there is any specific information about a candidate that your organization would like to collect. Often these are things that may be good to capture in a Custom Field e.g. if someone has been employed by your company previously, or would require work sponsorship, etc.
- Custom drop-down fields can only capture one answer per field.
- For Pages and Forms customers, where drop-down or free text custom fields are linked to forms, answers will be displayed externally exactly as they appear in the column, so ensure that the order and format of the options are as you would want them to appear to candidates.
- For Pages and Forms customers, candidates cannot apply their own tags but by setting up Recipes to add a tag based on a Custom Field response, you can ensure a consistent tagging system across all contacts in your CRM. This may involve setting up Custom Fields that mirror your Global Tags structure e.g. Department, Job Level, etc.
Additional Resources
How To Create and Manage Custom Fields