Passive Candidate Sourcing Beyond LinkedIn

HireEZ offers a self-serve trial and a sales-assisted demo path.

1. Go to hireez.com
2. Click Get Started Free or Request a Demo
3. For the self-serve path: enter your work email and create an account — you'll be in the dashboard within a few minutes
4. For the demo path: fill out the contact form with your agency name, specialization (e.g., "IT and engineering staffing"), and typical req volume

What you should see: The HireEZ dashboard with a search bar in the center and a "New Search" prompt.

Troubleshooting: If the trial requires a credit card or you can't access the full feature set, request the demo path instead — sales reps can often provide a 2-week full-feature trial without a card.

Before you run your first search, it helps to understand the sourcing model. HireEZ aggregates public profiles from over 45 platforms, including:

• LinkedIn (limited visibility without Recruiter license, but supplemented by other sources)
• GitHub (essential for software developers — profiles here reveal actual coding work)
• Stack Overflow (developer community — active users are often more reachable than LinkedIn-passive developers)
• Indeed Resume (candidates who've uploaded resumes to Indeed)
• Behance / Dribbble (design and creative roles)
• Professional association directories (varies by industry)
• ORCID, ResearchGate (academic and scientific roles)
• Xing (European candidates)
• Various niche boards and directories by specialty

HireEZ's AI normalizes these disparate profile sources into unified candidate profiles with contact information where available.

Start with one of your current hard-to-fill reqs.

1. Click New Search in the HireEZ dashboard
2. In the Job Title field, enter the role title — try the most common title first (e.g., "Controls Engineer")
3. In the Skills field, enter your must-have skills separated by commas: "PLC programming, Siemens, Allen-Bradley"
4. In the Location field, enter your target metro area and radius: "Detroit, MI — 50 miles"
5. Leave other filters at default for the first search — you'll refine after seeing initial results
6. Click Search

What you should see: A ranked list of candidate profiles with match scores, current titles, skills, and available contact information. Each profile shows which platforms the data was aggregated from.

Troubleshooting: If results are under 20 profiles, your search is too narrow. Expand by: removing the radius restriction, adding title synonyms (use the "Add title variation" option), or reducing the required skill count. If results are over 500, add filters (experience level, company type) to narrow.

HireEZ's value isn't just finding candidates — it's finding the right candidates. Use these filters to tighten results:

1. Years of experience: Set a range (e.g., "4–12 years") to exclude very junior or overqualified candidates
2. Current company size: If your client is a mid-size manufacturer, filter for candidates currently at companies with 100–2,000 employees — they'll be more comfortable with your client's environment
3. Last active date: Sort by "recently active" — candidates who updated a profile or posted content recently are more likely to respond to outreach
4. Diversity filters: HireEZ includes diversity sourcing options — you can filter for candidates from underrepresented groups if your client has stated diversity sourcing requirements
5. Exclude your competitors' past placements: If you know which other agencies your client uses, you can exclude candidates who've been recently submitted by those firms (advanced feature — ask your HireEZ rep)

After setting filters, click Apply and review the refined list.

Spend 2–3 minutes per profile to assess fit before reaching out. HireEZ aggregates data from multiple sources, so you'll often see more than a LinkedIn profile alone would show.

1. Click on a candidate's name to open their unified profile
2. Review:

   • Work history — does the progression make sense for this role?
   • Skills listed — are the must-haves present? Any red flags?
   • Sources — is this person active on GitHub or Stack Overflow? (For tech roles, this signals genuine engagement with their craft, not just a resume-padded LinkedIn profile)
   • Contact info available — HireEZ shows email and sometimes phone; you'll need this to reach people who aren't on LinkedIn
3. Check the match score (HireEZ's AI ranking) but don't rely on it exclusively — look at the underlying data
4. Add candidates you want to contact to a Project (click "Add to Project" — this is how you organize outreach in HireEZ)

What you should see: Your project folder building up with 10–20 target candidates for this req.

HireEZ includes an AI message generator that drafts personalized outreach based on the candidate's profile and your job description.

1. In your project, select all candidates you want to contact
2. Click Outreach → Compose Message
3. Select AI-assisted writing
4. Paste your job description or key requirements in the context field
5. HireEZ generates a personalized draft for each candidate, incorporating their specific background
6. Review each message before sending — AI drafts are a starting point, not a final product
7. Look for these common AI errors:

   • Referencing a job from 5+ years ago as "your current role"
   • Generic opener that doesn't actually reference anything specific
   • Hallucinated skills or titles
8. Edit any message that feels generic or inaccurate
9. Send via email directly through HireEZ, or copy the message to send from your own email address

What you should see: Personalized outreach messages queued for your selected candidates, each with the candidate's first name, current role, and a relevant connection to your req.

Troubleshooting: If HireEZ's AI writes a message that's clearly off-base, override it manually. Write a 3-sentence message: one line referencing their actual background, one line about why the role matches, one line asking for a 15-minute call.

When candidates respond to your HireEZ outreach, you'll track them in HireEZ and then move active conversations to Bullhorn.

1. In HireEZ, go to Projects → select your project → Outreach tab
2. Review response status: Opened, Replied, Not replied
3. For any candidate who replies positively, click their profile and Export to ATS
4. If Bullhorn integration is configured (Settings → Integrations → Bullhorn), the candidate record creates automatically in Bullhorn with profile data populated
5. If no integration is set up, copy the candidate data manually into Bullhorn before you start a conversation — you want the ATS record created before the phone screen, not after

What you should see: A clean pipeline in both HireEZ (outreach tracking) and Bullhorn (ATS records for active candidates).

After 2–3 weeks of use, do a quick comparison:

1. How many qualified candidates did HireEZ surface for your target req(s)?
2. What percentage had contact info not available on LinkedIn?
3. What was your response rate to HireEZ outreach vs. LinkedIn InMail?
4. Did HireEZ find anyone who was genuinely placed-able and not in your LinkedIn searches?

If HireEZ found 5–10 candidates you wouldn't have found through LinkedIn alone, and at least 1–2 converted to active conversations, the tool is earning its keep for that req type. If your results are minimal, reassess whether the req type is a good HireEZ fit (some roles — like general administrative or light industrial — are more LinkedIn-dependent; HireEZ shines on technical and niche professional roles).