People Search Filters Explained

Prospeo's People Search offers 30+ filters to help you find the right leads.

This article explains each filter, how it works, and tips for getting the best results.

All filters are located in the left sidebar at app.prospeo.io/search/people. Filters update results instantly as you apply them.

AI Lookalikes

Use AI to find similar companies or people based on your best-fit examples. Tell us your best customers and Prospeo will surface hundreds or thousands more that are alike.

Click Change type to switch between finding lookalikes for Companies or People.

Companies (AI Lookalikes)

Provide a seed using either Company or Description:

• Company — Enter a company name or domain to find similar organizations. You can also open Advanced options:
• Minimum AI tier scoring — Set the match-quality threshold (Tier 1, 2, or 3). Tier 1 returns near-identical company profiles (the closest match our AI can find). Tier 2 returns highly similar companies with strong overlap in profile and market fit. Tier 3 returns companies with meaningful similarities from a broader but still targeted pool.
• Must match ALL lookalikes (optional toggle) — When multiple companies are inputted, results must resemble all of your seed inputs rather than any one of them.
• Must be the same language (optional toggle) — Prospeo only keeps lookalikes whose primary website language matches your seed input. If the seed language is missing, Prospeo infers it during analysis.
• One person per company (optional toggle) — Return a single best-match contact per company to avoid multiple people at the same company. (Only available in People Search, not Companies Search.)
• Description — Describe your ideal match in free text (up to 5,000 characters), e.g., "go to market tools for revops".

People (AI Lookalikes)

Give Prospeo your best contact and it will find similar people in matching roles and companies with AI. Provide the seed input of the person's name and company and select them from the dropdown. Then open Advanced options if needed:

• Minimum AI tier scoring — Set the match-quality threshold (Tier 1, 2, or 3). Tier 1 returns people with the same role at companies that strongly mirror your seed person's companies. Tier 2 returns people with a closely matching role at meaningfully similar companies. Tier 3 returns people in adjacent roles or at broader-fit companies (a wider net for prospecting).
• One person per company (optional toggle) — Return a single best-match contact per company to avoid multiple people at the same company. (Only available in People Search, not Companies Search.)

Click Find AI lookalikes to run the search — within seconds, Prospeo AI scans 30M+ companies and 300M+ people to return similar results that match your search criteria.

People

If you are looking for a specific contact in particular, you can search by full name, first name, or last name. Just type in your lead's name and press Enter.

Job Title

Search for contacts by their job title.

Normal Search (Job Title)

Best for simple, single-keyword lookups.

1. Type a title in the search box (e.g., "CEO") and press Enter, or select from suggested results.
2. Choose a matching mode:

• Exact — match the full job title exactly.
• Contains — match titles that contain your keyword (e.g., manager matches "Project Manager").
• Smart (AI-powered) — finds similar and related job titles automatically, so you don't have to list every variation yourself. Filter by Loose, Normal, or Strict.

Boolean / Cartesian Search Mode (Job Title)

Use Boolean search for complex title logic across multiple roles. Click the Boolean search icon (01 10) next to the search box to open the expression builder.

Boolean Operators (Job Title):

Common mistakes:

• director AND marketing OR sales is invalid — use director AND (marketing OR sales) instead.
• Multi-word titles without quotes may be parsed as separate terms. Use "head of product" for exact or 'head of product' for contains.

The Matching Job Titles panel on the right shows estimated counts for your expression. These counts are global estimates and don't reflect your other filters.

Departments

Under the Job Title filter, select one or more departments to include or exclude:

C-Suite, Product, Engineering & Technical, Design, Education & Coaching, Finance, Human Resources, Information Technology, Legal, Marketing, Medical & Health, Consulting, Sales, Operations.

Seniority

Also under Job Title, filter by seniority level:

Founder/Owner, C-Suite, Partner, Vice President, Head, Director, Manager, Senior, Intern, Entry.

Each option shows an estimated count of matching contacts in your current search.

Previous Titles

Filter contacts by job titles they held in the past.

• Type a past job title in the search box and press Enter.
• Use the Combine with current title toggle to control the logic: OR (contacts match either their current title or a previous title) or AND (contacts must match both your current title filter and a previous title).

This is useful for finding people who held a relevant role before — for example, former founders or past VPs of Sales who moved into new positions.

