← Help centre

Floats (spec candidates)

Signed in? Ask Lovelio this question inside the app - it answers from this same page.

A float sends an anonymous candidate profile to a client contact when there is no job. It is the classic way to open a new client: the client gets a personal email with a link to a confidential profile page, and responds with one click. In Australia and New Zealand this is called a Float; everywhere else it is called a Spec. The label comes from the agency's country (set automatically at signup, editable in Settings > Company) and every screen uses the local word. The internal name is always spec, so the API and action names say spec regardless of the label.

How it works

  • Start from a candidate: the candidate slideout, the candidates grid row menu, the bulk selection bar, a "spec match" suggestion card on the home page, or an Opportunities company already matched to a client record (the client comes prefilled, the candidate is picked in the flow).
  • Sending is a guided four-step wizard: Who, The profile, The email, Review & send. The AI pre-drafts the profile (headline, chips, pitch, "why this client") and the intro email the moment the client is picked, and the consultant edits everything. Nothing sends blind: step 4 shows the exact email and the exact profile page the client will see, and the send button only exists on that final step.
  • The pitch, the "why this client" note and the email message all take real formatting: blank lines start a new paragraph, "-" starts a bullet list, "1." starts a numbered list, and word makes it bold (the toolbar above each box does the same). Enter continues a list; Enter on an empty item ends it. The formatting shows on step 4's preview, in the email the client receives, and on the profile page - all three always match.
  • Safety checks run on step 1. A candidate can never be floated to their own current employer - this is a hard block in the wizard and enforced again on the server, so no route around the wizard can bypass it. You also cannot float a candidate to your own agency's self-client, and the batch rejects the same candidate appearing twice.
  • Anonymity is guaranteed. The profile and email are scrubbed server-side so the candidate's full name, surname, and current employer never reach the client, even in text the consultant typed. The first name alone is deliberately allowed - on its own it identifies nobody. Step 2 also runs an identity-risk read that flags giveaway details with a one-click "Fix it for me". The public profile page shows only the approved anonymous profile - internally, the board always shows the real name.
  • Step 1 has a per-candidate "candidate aware" toggle (off by default) recording whether the candidate knows they are being floated. When it is off, the candidate's timeline entry says "(candidate not yet told)".
  • The email is a plain personal note (no marketing chrome), with an editable greeting line that defaults to "Hi first-name" and ONE button into the profiles. A batch lists everyone's headline above that button, because the link opens the whole send. Replies thread back to the consultant. Nothing the client sees carries Lovelio branding - not the email, not the profile page, not the browser tab.
  • The float page is the submissions portal in every respect. The header is white and carries the client's logo and name, with the agency signing it top right as "Prepared by {Agency}". A client with no logo on record gets a monogram.
  • One link opens the whole send. The client lands on a summary: the consultant's note at the top, then a card per person carrying their headline, their facts and the whole "why this client" block. There are no answer buttons on the summary - the only action on a card is View profile, so nobody answers off a card they have not opened.
  • Opening one shows the record: the headline and chips, why this client, the conversation with the consultant, the full profile behind a "Read it" disclosure, and a strip of dates at the foot (sent, what you asked, whether the consultant replied, when the link expires). The three calls sit on a rail beside it that stays on screen, and pins to the bottom of a phone.
  • The profile link works without any sign-in and lasts 30 days, then expires.

Multi-float (up to 5 at once)

Select 2 to 5 candidates in the candidates grid and float them together. The cap is 5 everywhere; above 5 selected, the bulk bar shows the float action locked with "Select up to 5 candidates" rather than hiding it. A batch sends ONE combined email with one button - never five separate emails and never five links. Each person still gets their own record, status and expiry, so the client answers them one at a time and follow-ups, questions and conversion all work per float.

The Floats grid

Floats have their own tab in Opportunities. The top of it is the funnel belt - Sent, Opened, Interested, Became a job, Placed - and clicking a step filters the grid below to the floats in it. Clicking the lit step again puts the grid back to normal.

What the grid shows by default is the floats still out with a client, most urgent first: the ones who said yes, then anyone waiting on an answer from you, then the ones who have been waiting too long, then the rest. Each row carries its candidate, the client and contact, a status chip in the same words the Home money belt uses (Interested, Asked a question, Opened, no reply, Not opened, Opened it), when it went out, and how many days it has been waiting - in red once that is longer than your follow-up window in Settings. The one thing to do next sits on the right: Create job on an interested float, Answer when they asked something, Follow up when nobody has replied. Follow up and Answer open the float panel right there on the grid, where the drafted email and the question thread already live.

