Most recruiting tools promise "AI-powered sourcing" but give you the same generic LinkedIn searches with a chatbot wrapper.

I built my own AI sourcing agent instead — and it outperforms every vendor tool I've tested.

Here's what's different: Instead of one-shot prompts that return garbage results, I created a multi-step workflow using Claude's code capabilities.

The agent starts with ecosystem mapping — identifying companies, communities, and publications where your ideal candidates actually spend time. Then it moves to individual sourcing with built-in quality checks.

30% of initial candidates get filtered out automatically based on criteria I define. No more manually sifting through hundreds of irrelevant profiles.

The key insight: You need an agent that can write code, not just search databases. Once it can code, it can build custom tools for any workflow you throw at it.

I broke this down step by step in this week's video, including the full technical walkthrough and all the code you need to build your own.

https://lnkd.in/eyVwvgSW

What's your biggest frustration with current sourcing tools — the volume of bad matches or the lack of customization?

#AIforHR #TalentAcquisition #HRAnalytics #PeopleAnalytics

I received another "How did you find me?" yesterday.

I've been using an AI sourcing tool over the last few months to supplement other sourcing efforts. What this means? Semantic search is greater than keyword match.

For this search, I was using two key questions as a screener, one of which was focused on hardware design.

This person did not explicitly state this experience anywhere on their LinkedIn profile. However, they did have their industrial clients listed in their experience section of a consultancy.

The tool put two and two together.

Here's the Friday lesson: SEO and keyword optimization used to be the play. Semantic search is a game-changer.

It's not necessarily looking for any keyword match. Story, project, clients/customers, industry....these details come into play.

To be honest, semantic search is better for anyone who hasn't taken the time to optimize. But if you haven't, think about a profile refresh. In this case, just adding clients to the profile was the make-or-break.

Are your clients, industries, and projects actually visible on your profile?

We’ve built an AI operating stack that’s helping our recruiting firm move faster without adding more admin overhead.

Current stack:

- AI sourcing workflow to identify candidate leads
- Data enrichment workflow to improve contact and company context
- LLM + MCP connection to read/write directly in our CRM
- AI roll-up workflow to prep outreach-ready records
- Email + texting workflows for faster candidate response
- Social media content agent and scheduler for consistent daily posting and client development

What this does for us:

- Frees recruiters from low-value admin work
- Keeps CRM data cleaner and more current
- Speeds up candidate identification and outreach
- Improves consistency in market visibility and brand presence

We’re doing this with a ~400,000-person database, and it’s made a major impact on execution speed.

If you want the exact framework, comment SYSTEM and I’ll send it.

I've been collaborating with Claude Code for several months on developing a comprehensive recruiter sourcing screener.

Key features include:

- Sourcing candidates from platforms such as Meetup, GitHub, LinkedIn, and other repositories, including Kaggle.
- Scoring candidates to identify the best fits.
- Engage candidates from companies that are actively posting jobs for the roles I aim to fill.
- Eliminating contractors from the candidate pool.
- Providing a concise shortlist of candidates for direct communication.

This innovative approach streamlines the recruitment process and enhances the quality of candidate selection.

Recruiters, when was the last time you looked at what your sales team is using?

Last week I spoke at Talent Crunch Berlin about using Clay for recruiting. Most recruiters stick to LinkedIn Recruiter. Nothing wrong with that. But once your sourcing process works manually, there's a lot you can automate.

I presented a live workflow for a fictive case: a Berlin-based Series B looking for an AI Engineer. Not just technically strong, someone who also acts as an evangelist. Conference talks, open source, community presence.

Static profile data won't tell you that. So we used Clay to:
1. Pull the candidate's last LinkedIn posts to see how active they are on social media
2. Find their GitHub account automatically
3. Rate the profile based on contributions, repositories & stars
4. Feed everything into a scoring agent
5. Push top-scored candidates into LaGrowthMachine for outreach

It makes the sourcing & qualification process a lot more efficient.

Great meeting Willem Wijnans & Dita Biško and good seeing some familiar faces again. Thanks to Andreea Lungulescu , Ashby and the team for the orga & to Taxfix for hosting this event.

Want the workflow? Just reach out.

Apparently, I'm supposed to be worried about my job...



At least that's what my feed keeps telling me. Every other post: "In 12 months, your job won't exist." And look, I'm not going to pretend automation isn't real.

Boolean searches? Automated.

Candidate lists? Generated in seconds. Personalized outreach at scale? AI does it before breakfast.

But here's what nobody's talking about.

The best sourcers I know aren't running from AI — they're running with it. Because here's the reality: AI is incredible at the mechanical stuff. The searching. The pattern matching. The data crunching.

But it completely falls apart at the human stuff.

Try getting AI to build genuine trust in a 15-minute call. Navigate the politics of a hiring manager who "knows what they want" (but doesn't). Sense when a candidate is actually open vs. just being polite. Handle the chaos of real-world recruiting in a large organization.

It can't.

And here's the part people miss: you still need to know how sourcing actually works to make AI work for you.

A bad prompt from someone who doesn't understand the craft? You get garbage.

