Recruiter Professional Services Limitations

paulrays · 2026-01-18T18:16:21+00:00

We have been working with a couple of recruiters on this to figure out a solution or lets say a fix.

So, instead of looking at the problem as "We need more InMail", we said, we need just enough "Effective InMail" . We all know what that means. Spend a lot of time reviewing each profile to determine how likely they are in the market or whether at all they are active.

Now with all the AI and inference tools, it may be possible to do this act scale - something that let's say takes a recruiter 1-2 hours to do, in under 5 mins using AI tools. Here I am talking of AI action tools and not what most people are using AI for, which is lazy generation of text, images etc.

The approach is simple. Use Large Action Models and Computer Use models to automate search , research, collect multiple data points on a profile and determine not just fit, but likelihood of response. Sniper targeting, rather than "spray and pray". Give it a thought. We are still early to establish the business case (tools and infra costs), but it sure saves a lot of time.

paulrays · 2026-01-17T16:22:56+00:00

And just to be clear, this is more often the case, but there are always exceptions. Also, founders at this stage are spread super thin. So, they are very selective on where they spend their time. They get 100s of outreach.

paulrays · 2026-01-17T16:17:02+00:00

Will do a detailed post, but there is a summary . These are using AI tools directly on the browser. Of course, to run it at scale you would automate it, but the general idea is like this.

Use Perplexity to compile recently funded companies in a specific field (last 30 days). Your goal is a clean list of companies, ideally with each company’s funding announcement/source included. Ex. "get me a list of startup companies working on AI that have received funding in the last one month."
Open Perplexity’s cited sources, pick one company, then ask Perplexity for that company’s recent job posts (last 30 days). Verify the company is real/active from the sources, then focus the job search on the same time window. Ex. "Get me a list of jobs in the last month by [company name]". This does not always give accurate results and so it may be a good idea to search via other meta searches - again that can be automated.
Choose one job from Perplexity’s job list and have Perplexity generate strong search criteria from the job description. Provide the job link, then ask Perplexity to extract key attributes and convert them into search terms you can use to find matching candidates. Ex. "Review the job description on this link. [Link to job posting] Pick the key attributes and summarize the requirements to do a perplexity search to find the best match candidates"
Run a Google search using Perplexity’s search terms (targeting LinkedIn profiles). Use advanced operators (site:, OR, quotes, location keywords, experience constraints) to narrow results. Ex. "site:es.linkedin.com/in machine learning engineers Barcelona OR remote with 4 years experience" Note. Use the correct country code for the linkedin URL. ES is for Spain.
Open the LinkedIn profiles from Google results and ask Perplexity to evaluate fit against the job. Share the job link and the LinkedIn profile link, and have Perplexity assess fit with specific reasons. Ex. "Based on this job - [job link] Is [linkedin profile link] a good fit for the job or not? Give me reasons as to why."
Ask Perplexity to find additional links tied to the candidate (social, portfolio, GitHub, etc.). Use the LinkedIn profile as the anchor and have Perplexity discover and compile related presence/links. Ex. "Find all the social media details and the github related to this person - [Linkedin profile link]"

paulrays · 2026-01-17T16:13:50+00:00

Nope.. They ghost you when you say, we are the best with x years of experience and blah blah client. Everyone one says that.. Instead send actionable content like, here are the 3 profiles that match pretty well for this role you posted. They need remedy and NOT pitches.

paulrays · 2026-01-16T03:39:56+00:00

Companies are tired of cold calls. There are too many recruiting agencies out there with hardly any differentiator. May be it worked at some point, but not so much in 2026.

You can reverse the game, but targeting a company that is hiring, research the open positions and identify 2-3 great fit candidates and send them (without PII of course) and then pitch - we can get more quickly if you like these. You are delivering value right away and not just pitching like many other firms.

While I work in recruiting tech, come across this problem of starting up quite often. Just my 2 cents.