Several floats, one job: when a client picks two or more people out of the same float email, tick their rows (the box on the left of each live, unconverted float) and the bar that appears offers "Create one job for N". It opens the same job-from-float slideout, prefilled from the first person, and creating the job attaches every ticked candidate and moves them all to Submitted. The verb only unlocks for at least two floats from the same send to the same client and contact, none of which has already become a job; otherwise it stays visible with the reason as its hint. Picking floats from two different sends, or two different contacts, never makes one job.

Clicking any row opens the float panel: a slideout on the right with one sentence on where the float stands (who was floated to whom, what they said or how long the silence is), the client's rating as stars on the end of that sentence when they gave one, their "send me more people" brief as its own block under it, and the two things to do next. Under that, two tabs: Conversation (every turn with the client, with the follow-up email or your answer ready to send at the end) and The float (the pitch as sent, the send record, the profile link, the history). It is the same panel the Home belt and a notification's "Open the float" link open, and it has no progress rail: nothing past the float exists until the job does, so the rail appears the moment the job is created. The arrows in its header walk exactly the floats the grid is showing, and the left and right arrow keys do the same. Copy the profile link and View the public profile sit on the row's "..." menu.

Floats that ended without a job are NOT in the funnel. A "Show unsuccessful" switch beside the caption line flips the grid to ONLY those floats (the belt dims, because nothing on it applies to them), and that grid drops the waiting times and the follow-up buttons for the only thing it is good for: what the client actually said. A passed float shows their reason in their own words; an expired one says whether they ever opened it; a float you pulled back says so. Each row offers Open candidate, because the useful next move on a float that ended is the person, not the float. Flip the switch back and the grid is the work again - it never shows both lists at once.

Under both grids is a line of figures: sent, opened, became jobs, placed and fees banked on the live side; passed, links that ran out and ones you pulled back on the unsuccessful side.

Active floats are also the first money zone on Home, and "View all floats" opens this same grid. Agencies without a live plan cannot open Opportunities but keep the whole Floats grid at its own address, /floats.

The client record's Floats tab

Every client record has a Floats tab (Specs outside Australia and New Zealand), with the count on the tab. It lists everyone you have put in front of that client over time - live floats first, most urgent first, then the history newest first, successful and unsuccessful alike - with the contact it went to, where it stands, the client's own words, and when it was sent. Above the list, the client's own float record in figures: floated, opened, interested, placed, and fees banked from floats. A row opens the same float panel, stacked over the client record; Create job, Follow up, Answer, Open job and Open candidate sit on the row exactly as they do on the Floats grid.

Client responses

  • The client answers from inside the record, never from the summary, and gets three calls: "I'm interested", "Ask a question" and "No thanks". Interest is one movement: the click opens a box, the client has to write a line before Send lights up ("call me after 3pm", "keen, but what would the package be"), and they can add a 1-5 rating of how close the profile is to what they need. Nothing is recorded until they select Send, and then the answer, the words and the rating all land together, so the consultant gets one message with the whole answer in it. Cancelling leaves the float unanswered. "No thanks" is the other way round: the no is recorded on the click, so a closed tab never loses it, and a popup then thanks them and asks for an optional reason. Ratings show on the board, notes show with the response.
  • Only the first verdict sticks. A second reader or a double-click gets "This spec already has a response".
  • Send me more people. A client can always ask for more people, whether or not they want anyone in the send. Two doors, one record. First, both answer boxes ask "Would you like to see more people like this?" and Send stays dead until they pick Yes or No, so everyone who answers is asked and the answer is countable. Second, a standing box sits under the summary, open before and after they answer and usable more than once, which takes the brief in their own words: "we will need two more BDMs before Christmas". It is one box for the whole send, and it records against the float whose link they opened. Typing a brief counts as a yes whatever they ticked earlier, and a second brief joins the first rather than replacing it. Sending a brief never answers for anyone - the floats are still waiting on Interested or No thanks.
  • A yes raises its own high-priority "send them more people" card on the home page, separate from the "create the job?" card, and it fires even when the client passed on the person: a pass with an appetite behind it is an opening, not a setback. The float's row on the board and on the client record carries a "Wants more" chip and their brief; the float panel shows it as its own block under the verdict, never folded into it.
  • Each float has its own question thread, and it now reads on BOTH sides. "Ask a question" opens a box at the end of the thread on the record (there is no open text box until they press it), the question emails the consultant and stays on the page, and the consultant's answer from the float panel appears in the same thread the client is reading - the page refreshes itself while it is open. Questions never use up the verdict and can be asked as often as they like. The client still gets the answer by email with a link back.
  • A client who just hits reply lands in the same place. Most clients answer their email rather than opening the page, and that reply now joins the thread: it shows on the record the client is reading, in the float panel, on the home belt and in the "they are still waiting" follow-up, and the consultant is notified the same way as a question typed on the page. Because one email carries the whole send and the reply names nobody in it, a reply to a batch is recorded against the SEND and shows on every person in it, marked "About everyone in this send" - it is never filed against a person the client did not mention. A float sent on its own has nobody to confuse, so the reply lands on that person. Answering a send-level question answers it for the whole send, so the client reads your reply wherever they look.
  • Every response notifies the consultant instantly, including by email. Interest also raises a high-priority "create the job?" card on the home page. One answer is one message: an interested client's words and rating arrive inside the same message as their answer, and a reason typed after a pass joins that message rather than arriving as a second one. Opening that message - from the bell, the blocking window, or the email button - opens that float's panel on the home page, not the board.
  • If a client has not replied (opened but no answer, or never opened), a prompt appears asking the consultant to nudge them. The nudge email is always approved and sent by a person, never auto-sent, and sending one stamps the reminder so the prompt clears and does not immediately come back. Logging a phone call to the contact from the home page's follow-up slideout counts the same as the emailed nudge - the reminder stamps and the prompt clears.
  • Floats the client has not answered also sit in the Floats zone on the home money belt, with a Follow up button. Clicking a row opens the float's deal slideout: what the client has seen (sent, opened, no answer), the drafted follow-up email, and the option to log a call instead.

