Candidate Sourcing Strategies: 7 Ways to Fill Client Reqs

Candidate sourcing strategies are the repeatable ways you find and reach people who fit a role before they apply. When you run several client reqs at once, you can't afford to start every search from zero. The right set of strategies lets one week of sourcing feed more than one client at the same time.

What is candidate sourcing?

Candidate sourcing is finding and contacting people who match a role, often before they've applied anywhere. It sits at the top of the funnel, and recruiting covers everything after that, from screening through the offer.

Most people you source are passive candidates, meaning they aren't applying to jobs but would listen to the right pitch. That's the group job ads miss. For an agency recruiter, it's also the group a client struggles to reach alone, which is a big part of why they pay recruiter fees.

In-house sourcing strategies that don't transfer

Many strategies in the top guides only work if you're the employer. Those guides assume you own the careers page, the staff, and the applicant tracking system (ATS). An ATS is the software that stores every past applicant, and as an outside recruiter you don't have one for each client. Here's what to run in place of each in-house tactic.

If a strategy depends on the client's people or systems, ask for it at intake and let the client run it while you work the rest.

Candidate sourcing strategies that work across clients

These seven work across clients because you own the inputs, from your database to your network.

1. Rediscover past candidates first

Search the people you already know before you open a brand new search. Your candidate database or customer relationship management (CRM) tool holds finalists from past reqs, runners-up, and people who said "not now."

Recruiters inside companies do the same thing, searching their own applicant tracking system before they post a job. Your database is broader, since it spans every client you've worked with. That makes it more useful when the same profile comes up again.

Best fit: repeat roles, such as a second backend engineer for a new client in the same space.

2. Run structured searches from a tight intake

A good search starts with a clear list of must-haves and nice-to-haves from the hiring manager. Write both down before you search, then build the search so it filters hard on the must-haves only.

A boolean search, which uses AND, OR, and NOT to combine terms, works well for this kind of filtering. Keep one saved search for each req, and reuse it when another client opens a similar role.

Best fit: every req you take, since it's the base layer that the other strategies build on.

3. Send short, personal outreach sequences

A message that says why this person fits is the one that gets read. Mention one concrete thing from their profile or their work, then say what the role offers that their current job doesn't.

Plan two or three follow-ups spaced a few days apart, and keep each one shorter than the last. Track replies by client so you can see whose roles are harder to sell and adjust your pitch.

Best fit: senior and niche reqs where every single reply counts toward a short list.

4. Go where engineers talk shop

Technical communities show you what people build, which tells you more than a job title does. Look at open-source projects, conference speaker lists, technical meetups, and public code repositories.

Reach out about their work first. A comment on a project they shipped lands better than a generic pitch about an open role.

Best fit: niche stacks and senior individual contributors who ignore standard outreach.

5. Build your own referral network

Your placed candidates are your version of an employee referral program. Ask each one, a few months into the new job, who else they'd vouch for, and ask candidates you almost placed the same thing.

People who trusted you once will send you people like them. Unlike a client's referral program, this network moves with you from one client to the next.

Best fit: any role where the right person probably knows several others with the same skills.

6. Map target companies before you search

List the companies where your ideal candidate works today, then add nearby companies that build the same skills under different titles. This list of target companies and people is called talent mapping.

Share the target list with your client at intake, because they may rule out some companies, such as partners or customers. Finding that out early saves you from sourcing people you can't submit.

Best fit: senior, niche, and confidential searches where the pool is small and every name matters.

7. Use job boards for volume only

Post ads when you need many similar hires, and plan for heavy screening. An ad reaches people who are already looking, so budget time to sort a big pile of applicants.

For agency work, the cost of that screening is your own time, which you can't bill back to the client. Use boards for high-volume contract roles and skip them for niche senior roles.

Best fit: volume and contract reqs with a clear skill bar that's quick to screen against.

How to pick a mix per req before you start searching

Start every req with rediscovery and a structured search, then add strategies based on how niche the role is.

Here's how that plays out in an example week. Say one client needs a staff platform engineer with a rare stack, and another client needs several QA contractors.

For the staff role, spend your hours on company mapping and personal notes to a short list of names. For the QA roles, post one ad, run a saved search, and ask recent placements for names. That split protects your time for the req that needs the most of it.

What to check before your next intake call

Go into every intake with a short list of asks, and set your sourcing mix before you run a single search.

• Referrals: Ask the client for names from their own team and from strong past staff.
• Ruled-out companies: Ask which companies you can't recruit from, including partners and customers.
• Must-haves: Get a short list of hard requirements and separate them from the wish list.
• Location and visa: Ask if the client will relocate or sponsor, so you don't source people they can't hire.
• Your database: Check past candidates from other clients before you open a new search.

After each placement, note which strategy helped you identify the hire. Over a few months, you'll see which candidate sourcing strategies pay off for each type of req, and you can drop the ones that don't.