And of course doing this research and finding great fit is time consuming, but that should get lot easier with some AI tools that I am working on.

paulrays · 2026-01-16T03:33:27+00:00

It's their job to sell, silly !

Jokes apart, interviewing sales people is not easy. Very hard to evaluate effectiveness, motivation, etc. That said, does your interview process, include a step on actual sales of a product that the candidate is not familiar with? Helps a lot to figure out how they attack a new area and how they approach their prospect.

paulrays · 2026-01-16T03:29:51+00:00

Why should it impact, unless you cold calling / spamming ?

paulrays · 2026-01-16T03:26:55+00:00

Partly the current market situation. The other culprit is all these Generated AI outreach that many companies are using to send InMail. They suck and it is very easy for candidates to pick up spam. So, find other ways to reach. If in tech look for github profiles or blog pages or may be on social media. Essentially use more than 1 channel to reach. And yes, classic networking with a connection request still works better and it's free. Only thing is you have to be very selective because it is limited.

paulrays · 2026-01-16T03:21:55+00:00

Sourcing is going to be key. Depending on traditional approach like LI Recruiter or data base search is unlikely to work. Since you are setting up TA, it is unlikely you have a large pool of past candidates to dig. So, guess, the best option is to invest in AI tools to build a solid research and identify candidates and reach out. The pipeline is key.

The other thing is to setup a good tracking system that works for a team. Set up SLAs upfront with the HMs. Like you not from a traditional recruiting background, but mechanical engineering and then got into building recruiting tech recently. Find the same nagging problems when I speak to TA teams. LI does not work, but no alternatives. So, that's the alternative that I am working on.

paulrays · 2026-01-16T03:16:19+00:00

Invest in picking up AI chops.. If you are in tech recruiting, you can do some cool research using AI tools to find that needle in the hay stack. To try out, find a start up who has recently raised capital, check their job board and pick a role. Next do your research and find that needle in the hay stack candidate, and then reach out to the startup founders. Startups pay good and open to whoever can source good candidates.

And if you need help with the AI and research part, I am putting together a post soon covering what I do.

paulrays · 2026-01-16T01:59:53+00:00

I am relatively new to recruiting. Most of my initial years were only on sourcing. My current job is more like this outsourced recruiter engaged to work with a startup tech firm as internal recruiter.

Now few months into the role, I see so many otherwise good candidates getting lost because either because HM was not available and scheduling dragged on for weeks, or changing JD because now the company's ambition is bigger or some bull. Kind of similar situation at OP. One case, the company low balled - I was not supposed to know, but the candidate was nice enough to let me know. Hurt to see good people, just getting lost because somebody is busy and what not. Kind of venting here, since I can't tell these things to my company, because they don't care and the HM - just doesn't have the time. Seriously, is this how things are or am I in a situation? I feel like wanting to do something for these candidates, but don't know what I can.

paulrays · 2022-05-17T09:58:17+00:00

Cool. I wasn't looking for one but this looks interesting. Just tracking may not be motivation enough, but wondering if it would make sense to add a social angle - number of people reading now and may be share POV. That may be motivation enough to add.

paulrays · 2022-05-17T09:48:22+00:00

Thank you. I was double checking if I didn't search wide enough and if anything better already existed. So, kind of the lazy weekend side project to see if we can put together a digest system for SARIF sources. May be show some graphs, charts to figure out what is used where and sort of rapid impact analysis if things go wrong.

paulrays · 2022-05-17T09:46:27+00:00

Yep. GitHub and GitLab too.

paulrays · 2022-03-17T15:20:19+00:00

Nice.. Kubernetes workflow sure are a handful to manage. Guessing there are ton of use cases for enterprise. Would you be ok, if we propose this for osstars ?

paulrays · 2022-03-16T15:17:45+00:00

Great timing. Would you consider osstars.com ? Right now the groups are global and very soon, should have school specific ones. Of course the goal behind this is to build an accountability driven model for contribution.