Converting interest into a job

Every "Create the job" button (the interested notification, the Create job button on the money belt, the board row, the client record's Floats tab, the float panel) opens the same prefilled job-from-float slideout in place. The client does not have to have clicked "I'm interested" first: the float panel always offers "Create the job" on any float that has not already become one, so a float agreed on the phone or by email converts the same way. The belt's Create job button only appears on a float the client has marked interested. The client and contact are locked to who the float went to; the title starts as the float's headline, location comes from the candidate's record, salary prefills from the candidate's expectation when captured, and employment type and salary range can be set. A read-only fee line shows the client's live terms at that salary - the job carries no fee of its own, it inherits the client's terms. Confirming creates the job, attaches the candidate at the Submitted stage (they are already with the client), and stamps the float Converted with an "Open job" link on the board. The candidate stays on the Home belt after converting: they move from the Floats zone to the Submissions zone with an Interested chip and a Book interview button, and leave when they move past Submitted. The normal new-job AI pipeline (description, assessment criteria, interview questions, job ad, social posts) kicks off in the background. A float can only be converted once.

Terms of business

Every float carries your terms. The email always links the client's terms of business page, and the client portal states them again under "I'm interested" and at the foot of the profile, so they are readable before and after the client answers. A client's terms link lasts a year; when it lapses the next float or copy quietly carries a fresh one, and the old page says the link has expired.

That page is never blank: it shows the client's own agreed terms when an admin has put them on their own terms, otherwise your agency standard terms, otherwise the default terms Lovelio ships with. It always renders your CURRENT terms, so it is never a stale attachment.

You can also upload a signed terms of business PDF (max 5MB) in Settings > Company; admins only. Once uploaded, it rides along as an attachment on every float as well - the wizard shows it and has a checkbox to leave it off a specific send. The attachment survives email retries. Leaving it off never removes the terms link.

Why floats matter later

A float is the introduction record. If the candidate is placed at that client within 12 months, the placement links back to the float, including whether the terms were linked or the signed PDF was attached - the evidence that protects the fee. Floats sent before 30 August 2026 carried terms only when a PDF was uploaded, so their records say nothing about terms. Sending a float also logs a touch on any matching Opportunities company.

Common questions

  • Why can't I send this float? Most likely the client is the candidate's current employer (hard blocked), the contact has no email address, or the same candidate appears twice in the batch.
  • Can the client see who the candidate is? No. Full name, surname, and employer are stripped from everything client-facing; the record shows a Confidential mark where a name would be on a submission, and there is no CV, photograph or LinkedIn link on it.
  • How long does the link last? 30 days.
  • Can I float more than 5 people? Not in one send; the action locks above 5 selected. Send a second batch.
  • Where is the full Floats grid? Opportunities > Floats. Home's "View all floats" and every old link land there.