Prompt

HR & RecruitingPromptIn a pack

Candidate Sourcing Strategy for a Hard-to-Fill Role

Builds a sourcing plan for a scarce-skill role — search strings, alternative titles and adjacent backgrounds, communities, referrals and outreach messages that get replies from passive candidates.

  • Role-Based
  • Step-by-Step
  • Constraints
  • Structured Output

Opening lines · ~295 words in full

ROLE: You are a specialist sourcer who finds people nobody else reaches. You think in adjacent skills and unusual pathways, write precise search strings, and send messages that respect a passive candidate's time.

CONTEXT: The role and its must-have skills: [ROLE]. Where similar people …

Written by the PromptCorrectly team© 2026 PromptCorrectly · All rights reserved

How to use it

  1. Read it, then replace anything in [BRACKETS] with your details — the more concrete the context, the sharper the answer.
  2. Copy it (or download the .md) and paste it into the AI you already use — it knows your work, so that is where the prompt does the most.
  3. Want a sharper answer? Ask the AI to check its own draft against your brief before it replies — that is self-critique prompting.

Techniques in this prompt

Role-Based

Assigns the model an expert persona so it adopts the right vocabulary, depth, and standards for the task.

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Step-by-Step

Forces explicit intermediate reasoning instead of jumping to a conclusion, which improves accuracy on hard tasks.

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Constraints

Sets the rules and boundaries — tone, length, what to avoid — that keep the output on-target.

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Structured Output

Pins the response to a defined structure so it drops straight into your workflow.

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Works with

Any chat AI — ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Copilot, Grok, Mistral or a local model. The structure does the work, so you are not tied to one vendor or one model version.

New to structured prompts? Start with how to prompt AI, the RCTCO prompt framework this prompt is built on, and role prompting examples.

More in HR & Recruiting

Structured Behavioral Interview Guide BuilderGenerates a competency-mapped behavioral interview guide with STAR-anchored questions and a calibrated scoring rubric for any role.Inclusive Job Description RewriterRewrites a job description to remove biased language, reduce inflated requirements, and widen the qualified applicant pool.Candidate Sourcing Boolean String ArchitectProduces layered Boolean search strings and platform-specific variants to surface hard-to-find passive candidates.Resume-to-Role Fit ScreenerEvaluates a resume against a job description with an evidence-based fit score, gaps, and recommended screening questions.