A smart setup from someone who knows the game? You get magic.

The role isn't disappearing. It's upgrading. The future sourcer isn't just a LinkedIn detective — they're part strategist, part relationship builder, part AI orchestrator.

They let the tech handle the noise.

And they focus on what actually matters: conversations, experience, and the messy human side of hiring.

So will AI replace sourcers? Sure. The ones stuck in 2019.

But the ones evolving? The ones blending tech-savvy with people skills?

They're just getting started. 🚀

#sourcing #recruitment #GenAI

Everyone is talking about AI in recruiting, but much of the conversation remains at a surface level, focusing on tasks like writing job descriptions or automating screening processes. The real opportunity for recruiters lies much deeper.

In recent months, I have been experimenting with AI in areas that traditionally consume the most time for recruiters: research, market intelligence, and talent strategy. Here are a few interesting use cases that have proven effective:

• Talent mapping in minutes: AI analyzes company ecosystems, competitors, and adjacent industries to identify non-obvious talent pools.

• Sales hiring intelligence: Quickly understanding which SaaS companies are scaling in specific regions and where strong enterprise sellers are likely to be found.

• Stakeholder advisory: Transforming raw hiring data into insights, including market compensation trends, talent availability, and realistic hiring timelines.

• Candidate insight synthesis: Summarizing lengthy interview notes and identifying patterns across candidates more efficiently.

AI is shifting the recruiter’s role from “process manager” to “talent advisor,” allowing recruiters to focus on what truly matters: people, potential, and impact.

I am curious to hear from others in talent acquisition: How are you using AI in your recruiting workflows today?

I have spent nearly three decades in talent acquisition, and one thing has always stayed true.

Recruiting works best when the systems behind it work.
Clear intake. Strong sourcing strategy. Clean workflows. These are the pieces that make the work feel doable instead of chaotic.

In healthcare especially, I have seen how easy it is for recruiters and sourcers to feel overwhelmed when roles are complex, pipelines are thin, and tools do not always keep up. I have also seen how the right process can change everything.

This is the space I love working in.
Intake. Sourcing strategy. Outreach. The small systems that create big wins.

I am also a strong believer in using AI to support the work we do. Not to replace recruiters, but to help us think more clearly, write more effectively, and move faster when it matters most. I use AI every day to build sourcing plans, draft outreach, clean up job postings, and bring structure to the parts of recruiting that often feel messy.

If you care about:
 building better sourcing systems
 improving intake
 modernizing how we approach hard-to-fill roles
 using AI without feeling overwhelmed
 making the day-to-day work feel lighter

You are in the right place.

I will be sharing more of what I have learned over the years. Practical strategies, prompts, sourcing ideas, and lessons that come from real experience in the trenches of healthcare recruiting.

If this resonates, I would love to connect and learn from your work too. Here is to building better systems together.

Don’t always trust AI... This is my AI‑generated caricature.
In its defense… I gave it data, not context.

And that’s the lesson, especially in recruiting.
AI can source, screen, summarize, and suggest.
But it can’t replace judgment.
It can’t read nuance.
And it definitely can’t build relationships.
Only you can make yourself replicable! Learn how to work with the tools, not handing them the keys.
AI doesn’t replace recruiters.
Recruiters who know how to use AI replace inefficiency.
Use the tool.
Be the differentiator.

I DID IT. I AUTOMATED MY RECRUITING BACKEND WITH CLAUDE CODE.
And ironically, it made me more confident in the future of recruiting, not less.

I recently learned about the "doorman fallacy". When automatic doors were introduced, many hotels assumed they would no longer need doormen. They believed the job was simply opening the door. What they failed to recognize was that the visible task was not the value. The value was the relationship. The doorman greeted guests by name, built familiarity over time, hailed cabs, carried luggage, and created a sense of trust and hospitality that no automated door could replicate.

That framing has been sitting with me because over the last two days I have nearly automated my backend recruiting workflow using Claude Code. I built systems that identify candidates in my vetted network, surface them to me for open roles, screen my inbox to determine who else I should be speaking with from the VC talent community, who I have not followed up with, and draft succinct notes pulled from my extensive candidate notes explaining to founders why specific matches from our network make sense. It is far from perfect. It is scrappy, occasionally messy, and could be significantly optimized. But it works, and it will only get better as the models improve. As a talent partner supporting an entire portfolio, that speed matters. More importantly, it means I am spending less time clicking through profiles one by one and more time going deep with founders, hiring teams, and our candidates.

This reinforced something I have believed for a long time. The mechanical parts of our jobs are not the reason we have them. Searching, tagging, sorting, summarizing, and writing repetitive emails were necessary steps, but they were never the moat. The moat is trust built between humans. It is a founder calling you first because they need someone in their corner, not just in their inbox. It is a candidate being honest with you because they know you will be honest back. It is pattern recognition that only exists because of years of real conversations with real people who chose to let you in. The moat is not what you do. It is who you are to people.

As a recruiter, if you define your role by opening the door, automation feels threatening. If you define your role by building the relationship, automation is leverage.