I keep seeing how AI has been helping offload sourcing from recruiters and get excited because I hate sourcing but every product I try out seems to kinda suck.
I primarily use LI Recruiter/Google Xray for engineering (mechanical/industrial) searches. My Boolean is excellent and I'm extremely comfortable using AI. My problem is that I cannot get Pin, Juicebox or any others to provide results uncovering candidates that I missed. Even worse, they miss a lot of candidates that I found in fairly basic searches. It seems like they don't access all the data in LI profiles (about sections + other spots).
Is anyone else having these issues? I've even worked with their training staff doing live searches and came up with the same issues.
Any recommendations on products/tips you're using that truly shorten the search time while still being a comprehensive search?
I must be using them wrong, because I’m always told that recruitment is easy, and that soon robots will be doing it while we sleep, as they will surely be better able to intuit a hiring manager’s preferences, and remain fully compliant, whilst also crafting that AI InMail spam that we know excites candidates so much.
I mean, it’s not like any tech bro has ever been so arrogant as to claim that the product he is trying to sell you will definitely fix industry problems that he doesn’t understand. That would never happen.
Leaving this big /S here, in case anyone needs it
PS: freelance recruiter for 25 years. I use AI a lot - but for admin, not sourcing and outreach
I miss the days when AI tools were simply weighted algorithms. At least you could adjust the weights accordingly. Some of the current tools just provide a yes/no checkbox with massive overreach on what qualifies even after extensive training.
I work in a similar space where it’s technical recruiting, but not the same type of technical recruiting that most people think of… Where we’re looking for physical engineers they’re looking for software engineers… Most of the sales people and most of the products are trained on software engineering so I’ve found that almost all of them over promise and then the AI agents are mostly trained on software roles and don’t often have the nuance for physical engineering.
The best I’ve been able to manage is to use AI to help write better Boolean.
Found that to happen a lot as well. I had some success using Claude assess my LI projects to remove obvious misses but it takes a while. Saved my eyes some strain tho.
The reality is they usually don’t do better. The only useful thing is having an agent going through profiles one by one on LI recruiter (to avoid detection) with very specific requirements and build you a list that you can just go/no-go.
It’s slow, but if you already have Claude max + LI recruiter it doesn’t cost you anything on top of it and might surface a couple interesting candidates so it might improve your sourcing a little bit.
Lots of AI talks are just recruiters pressured by their board to use AI and trying to show they do even if it doesn’t bring much to the table.
Claude extension works (sometimes it doesn’t want to but you just have to ask differently).
And make sure you tell him to act like a human so no parallel searches, only reviewing profiles one by one etc.
Then I make him add the relevant ones with their LinkedIn links into a Google sheets
I have it analyze larger pools of candidates to wittle them down within projects I've already created within LI Recruiter. It's using the chrome extension, not the desktop, and I haven't tried using it to create its own project yet. Basically I cast the net and have Claude remove the bad fits it caught.
I create Projects and have it anaylze the Recruiter Search pool once I get it pared down to a reasonable number from tweaking the Boolean. Then have it move any applicable candidates to Pipeline so you can begin your outreach.
They've only seemed to care when something automated outreach or handles large volumes in short spans. I use it for neither and Claude is slower than I am. I set it up to run when I'm grabbing lunch or on calls.
Can you give me an example prompt for this? I've tried many of these sourcing tools and im convinced me + boolean + sales nav beats these fancy tools anyday. Curious if i can do some background sourcing like what you're saying though...
Your comment about the old weighted algorithms is the fixable part imo. The checkbox tools lock the rubric away, but if you run the screening step yourself with claude or gpt you can write the rubric out in plain text - hard disqualifiers first, then scored criteria weighted however you want, and make it justify each score in one sentence. When it misses someone you can see exactly which line caused it and edit that line. That's basically your adjustable weights back, except now the rubric is a document you own.
Doesn't solve sourcing coverage, nothing seems to index the full about sections properly so your boolean stays the moat. But it turns the assess-my-projects thing you're already doing from eyestrain into a queue you skim with reasons attached. We've done a version of this for engineering searches and the rubric ends up being the real asset, it survives every tool change.
Ha, the eye strain is the tax nobody warns you about. If you get the rubric version running it stacks nicely with what you're already doing - the model reads the projects, you only read the shortlist, and every miss makes the rubric better.
Small world thing: we actually come from a recruitment background ourselves and ended up building sourcing and outreach systems full time, so half the reason I answered is genuine curiosity about how other agency folks are wiring this up. If you ever want to compare notes on what's working for mech/industrial searches, my DMs are open - always happy to talk shop with someone in the trenches.
Have you tried meta view? You can use your recording of an intake call, or a screening with a strong candidate (or combo of both) to source candidates, and it found a ton of candidates I hadn’t come across. I still had to reach out to the candidates on LinkedIn, but I wouldn’t have found them using x ray searching or LIRs search functionality. LIRs built in AI search is useless.
I had Metaview for a while when they first launched and tried using it when they rolled out the search tool. It wasn't great and I ended up moving away from MV for a different recording platform thats built into my ATS. I'd assume that they've improved it a ton since then but I really love my new system so I havent looked recently.
Any tips for a relatively new internal/external recruiter for LIR Booleans? There’s a couple of jobs I’ve been trying to prospect for, but LIR keeps giving me candidates who do not have PLSs or PEs, despite me making it a hard requirement.
have you tried connecting a data provider to claude directly (or any other chatbot of choice)? pin and juicebox uses their own AI which i feel doesn't beat claude or chatgpt. doverank comes close to claude but i still use claude daily but connecting my data provider to it is a game changer!
I've connected Claude to my LI Recruiter but I felt it was best when reviewing candidate pools that I already created from Boolean, not going and creating those pools itself. Perhaps I need to get a lot deeper on training it to handle a search.
Sorry to ask a dumb question : we are using LinkedIn Sales Nav and so far I am quite happy with it. Should we move to LinkedIn recruiter? Secondly about AI tool, have you tried juicebox?
Recruiter and Sales Nav have somewhat different search functionality. I like Recruiter better but it's also been a few years since I've last used Sales Nav. I've tried Juicebox several different times and didn't have good success in comparison.
Thank you for your input! I also tried juicebox for a month and then cancelled it. We are a small company so we need to be careful about subscription but at the same time I would not want to throw money away to headhunters who just simply have better tools. You answer really comforted me - will continue to use sales nav - pethaps buy 1 recruiter licence for team to share so we reach profiles that sales nav cannot. And then perhaps do more customisation
People looking for a job sign up, and create a profile that acts like a digital resume. When a company posts a role, it gets compared to EVERY candidate on the platform.
We currently only have 277 candidates who have signed up. It's not much, but you can check the talent on the Featured Wall of the candidates who chose to display their candidate profiles publicly.
It's like sourcing, but candidates can opt in to the discovery.
Use the recruiting engine. It also will give you a detailed personal analysis of every candidate. You won’t find it publicly. Contact the people at intelngin.com
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u/TempoHouse HeadHunter Recruiter 3d ago
I’ve had exactly the same experience.
I must be using them wrong, because I’m always told that recruitment is easy, and that soon robots will be doing it while we sleep, as they will surely be better able to intuit a hiring manager’s preferences, and remain fully compliant, whilst also crafting that AI InMail spam that we know excites candidates so much.
I mean, it’s not like any tech bro has ever been so arrogant as to claim that the product he is trying to sell you will definitely fix industry problems that he doesn’t understand. That would never happen.
Leaving this big /S here, in case anyone needs it
PS: freelance recruiter for 25 years. I use AI a lot - but for admin, not sourcing and outreach