When a job has more than a handful of candidates, filtering and sorting help you find who you're looking for without scrolling through everyone. This article covers the filter and sort options available on a job's Candidates tab and the account-wide Candidates page, and a few current limits.

Sorting candidates

• Time in stage — sort candidates by how long they've been sitting in their current stage, from longest to shortest or shortest to longest.

• AI score — sort by AI screening score, where scoring is enabled for the job.

• Most recently applied / most recently active — sort by application or activity recency.

Sort order applies within the list you're viewing — a job's Candidates tab or the account-wide Candidates page.

Filtering candidates

• Stage — filter to one or more specific stages. On a job's Candidates tab, the stage filter also shows how many candidates are currently in each stage.

• Candidate source — filter by where the candidate came from (for example, a specific job board, referral, or sourced).

• Time in stage (days) — filter to candidates who haven't moved to a new stage in over a set number of days, useful for finding candidates who are stalling in your pipeline.

• Tags — filter by tags applied to candidates.

• Additional filters (department, office, hiring team, years of experience, and others) are being rolled out incrementally — availability may vary by account as this work continues.

Filtering by tags and custom fields

Tags and custom fields both let you capture information Kula doesn't track by default — and once that data exists, you can filter your candidate list down using either one, or combine them for a more precise segment.

How tags work

• Tag filtering works the same way as filtering on any other field — pick Tags as the filter type, then choose which tag(s) to match on.

• For the underlying filter logic (Include all / Include any / Exclude all, still rolling out) and how tags themselves work, see Tagging and segmenting your CRM — this article assumes you already have tags in place and focuses on using them alongside custom fields.

Filtering by custom fields

Custom fields show up as their own filter type, separate from Kula's default fields. A few things behave differently depending on the field type:

• Single choice and Multi-select fields filter by matching the option(s) you select — only candidates who've had that value set are returned.

• Text fields (short text, text area) currently filter on exact match only. A broader "contains" match — so a partial or differently-formatted entry still matches — is being added for several of Kula's default fields, but custom text fields are explicitly not part of that rollout, so exact match is what to expect for the foreseeable future.

Combining tag and custom field filters

You're not limited to one filter type at a time — you can stack a tag filter and one or more custom field filters together (along with any standard fields) to build a precise segment, for example: candidates tagged "Referral" and with a custom "Certification" field set to a specific value.

What's not yet possible

• You can't filter Time in Stage using operators like "greater than," "less than," or a date range. Today's Time in Stage filter is a simpler "hasn't moved in over X days" check — the more flexible operator-based version (greater than / less than / equal to / between) has been requested but isn't built yet.

• Filter and sort selections aren't necessarily preserved when you navigate away and come back, on some pages — this has come up as an internal quality item on the Contacts/Candidates page specifically. If a customer reports their filters "disappearing," this is worth a closer look rather than assuming user error.

Good to know

• The Candidate source filter on the account-wide Candidates page was recently broken — for a period, opening it showed blank, unclickable options (the same filter worked correctly on a job's own Candidates tab). This was fixed in mid-June 2026; if a customer describes this specific symptom, confirm they're on a current version before troubleshooting further.

• Stage filtering had a bug where "Is" and "Is Not" conditions could return incorrect results (for example, "Is" returning zero results while "Is Not" returned everyone) — this has been fixed, but it's worth keeping in mind if stage-filter results look obviously wrong.

• If you're not seeing a filter you expect (for example, department, office, or years of experience), it may not have reached your account yet — this is an active, ongoing build-out rather than a finished feature set.

FAQ

• Can I see how many candidates are in each stage while filtering? Yes — the stage filter on a job's Candidates tab shows a count of candidates in each stage as you filter.

• Can I filter for candidates who've been stuck in a stage for more than a set number of days? Yes — the Time in Stage filter lets you find candidates who haven't moved in over X days. A more advanced version with operators like "between" or "greater than" isn't available yet.

• Why does sorting on the candidate list seem to reset unexpectedly? This has happened in the past (for example, application review resetting to AI score order instead of most recently applied) and was addressed — if you're seeing it now, it's worth reporting as a bug rather than assuming it's expected behavior.

• Why are the options in a filter dropdown showing up blank? This was a known issue with the Candidate source filter specifically on the account-wide Candidates page, fixed in mid-June 2026. If you're seeing blank filter options elsewhere, report it — it likely isn't expected.

• Do my filters carry over the next time I open the page? Not consistently in all cases — this is a known rough edge rather than guaranteed behavior. Don't assume a previously applied filter is still active without checking.

Need help?

If you have questions or need assistance, reach out to us at support@kula.ai or use the in-app chat.