Save as Persona

Once you've set up your Job Title filters, click Save as Persona at the bottom of the panel to save the configuration as a reusable persona — so you can instantly re-apply the same targeting in future searches (see the Persona filter for more).

Company

Search for leads at specific companies by name, domain, or website.

• Type a company name in the search box to find it.

• Click Bulk include/exclude companies to work with larger lists.

Bulk Company List Options

The bulk modal gives you four ways to include or exclude companies:

• Saved uploaded list — reuse a list you've previously uploaded.
• Paste a list of companies — copy and paste company names, websites, or social URLs (one per line or comma-separated, up to 20K lines).
• Upload a list of companies — upload a CSV file of companies.
• Choose a company list from Prospeo — use an existing Prospeo company list.

You can toggle between include (show only people at these companies) and exclude (hide people at these companies) once you've uploaded your list.

Previous Companies

Filter contacts by companies they previously worked at.

• Type a company name in the search box and select it from the results.
• Use the Combine with current company toggle to control the logic: OR (contacts match either their current company or a previous company) or AND (contacts must match both your current company filter and a previous company).
• Match mode — choose how the previous employment should match:
• Was there — the contact worked at the company at any point.
• Started at — the contact joined the company within the timeframe.
• Left from — the contact departed the company within the timeframe.
• Timeframe — set a From and To range to limit when the employment, start, or departure occurred.

This is useful for targeting alumni of specific companies — for example, finding former employees of a competitor or people who recently left a key account.

Location

Filter by where the person is located or where their company is headquartered.

• People tab — filters by the person's location.
• Companies HQ tab — filters by the company's headquarters location.

Search by country, state, or city. You can add multiple locations.

Contact Details

Filter leads by available contact data.

• Work email — show leads with a work email. Check Verified to show only verified emails.
• Mobile — show leads with a mobile number. Check Verified to show only verified mobiles.
• Use the OR / AND toggle to control whether leads must have email OR mobile (either), or email AND mobile (must have both).
• Hide people with details already revealed — exclude leads you've already enriched, revealed, or exported, so you don't see duplicates.

Type & Business Model

Narrow results by company type (public, private, nonprofit) and business model.

• Company Status — Private, Public, Non-profit, or Other.
• Company Type (What they are) — Search and select what the company is: SaaS, Marketplace, E-commerce, Agency, Consulting, Manufacturing, Media/Publisher, Education, Non-Profit, Government, FinTech, HealthTech, AI/ML, Hardware, Professional Services, Platform, Data/Analytics, Franchise, Logistics, Real Estate, Legal, Insurance, Retail, Hospitality, Food & Beverage, Construction, Telecommunications.
• How they sell — B2B, B2C, B2B2C, D2C, Franchise, Government.
• More flags — Is retail, Is marketplace, Is mainly AI, Is mainly crypto, Multi-product.
• Revenue model — Has free tier / trial, Self-serve, Sales-led, Usage-based pricing, Subscription, Enterprise plan, Public pricing page.

Each option shows an estimated count of matching companies.

Industry

Search and select from 256 industry classifications.

Keywords

Filter companies by keywords found across their data sources.

• Include keywords — Type a keyword and press Enter (minimum 3 characters per keyword, up to 20). Use the Match toggle to require Any keyword (OR) or All keywords (AND).
• Search everywhere — When toggled on, Prospeo searches all available sources: Company specialties, Social media description, SEO description, AI description, Product & service tags, and Website pages. Toggle Search everywhere off to manually select the sources you want to search exclusively from.
• Exclude keywords — Add keywords to filter out (up to 20). At least one include keyword must be added first to enable keyword exclusions.

Employee Headcount

Filter by company size.

Choose from predefined ranges or set a custom range of employee headcount.

Buying Intent

Identify companies actively researching topics relevant to your product. Powered by Bombora.

Intent Topics

1. Click Edit my topics (or Add intent if no intents have been added yet) to open the Intent Topic Settings.
2. Search or browse by category to find relevant topics — select up to your plan's topic limit. The topics used bar shows how many you've selected.

3. The Preview & Summary panel on the right shows how many companies are researching your selected topics, broken down by research intensity: In-depth research (high buying intent), Active research (medium buying intent), and Early research (low buying intent).
4. Click Save, then back in the filter, check the topics you want to apply. Use Deselect all to clear them.

