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HR Specialist

Sourcing Candidates

Enhances✓ Available Now

What You Do Today

Search LinkedIn, job boards, and your ATS database for candidates who match open reqs. You're running Boolean searches, scrolling through profiles, and trying to fill 15-25 reqs simultaneously.

AI That Applies

AI-powered sourcing tools that match candidate profiles to job descriptions using semantic search — not just keyword matching. They surface passive candidates who wouldn't appear in traditional Boolean searches.

Technologies

How It Works

The system ingests semantic search — not just keyword matching as its primary data source. NLP models process the text input by identifying entities, classifying intent, and extracting the structured information needed for downstream decisions. The output — passive candidates who wouldn't appear in traditional Boolean searches — surfaces in the existing workflow where the practitioner can review and act on it.

What Changes

Instead of manually crafting Boolean strings and scrolling through hundreds of profiles, the AI surfaces a ranked shortlist. Your sourcing time per req drops from hours to minutes.

What Stays

The judgment call on whether someone is actually a fit — reading between the lines of a resume, sensing career trajectory, knowing what your hiring manager really wants even if the JD doesn't say it.

What To Do Next

This section won't tell you what your numbers should be. It will show you how to find them yourself. Every instruction below produces a real, verifiable result in your organization. No benchmarks, no projections — just the steps to build your own evidence.

1

Establish Your Baseline

Know where you are before you move

Before adopting AI tools for sourcing candidates, understand your current state.

Map your current process: Document how sourcing candidates works today — who does what, how long it takes, where the bottlenecks are. You need this baseline to measure improvement.
Identify the judgment points: The judgment call on whether someone is actually a fit — reading between the lines of a resume, sensing career trajectory, knowing what your hiring manager really wants even if the JD doesn't say it. These are the boundaries AI won't cross.
Assess your data readiness: AI tools for this area need data to work. Check whether your organization has the historical data, integrations, and data quality to support NLP tools.

Without a baseline, you can't measure whether AI actually improved anything. You'll adopt tools without knowing if they're working.

2

Define Your Measures

What to track and how to calculate it

Time per cycle

How to calculate

Measure how long sourcing candidates takes end-to-end today, then after AI adoption.

Why it matters

The most visible improvement is speed. If AI doesn't save time, question whether it's adding value.

Quality of output

How to calculate

Track error rates, rework frequency, or stakeholder satisfaction scores before and after.

Why it matters

Speed without quality is just faster mistakes. Measure both.

When to check: Check after 30 days of consistent use, then quarterly.
The commitment: Give new tools at least 30 days before judging. The first week is always awkward.
What NOT to measure: Don't measure AI adoption rate as a KPI. Adoption follows value — if the tool helps, people use it.
3

Start These Conversations

Who to talk to and what to ask

your CHRO or VP HR

What's our time-to-fill for the roles that are hardest to source, and where in the funnel do we lose candidates?

They're deciding the AI adoption strategy for the function

your HRIS or HR technology lead

How would we validate that an AI screening tool isn't introducing bias we can't see?

They manage the platforms that AI tools integrate with

a department head who manages a large team

Which vendor evaluation criteria could be scored automatically from data we already collect?

They can tell you where HR AI tools would have the most impact

4

Check Your Prerequisites

Confirm readiness before you invest

Check items as you confirm them.