The Sourcer's Desk Blog
Practical candidate sourcing, taught honestly — by a recruiter with 20 years of desks behind him.
One Search, Three Candidate Pools: The Match-Type Trick Most Sourcers Never Use
Run the same keywords as anywhere, title, and URL matches and you get three genuinely different sets of candidates. Three passes, three minutes, triple the results.
How to Find Resumes on the Open Web (Free, With Google)
Thousands of resumes sit on the public web. The exact search structure that finds them — and filters out the job postings and template mills.
How to X-Ray LinkedIn Without Ever Touching Your LinkedIn Account
Search LinkedIn's public profiles from Google — no logins, no plugins on the page, no automation, nothing for LinkedIn to object to.
Sourcing Beyond LinkedIn: GitHub, Behance, and the Portfolio Web
The best candidates often have thin LinkedIn profiles but rich footprints elsewhere. Where to x-ray for developers, designers, and other makers.
Why Your Boolean Search Returns Garbage (and the 60-Second Fix)
Your x-ray search looks right but returns random websites? These four silent failures — one missing quote, a word-shaped OR, an overlong query — explain it.
Can a Sourcing Tool Get You Banned from LinkedIn? What's Safe, What Isn't
LinkedIn restricts accounts over automation tools — but not all sourcing tools work the same way. The technical difference that decides your risk.
The Area-Code Trick: Location Searches That Actually Find Local Candidates
Resumes rarely say the city name where you expect — but they almost always include a phone number. Search area codes and watch local candidates appear.
How to Find a Company's Real Email Format (Without Guessing)
first.last@ or f.last@? How to find the email pattern a company actually uses — from published, verifiable sources — and why guessing backfires.
Boolean for Recruiters Who Hate Boolean: The Only 4 Things You Need
You don't need to be a boolean wizard to source candidates. Quotes, OR, the minus sign, and site: cover 95% of real sourcing searches.
Recruiting on a Chromebook: The Complete Free Sourcing Stack
Sourcing candidates on a Chromebook or ChromeOS device — what actually works, what won't install, and the free browser-based stack that replaces the software you can't run.
What Is X-Ray Sourcing? A Plain-English Guide for Recruiters
X-ray sourcing means using Google or Bing to search inside sites like LinkedIn — no logins, no tools scraping your account. Here's how it works.