Minimum Intent Level

Set the minimum research intensity a company must show to appear in your results:

• Early — include companies at all intent levels, even those just starting to research.
• Active — only include companies showing medium or high buying intent.
• In-depth — only include companies showing the strongest buying intent.

Selecting a level includes that level and everything above it — for example, choosing Active includes both Active and In-depth companies.

Topic limits by plan:

Technologies

Find companies using specific software tools. Powered by Wappalyzer.

Type a technology name (e.g., "Salesforce", "HubSpot", "Shopify") and select from the dropdown results.

• Toggle Must include all selected technologies — on for AND logic (company must use all selected tools), off for OR logic (company uses any of them).
• You can toggle between include (show only companies using these technologies) and exclude (hide companies using these technologies).

For a full list of available technologies, visit: https://www.wappalyzer.com/technologies/

Wappalyzer tracks web-based technologies only. Internal tools cannot be detected, including HR platforms, collaboration and messaging tools (Slack, Discord, Microsoft Teams, etc.), and accounting software.

Revenue

Filter by annual company revenue.

• Set a Min and Max revenue range using the dropdowns.
• Toggle Include unknown revenue to include companies without reported revenue data.

Funding

Filter companies by funding activity.

• Select last funding round date — filter by how recently the company raised funding: Last 90 Days, Last 270 Days, or Last 365 Days. Select None to clear the date selection.
• Select last funding amount — min/max range for the most recent round.
• Select total funding amount — min/max range for all funding combined.
• Stage — filter by specific stages: Pre Seed, Seed, Series Unknown, Series A, Series B, Series C, Series D, Series E–J.
• Other — filter by other funding types: Grant, Angel, Private Equity, Debt Financing, Non Equity Assistance, Post IPO Equity, Undisclosed, Post IPO Debt, Product Crowdfunding, Equity Crowdfunding, Corporate Round, Convertible Note, Secondary Market, Initial Coin Offering, Post IPO Secondary.
• Investors — find companies funded by specific investors (e.g., Sequoia Capital, a16z). Up to 10 investors — press Enter to add.
• Accelerator / Incubator — filter by whether the company went through an accelerator: Any, Yes, or No.

Headcount Growth

Filter companies by how fast they're growing within specific departments.

1. Set a Growth range (%) — enter a min and max percentage (e.g., 10 to 100 for companies growing 10–100%).
2. Select a Timeframe — choose a past period to measure growth against. Available options include 3 months, 6 months, 12 months, and 24 months.
3. Select a Department — narrow growth to a specific team (e.g., Sales, Engineering).

This is useful for identifying companies actively scaling a department you sell into.

Headcount by Department

Filter companies based on the number of employees within a specific department.

1. Select department — choose the department (e.g., Sales Operations, Digital Marketing, Accounting, etc.)
2. Set a Min and Max headcount range for that department.
3. Click Apply.

For example, filtering for companies with 5–20 people in Sales Operations helps you target teams that are the right size for your product.

This is useful for timing outreach — companies hiring for roles your product supports are more likely to have budget and need.

Headcount by Location

Filter companies by the number of employees in specific countries.

Specify a country and set the minimum or maximum headcount you want for that country. You can add up to 10 country rules.

Founded Year

Filter companies by the year they were founded. Can also include a range of years a company was founded during.

• Set a min and/or max year range to target companies within a specific age bracket (e.g., 2023 to 2026 for startups).
• Toggle Include companies with unknown founding date to include companies without reported founding data.

Time in Current Role

Filter by how long the person has been in their current position. Set a min and/or max in years and/or months.

Time in Current Company

Filter by how long the person has been at their current employer. Set a min and/or max in year and/or months.

Total Years of Experience

Filter by how long the person has been working overall. Set a min and/or max year range.

Job Change

Find people who have recently changed jobs.

Select a time window: In last 90 days, 180 days, 270 days, or 365 days.

Additional options:

• Only show job changes within the same company (promotion) — filters for internal transitions.
• Only show job changes to a new company — filters for people who switched employers.

Job Posting

Filter for companies actively hiring.

The filter has two modes: Normal search and Boolean search.

