Talent Signals

Detected career moves — founders going into stealth, executives changing roles — often months before they’re announced.

Track high-signal career moves before they’re public. Talent Signals surface the people moves that matter in private markets — new founders, stealth startups, and key hires — often before a company is announced, before a round is disclosed, or before a hire shows up in a press release. Each signal pairs the event with the full profile of the person it’s about, so you can act on it immediately.

Data categories

• New founders — people leaving roles to start companies, including stealth activity.
• Job changes — senior hires, promotions, and role switches across companies.
• Stealth activity — early signals of companies being built before public launch.
• Career context — previous roles, companies, and background to judge signal quality (the full profile is embedded in every signal).
• Signal quality — a confidence score (signal_score, 1–10) and timing indicators (out_of_stealth_advantage, months caught before the public announcement).

Example (trimmed)

{
  "talent_signal_id": "02d32673-f1ab-40a1-93c5-a3a36a10d342",
  "person_id": "per_7f8d9e2a1b3c4d5e6f7g8h9i0",
  "full_name": "Sarah Chen",
  "signal_type": "New Company",
  "signal_status": "Stealth",
  "signal_score": 9,
  "out_of_stealth_advantage": 6,
  "new_position_title": "Founder & CEO",
  "new_position_company_id": "5e3a7f2b0aa7a3270a55f2b9",
  "new_position_company_name": "VisionAI",
  "past_position_company_id": "5e3a7f2b0aa7a3270a55f2a8",
  "signal_summary": "Sarah has co-founded VisionAI, a computer-vision platform for enterprise.",
  "highlights": ["prior_exit", "serial_founder"]
}

Endpoints

Method	Endpoint	Returns
GET	Get Talent Signal by ID	A single signal with the full person profile embedded
POST	Bulk get Talent Signals by ID	Up to 50 signals in one request
GET	Get Talent Signals saved search details	A saved search’s name, query ID, and match count
GET	Get Talent Signals saved search results	Signals matching a saved search

How to use the API

Monitor a feed (most common)

Create a Talent Signals search in the Specter app and share it with the API, then poll Get Talent Signals saved search results with new=true to pull just that week’s new signals. Discover the searchId with Get all saved searches.

Look up specific signals

Using the talent_signal_ids from a person profile: one → Get Talent Signal by ID; many → Bulk get Talent Signals by ID.

Expand from a signal

• person_id → Get person’s email or Get person info by ID (the profile is already embedded — use these for the email or a refresh).
• new_position_company_id → Get company by ID (the new company).
• past_position_company_id → Get company by ID (the previous company).

Good to know

• Talent signal IDs are UUIDs; the person_id is prefixed per_.
• signal_score is a 1–10 confidence score; out_of_stealth_advantage is how many months early Specter caught the move versus the public announcement.
• Every signal embeds the full person profile — career history, education, skills, and links — so no extra call is needed for the profile itself.
• talent_last_signal is true when it’s the person’s most recent signal.
• Saved searches must be shared with the API (or created via it) to be reachable; empty results are valid, not an error.
• Get Talent Signal by ID costs 1 credit per request.