Sourcing in 2020
I sourced my first candidate sometime around 2013 when I was hiring for a startup that I co-founded in Bangkok, HotelQuickly. Back then, I opened LinkedIn, shortlisted candidates, messaged them, and hired 20+ candidates over a few years as we scaled the business.
In 2020, when I was recruiting for international clients, the process was still the same:
Think about the sourcing strategy
Execute the strategy
Open LinkedIn, shortlist, message, invite to talk, interview, hire.
As I was managing recruiters on my team, I noticed one thing:
Preparing the sourcing strategy was really hard for all of them.
It required concentration. Disconnecting from Slack, messages, IG, browser
It didn't provide instant dopamine hit. It's not rewarding.
So they didn't (want to) do it and I did it for most of the roles we've been recruiting for.
Sourcing plan
A thoroughly prepared sourcing plan usually includes:
Phased search plan (start with the most obvious job titles, expand to broader ones)
Adjacent roles
Skill-based search
Keyword bank
Internal sources (ATS)
LinkedIn direct sourcing << WHAT
External talent databases
Conferences & events (speaker lists)
Newsletters & blogs (authors to outreach)
Open‑source projects (maintainers/contributors)
Communities & forums
Podcasts & guest lists
Universities & research labs
Referrals, bounty hunters, associates
Job boards
Social media – organic and paid ads
Communities (Discord, Slack communities and their job boards)
Messaging channels (Telegram groups and their job posting options)
...etc. etc.
Fast-forward to 2026
Recruiters no longer have to think.
They can open a tool like Calyflow.ai, which is connected to Claude or OpenAI model and get a detailed sourcing plan:
Calyflow.ai > Sourcing plan
This AI-researched plan is much better than what I used to create for my colleagues.
It produces a 5-page long document with detailed steps. Just look at the snippet below:
Sourcing strategy prepared by an agent at Calyflow
It contnues further:
Sourcing strategy with Calyflow.
Next steps
After the detailed sourcing plan is drafted, we have two options:
A human can start executing the search.
An AI agent at Calyflow.ai can execute the search.
I teach these strategies inside the AI Recruiting Accelerator program.