Normal Search

• Currently Hiring For — search for specific roles the company is hiring for (e.g., "Account Executive", "Software Engineer"). Toggle between Contains (matches postings that contain your keyword) and Exact match (matches the full job title posting exactly).

Boolean Search

Click the Boolean search tab to build complex role logic across multiple positions, using the same operators as the Job Title filter: AND, OR, () for grouping, ! to exclude, "term" for exact match, and 'term' for contains with spaces.

Active Job Postings

• Set a min and/or max range for the number of open positions.

Duplicate Control

Exclude leads you've already found or exported. Requires at least one other filter to be applied first.

Companies Saved in Prospeo

• Hide all companies linked to any people saved in Prospeo — excludes companies where you've already saved at least one contact.
• Hide companies linked to a specific list of people — excludes companies tied to contacts in selected people lists.
• Hide companies from specific company lists — excludes companies from selected Prospeo company lists.

Saved in Prospeo

• Hide all people already saved in a Prospeo list — excludes anyone you've previously saved.
• Hide people from specific Prospeo lists — exclude leads from selected lists only.

Exported from Prospeo

• Hide people already exported by you or your team before — excludes leads anyone on your team has previously exported.

Exclusion Lists

• Upload people exclude list — upload a CSV of leads to exclude from results.
• Hide people from exclusion list — apply a previously uploaded exclusion list.

AI Attributes

AI-powered insights extracted from billions of data points across dozens of sources. Powered by Prospeo AI.

Search and select from AI-extracted company attributes, grouped into categories:

• Attributes — Offers demo, Offers free trial, Is downloadable, Is/Has a mobile app, Has online reviews, Uses AI in product.
• Platform Features — Has API, Has mobile app, Has Chrome extension, Has SSO, Has uptime guarantee, Has open source, Has marketplace.
• Content & Marketing — Blog, Podcast, Community forum, Knowledge base, Academy, Affiliate program.
• Support Channels — Phone, Email, Chat, Ticket, Social.
• Security — Has ESG reports.
• Data Residency — Select a region from the dropdown (US, EU, UK, Canada, Australia, Germany, Japan, Singapore, Brazil, India).
• Company Presence — Has physical offices, Is venture-backed, Is publicly traded.

Each option shows an estimated count of matching companies.

Persona

Apply a saved persona as a preset filter to instantly target the right audience.

Use a saved persona to instantly apply a predefined set of filters. If you have no personas yet, create one to define your ideal customer profile.

How to Create a Persona

Click +Create new persona to build a reusable audience profile in three steps (Choose method → Provide input → Refine & save). Choose from four methods:

• Ask AI (Popular) — Describe your ideal customer in plain language.
• From Website — Paste a domain and AI builds your ICP automatically.
• Reverse ICP — Upload a CSV of customers and AI finds the patterns and similarities from your list. Minimum 10 rows · Columns: name, email, company, or social URL.
• Build Manually — Hand-pick job titles, industries, location, employee headcount and/or company type & business model.

You can also load from your saved personas. Once you get some matching results, name your Persona then click Save Persona to apply it.

Company Email Provider

Filter companies by their SMTP email provider.

Select one or more providers:

• Microsoft (Outlook/Exchange)
• Google (Gmail/Google Workspace)
• Proofpoint
• Mimecast
• Other

Each option shows an estimated count of matching companies. This filter is useful for targeting companies using a specific email infrastructure — for example, if you sell email security tools and want to target companies on Google Workspace.

Select Per Company

Limit how many leads to show per company in your results.

Enter a number (e.g., 1) to show only one lead per company. Prospeo selects the best match based on your other filters. Useful for avoiding multiple contacts at the same organization.

Company Awards & Certs

Filter companies by awards, certifications, and recognitions.

• Awards — Enter awards the company has received (e.g., Inc 5000, G2 Leader, Great Place to Work). Up to 50 entries. Toggle between Exact and Contains matching logic.
• Standard Certifications — Select from common certifications: SOC2, ISO 27001, GDPR, HIPAA, CCPA, PCI-DSS.
• Other Compliance — Add custom compliance standards (e.g., ISO 9001:2015). Up to 50 entries — press Enter to add. Toggle between Exact and Contains matching logic.

