While dedicated, experienced sourcers greatly expedite the hiring process, it's still possible to do this on your own if you're not at the stage where you can hire a fulltime sourcer yet. The two most important traits a sourcer has are:
If you're curious, know your company well, what you're looking for, and are in the loop as far as tech news goes - this makes sourcing a lot easier.
LinkedIn started making some serious changes last year to their Basic and Promoted jobs, and we’re starting to see the effects. Essentially, to get the same applicant volume – especially for remote roles which can be posted in multiple locations – based on our work with 549+ active startup clients, many are finding they need to make more and more promoted roles.
We still recommend using LinkedIn (and cover example LinkedIn DMs!), but it’s important to know of other methods to reach candidates too.
The good news? There’s never been a better time to work on other recruiting methods. There’s a lot of great candidates who are open to work on LinkedIn but aren’t actively seeking work.
Our recommendations include:
1. Branch out to other job sites, like Indeed. LinkedIn isn’t the only place to find great candidates. We’ve also found candidates on more niche, startup websites, like Wellfound. 2. Consider getting connected to Slack communities. Some candidates are more active within Slack communities, where they’re more likely to be connected to people with similar professional ties. Here’s a list of 400 great Slack communities to check out, as well as separate ones for DevOps, Cloud DevOps, Python, Kubernetes and Android. 3. Create a strong careers page. Having a strong “About Us” page showcasing your benefits to prospective applicants can help your recruiting. It may not get a lot of traffic, but the top candidates will always read this information. 4. Get comfortable with cold email. We’re sharing potential scripts below, which can be used for both LinkedIn and cold email.If you’ve never worked in sales or recruiting before, we get it – sending your first few messages can be a challenge! Push through the uncertainty and remember – the right candidates will be interested in what you have to say and offer.
Below are some scripts we’ve used to successfully source top-tier candidates.
Short Script Subject: Opportunity with [Your company name or company type]My name is [name] and I work for [company name]. I just posted a [name of role]. We're trying to find someone with an extensive background in [list 2-3 skills].
When I found your profile, I wanted to reach out and see if this may be something you'd be interested in learning about.
Here's the link to the posting. Take a look and let me know your thoughts. [Link]
Name | Title
Phone | Email
Hi [first name],
My name is [name] and I and wanted to reach out to you regarding a few open roles I think you would be a great fit for.
Our client is looking for an Android Software Engineer to help continue solving challenging technical problems in [phrase about what the company does]. A few notes about them:
With how fast this company is growing and the number of great perks, benefits, and overall opportunity of working here, I definitely think it would be worth a look into.
If this sounds like it may be a fit, feel free to set up a quick call with the link below:
[Calendly link] Two final tips: LinkedIn has a Calendly integration. Learn more about setting it up here. And if you’re struggling to think of bullet points to send in your email regarding why someone should be interested in the opportunity – go back and read through the job description and summarize, summarize, summarize! A Note on AB TestingTo AB Test, focus on one variable at a time to eliminate the margin of error in analyzing results. In addition, another best practice is to use larger sample sizes to get more accurate metrics.
Typical things we AB test: Subject lines (like in the above longer script), intro lines, closing lines (like calls to action; what you’re asking the recipient to do next).When analyzing the results of each sequence, make sure the sequence is complete and compare the open rates, click rates, and over all interest rates in deciding to create an optimal sourcing sequence.
Remember, not all sequences will yield the same results for all roles and companies. This is something that should be continuously tweaked.
If a candidate replies positively, indicating interest, make sure you have an internal process set up to add them to the CRM or tool you’re using to keep track of applications.
For us internally – we create a profile for them in our internal recruiting CRM, add their email address, add the job we reached out to them about, and log the reply so we can track to see which types of profiles and candidates are interested.
You may also want to consider adding the candidate on LinkedIn and sending them a quick note in your invite reminding them why you’re reaching out. Having a strong personal network does wonders when you’re hiring for the next job and you share about it on your profile. Even if they aren’t the right fit for this role – they may be for the next.
If a candidate replies negatively, log them as not interested in your CRM. Depending on the response (if they say something along the lines of, “thanks, but not interested at this time”) you may want to let them know they can refer friends and colleagues your way. We’ve used a script like this before:
Thanks for the response and letting me know.
I always like to ask - do you know anyone who may be a good fit for the role? It would be great to get your recommendation.
Feel free to add me on LinkedIn and check out [your company name] when you're looking!
Let's keep in touch!
If you’re managing your own sourcing, here’s some other actions you can take to make this successful:
1. Ask yourself, how much volume can you work with a week? Write out the number of interviews you and/or your team can manage each week. For our active startup clients, which number 549+, this number is often between 5-10. 2. Pull some profiles of candidates you’d LOVE to hire even if you reached out to them and they’re not interested, or candidates that looked good on paper, but why they’re not the right fit. This will help you find similar candidates with similar backgrounds or keywords on their profile. For example, we help our clients write out guides like this:Candidate A – An example of a great profile
Candidate B – An example of a potentially great candidate with some good skills listed, but not the right fit after digging into their experience
Candidate C – An example of a candidate who could be a potential fit
Recruiting from Scratch has been at the forefront of technical recruiting since our founding in New York City in 2019. We specialize in Engineering and AI/ML roles for seed through Series C startups, giving us direct, real-world data on effective sourcing strategies. Based on 0+ technical hires we've made since 2019, we consistently achieve an average time to fill of just 29 days, placing engineers at 549+ active startup clients with an average salary of ~$252K. Our Net Promoter Score (NPS) of 90+ further reflects our proven expertise and client satisfaction in navigating the competitive talent market.
Tell us about your open roles and we'll start sourcing within 48 hours.
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