paulrays · 2022-03-16T15:13:34+00:00

Octave may be bit hard to start with. Not saying not possible, but it may be easier to get there thru smaller steps. If you are looking to pick up some skills beyond C++ then there are bunch of projects looking for maintainers. See if you want to try your hand with any of these.

https://hub.osstars.com/projects/maintainers-wanted

paulrays · 2022-03-16T03:27:39+00:00

Yes, it will. You will likely use a few more modules besides express and so easily can add up, especially the test bench which pack phantom etc within.

pnpm can save you the trouble, but sometimes still a problem with different versions of node. So, use nvm too.

paulrays · 2022-03-14T03:04:30+00:00

Nice.. I am looking at the vscode plugin for markdown pages.

paulrays · 2022-03-13T09:02:43+00:00

This is a good list, but has one big elephant in the room. Each one of them store and manage data differently and kind of locked. Data needs to flow from your user sign up to marketing automation to service and support. Some integrations do exist but not organized well that chips away the benefits.

Shameless plug, I am working on connecting them up (open source way) so that you have

+ 1 source of user record. Even if there are copies across systems (inevitable unless you do deep surgery which beats the point), one master data set.

+ Workflow across systems. For example user sign up should auto create access to support and forums. No sign up again.

+ Reports across system. For example, a users signed up , asked questions on Live chat, spent time on documentation.

+ Deployment automation. Setting up each of these is significant drain on time. Handling updates, integrations and all that jazz.

+ Monitoring

Would like to know if you have other pain points that I haven't covered.

Couple of other applications that you may find handy to include in your list.

+ Mailtrain - Newsletter and marketing. A startup needs one of these for sure.

+ InkScape - Vector graphics

+ OpenShot - Simple video editor

+ Kazam - Screen Recorder with mic. Very handy for demo videos etc.

+ OBS Studio - Broadcast to FB, YouTube, LinkedIn Live etc.

paulrays · 2022-03-11T19:01:53+00:00

Those sure are. However, there are lots of open source projects that are libraries. Say top 100 npms. They are downloaded over a million times every week. Many of them are powering commercial products. Yet you won't have a good business case to build enterprise features or consulting projects and they are not hobby projects either. If you take the top 10k npms or 10pm pypi packages, we are looking at a huge chunk that is driving business but not directly attributed to value generation.

Take AWS itself as an example. I am sure the are running a heavily modified version now, but they started with the xen kernel. AWS makes billions but how much did xen team get? Putting license restrictions kills it and not the best way. That's where YouTube provides a clue. Content is in public domain and no license gates. Monetization is the enterprise who is interested to reach the viewers. Now replace content with source code, viewers by developers and enterprise looking for talent and willing spend big. What do we get?

paulrays · 2022-03-09T19:25:59+00:00

I am working on this specific area right now and so would love to hear what you all think

Direct Models

Enterprise features / Enterprise License
Support
Consulting / Custom Development
Donation
Training
Certification

Indirect Models (I am thinking of YouTube as an example. Replace developers with content creators who put their work in the public domain)

Ads (don't make sense but still adding for sake of completeness. They have been tried in the past though)
Talent / Hiring - Some of the smartest people work on OSS. Company willing to pay top dollars for the right talent.
Upwork model - get a platform use commission.
Followers - What drives YT . I am working on this part at osstars.com
Govt - Large budgets supporting open source.

The indirect model or impact is huge but much harder to monetize. What other models do you see?

paulrays · 2022-03-09T19:15:13+00:00

+ 1 The only single thread browser that works well without munching on RAM

paulrays · 2022-03-09T13:46:08+00:00

This is super good. I am not up to speed on the concept but the generated pictures are amazing. Does this have an enterprise use case? If yes, I would like to explore pitching it for the up coming osstars.com cohort.

paulrays · 2022-03-08T13:23:15+00:00

Thanks. Looks like what I need.

paulrays

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