Website Traffic

Filter companies by website traffic volume, visitor demographics, and audience insights — total visits, growth trends, and top countries.

• Total Monthly Visits — Filter by the total number of monthly website visitors. Set a Min and Max.
• Visit Changes — Filter by website traffic growth or decline over time (in %). Select a Period (e.g., Monthly), then set Min % to Max %. Use negative values for decline (e.g., -20% to -5%).
• Audience by Country — Filter by the percentage of traffic from specific countries. Search and select countries, then set the Min % to Max % of traffic from those countries.

Key Executives Events

Track leadership changes — identify companies where key executives have recently been appointed, promoted, or departed.

Filter companies by recent changes in their executive leadership — new appointments, departures, and role changes.

• Executive Events — Search and select events such as CEO Departed, CEO Appointed, CTO Departed, CTO Appointed, CFO Departed, CFO Appointed, COO Departed, COO Appointed, CMO Departed, CMO Appointed, CRO Departed, CRO Appointed, VP of Sales Departed, VP of Sales Appointed, VP of Marketing Departed, VP of Marketing Appointed, VP of Engineering Departed, VP of Engineering Appointed, Any C-Level Departed, Any C-Level Appointed, Any VP Departed, Any VP Appointed, Any Director Departed, Any Director Appointed.
• Timeframe — Only show events that occurred within a selected period (e.g., Last 90 days, Last 6 months, or Last 12 months).

Company News

Filter companies by recent news coverage — funding rounds, acquisitions, product launches, partnerships, and more.

Find companies in the news for specific topics, events, or keywords.

• News Keywords — Enter keywords that should appear in news articles about the company (e.g., AI, acquisition, expansion, layoffs). Min 3 characters per keyword — press Enter to add.
• News Categories (optional) — Narrow down by the type of news event: Funding & Investment, Mergers & Acquisitions, Product Launch, Partnership, Expansion, Layoffs & Restructuring, IPO, Leadership Change, Legal & Regulatory, Awards & Recognition.
• Timeframe — Only show news from within a selected time period (e.g., Last 60 days, Last 90 days, Last 6 months, or Last 12 months).

SIC & NAICS

Filter companies by standard industry classification codes. Switch between the SIC and NAICS tabs and search for the codes you want to apply.

• SIC (Standard Industrial Classification) — a four-digit code system that classifies businesses by their primary industry activity.
• NAICS (North American Industry Classification System) — a six-digit code system used by the US, Canada, and Mexico to classify businesses by industry.

Use these when you want precise, standardized industry targeting beyond Prospeo's general industry categories.

Website Search

Search directly inside the content of 35M+ company websites. Prospeo crawled the internet so you don't have to — search inside millions of company websites at lightning speed.

• Keyword — Type a keyword and press Enter. Use the Any (OR) / All (AND) toggle to control whether companies must match any or all keywords.
• Search in — Choose where to look: Page body, Page titles, In the URL, In headings (H1/H2), SEO description.
• Limit to pages — Restrict the search to specific page types: All pages, Homepage only, Product / solution pages, Blog / resources, Careers, About.
• URL path contains — Narrow to pages whose URL path includes a term (e.g., pricing, integrations).
• Website structure — Filter by the presence of specific pages: Has persona pages, Has industry pages, Has solution pages, Has careers page, Has status page, Has SLA page, Has developer docs page, Has investor page, Has security page, Has comparison pages.

ICP & Targeting

Filter companies by the ICP attributes of the companies they target — including the industries, departments, company sizes, and geographies they sell to.

• Titles they sell to — Enter the job titles a company targets (e.g., VP of Sales, CTO).
• Company size they target — Micro (1-10), SMB (11-500), Mid-Market (501-5000), Enterprise (5001-10000), Large Enterprise (10000+).
• Industries they target — Type an industry and press Enter.
• Geographic markets — Search countries the company sells into, or set it to Global (worldwide). Set Scope to Single country or Multi-country.
• Departments they sell to — Use the Any (OR) / All (AND) match toggle, then select from: Engineering, Sales, Marketing, Finance, HR, Operations, IT, Legal, Customer Success, Procurement, Data, Security, Design, SMB Owners, Consumers. You can search for custom departments under Other departments.

Products & Services

Filter companies by the products and services they offer.

• Products — Add products a company offers (e.g., ERP software, cloud storage, payment processing, cybersecurity). Use the Any product (OR) / All products (AND) toggle for multiple products.
• Service Tags — Add service tags (e.g., design consulting, IT staffing, digital marketing, managed hosting). Use the Any service (OR) / All services (AND) toggle for multiple service tags.

Integrations

Filter companies by the integrations they offer on their website.

Key Customers

Filter companies by notable customers they serve — include or exclude based on client names.

Search and select company names (up to 100) to find their customers. Paste a comma-separated list to add many at once.

Hiring Pattern (Coming soon)

Identify companies by their hiring activity — first hires in specific roles and recent hiring velocity. Discover companies based on their hiring activity and patterns.

• First Hire — Find companies that just hired their first person in a role. Enter a role (e.g., Accountant, Data Engineer) and select a Timeframe (e.g., Last 30 days, Last 60 days, Last 90 days, Last 6 months, Last 12 months).
• Hired in the past — Find companies that made any new hires within a recent timeframe. Select a Timeframe (e.g., Last 7 days, Last 14 days, Last 30 days, Last 60 days, Last 90 days).

Operating Languages

Filter companies by the languages their website or product supports.

Type a language to add it, or pick from common options: English, Spanish, French, German, Portuguese, Japanese, Chinese, Italian.

Education (Coming soon)

Filter contacts by their educational background — degrees, schools, and fields of study.

• School / University — Enter a school or university (e.g., Stanford University, MIT).
• Degree — Select from: High School, Associate, Bachelor's, Master's, MBA, PhD / Doctorate, Professional (JD, MD), Other.
• Field of Study — Enter a field (e.g., Computer Science, Marketing).
• Graduation Year — Set a From–To year range.

People's Certifications (Coming soon)

Filter contacts by their professional certifications, credentials, and accreditations — not company-level awards.

• Certifications — Enter certifications (e.g., PMP, AWS Solutions Architect, CPA).
• Certification Issuers — Enter issuing bodies (e.g., PMI, Amazon Web Services, AICPA).
• Issued Between — Set a From–To range for certification dates.
• Awards — Enter individual awards (e.g., Salesforce MVP, Google Developer Expert).
• Award Issuers — Enter award issuers (e.g., Salesforce, Google, Microsoft).
• Issued Between — Set a From–To range for award dates.

Google Discovery

Filter companies by the keywords people use on Google to find them.

that rank for specific keywords on Google. Enter keywords (up to 100) and press Enter to add. Alternatively, click Bulk include keywords next to the text box to paste one keyword per line, or separated by commas (3–50 characters per keyword), then click Include keywords to add them to your search. Prospeo finds companies that rank for those keywords on Google.

Premium Filters Summary

Some filters are restricted to certain plan tiers.

FAQs

Do I have to use all the filters to find leads?

No. We recommend starting with a few key filters and then gradually adding more to narrow your results. Using too many filters at once can over-restrict your results.

Which filters should I start with?

Start with Job Title (or Department + Seniority), Location, Industry, and Employee Headcount. These three define your ideal customer profile quickly. Layer in additional filters like Contact Details, Technologies, or Buying Intent to refine further.

How come I can't access a specific filter?

Some filters are restricted by the plan tier. For example, Duplicate Control and Job Change require Growth or Pro, while Revenue, Funding, and Technologies require Starter or above. See the Premium Filters Summary table above for full details. To view all our plans and features, go to https://prospeo.io/pricing.

Why am I getting no results when I apply filters?

Your filters may be too narrow. Try removing one filter at a time to see which one is over-restricting results. Common causes include combining too many specific job titles with a small location or low headcount range. Also make sure you're not accidentally excluding your target audience via the Duplicate Control filter.

I built my list, how can I export them with contact data?

Select the leads you want, then click Export (for CSV) or Push to CRM from the top action bar. During export, you can choose to enrich only emails, mobiles, or both. Credits are only charged when verified contact data is found. See How to Export People Search Results for a more in-depth walkthrough.

Can I save my filter combination to use again later?

Yes. Click Save Search at the top of the filter sidebar. You can name and access your saved searches anytime from the Saved Searches button in the top right action bar.

For a walkthrough of the full People Search workflow, see How to Search for People (Leads).

Updated on: 05/06/2026