My Favorite Sourcing Tools in 2025

As soon as you get a position, it's not only about filling it with the best possible person but also about filling it fast. As host of The Elite Recruiter Podcast, I have gotten a chance to see how the world of sourcing is changing and how it impacts our desks every day. I have seen the rise in AI-powered tools that I could only dream about years ago, and I know all of these tools will keep evolving with time. But even with that, I have my favorites that I go back to just about every time I have a search. So I thought I would share them.

The Evolution of Sourcing: From Boolean to AI Agents

But before we get there, lets look at what has changed. Just a few years ago, being a sourcing pro meant being a Boolean blackbelt – meticulously crafting search strings on LinkedIn or resumes databases. Today, that’s changing big time. We’ve witnessed a shift from manual keyword hacking to conversational search where you simply tell the AI what you need. Now new conversational search lets recruiters use plain English instead of complex, making advanced search accessible to everyone (no more 20-line Booleans that give you a headache!). Generative AI models can interpret your intent and translate it into precise filters, which is a huge productivity boost.

On top of that, the rise of AI “agents” or autonomous sourcing assistants is revolutionizing our workflows. Rather than just giving you search results, these AI agents can take on tasks like reaching out to candidates, following up, and even scheduling interviews on their own. It feels a bit like science fiction – you hand over a job req and the AI does a chunk of the recruiting cycle for you. As we’ve discussed on the podcast, recruiters are adapting by learning to use these AI tools: providing good prompts, reviewing AI-generated candidate lists, and focusing on high-value human touches (like building relationships and assessing culture fit). The initial fear that “AI might replace recruiters” has given way to a more practical reality – recruiters who embrace AI are freeing up hours in their week, allowing them to spend more time closing and less time combing through search results. In short, sourcing in 2025 is more strategic and collaborative with AI than ever.

With that context, let’s jump into the top tools that are riding this wave and truly changing the game for me and many others in the recruiting community.

Juicebox – PeopleGPT

One of my go tos when I start a search is PeopleGPT by Juicebox. It’s essentially a talent search engine powered by generative AI, meaning you can find candidates by simply describing what you’re looking for – no Boolean needed. Search on Juicebox is powered by PeopleGPT, billed as the world’s first people search engine built on natural. In practice, it feels like chatting to an assistant: you might say “Software engineers with AWS and Kubernetes experience in the Seattle area”, and PeopleGPT will actually understand that and return spot-on results, without you fiddling with keywords or filters. It’s lightning-fast and precise, sparing us from the hours we used to spend tweaking search.

PeopleGPT has an immense talent index – over 800 million profiles across the web. It pulls from sources like LinkedIn data and beyond, so it casts a wide net. What really impresses me is its ability to not just find candidates but also engage them. The platform can automatically craft personalized outreach messages to candidates, even those passive candidates who aren’t actively job. In fact, PeopleGPT learns from each interaction; your outreach and response data help the AI refine its approach over time, so your talent pool and engagement rates get better and better. As a recruiter, it’s like having an assistant that gets smarter every week – pretty incredible.

Juicebox’s PeopleGPT even offers “Security Clearance” filters (Top Secret, TS/SCI, Poly, etc.), which is a huge perk for defense/GovCon.

For those of us recruiting in the cleared space or GovCon industry, PeopleGPT has a game-changing feature: it can filter for likely security clearances. Juicebox analyzed millions of job descriptions to infer the odds that a candidate has a clearance, even if they don’t explicitly say it on their. You can literally toggle filters like Top Secret, SCI, Full Scope Poly, DOE Q, and more. This is huge – traditionally we had to rely on candidates self-reporting a clearance or use awkward keyword searches (which missed a ton of people). Now, the AI helps surface hidden cleared talent by reading between the lines of their work history. From my perspective, this opens up whole new pools of candidates that I might have missed before.

Another standout from PeopleGPT is how it’s embracing agentic sourcing workflows. This year (2025) they rolled out Juicebox Agents, which are like 24/7 autonomous sourcing assistants. You give an Agent a description of your ideal candidate and it goes to work autonomously: every day it runs searches, explores different approaches, and brings back a batch of new candidate profiles for. It even learns from your feedback – as you approve or reject profiles, the Agent refines its criteria to hone in on what you. Essentially, it’s doing the tedious sourcing work in the background while you focus on higher-level tasks. What’s more, Juicebox Agents don’t stop at sourcing; they can also automate outreach. They’ll send personalized emails to candidates you’ve approved (up to 35 per day) and manage follow-ups in a multi-day. Of course, you stay in control – the agent only contacts those you select, and you get updates so nothing goes wild without your. I’ve started using this for a few tough roles, and it genuinely feels like I hired a sourcer who works nights and weekends! The time saved is real.

Finally, let’s talk about new features and improvements. Juicebox’s PeopleGPT has been pushing updates at a rapid clip. In late 2024, they introduced handy new tools like importing your LinkedIn connections to easily mine your own network and an AI email classification feature, which automatically flags candidate replies as “Interested,” “Not now,” and more. They even rolled out a “Likely to Switch” filter that predicts which passive candidates might be open to new opportunities—hugely beneficial when you’re proactively headhunting.

On top of these great additions, Juicebox just launched their brand-new Chrome Extension, and I’m already a big fan! This extension seamlessly brings the power of AI sourcing and personalized outreach directly into your browser—no more jumping between tabs or tools. With a single click, instantly unlock verified candidate emails and phone numbers from LinkedIn profiles, run a quick "profile-fit Autopilot" analysis to see how closely candidates match your roles, and easily kick off email outreach sequences. Plus, the Chrome Extension includes collaboration features, tracking who's viewed or contacted a candidate so your team stays aligned. All these enhancements combine to make Juicebox an indispensable productivity booster, particularly for high-volume recruiting teams. If you’re all about streamlined sourcing (like I am), you’ll definitely want to give this a spin!

Pin – pin.com

Next up is Pin, a newcomer that burst onto the scene in late 2024 and has quickly become one of my favorite secret weapons. Pin markets itself as “your 24/7 recruiting assistant,” and I have to say it lives up to that. The idea is simple but powerful: you give Pin a job description (or some criteria for the role you’re sourcing), and Pin’s AI goes to work autonomously to source candidates, send outreach, and even schedule interviews – end-to-end recruiting workflow automation. In other words, Pin is an all-in-one AI-powered recruiting agent that can take a lot of the legwork off your plate.

Under the hood, Pin is powered by proprietary AI models the team built in-house to read and evaluate resumes at massive. They’re not just plugging into an off-the-shelf ChatGPT; they created models specifically tuned for recruiting. Pin claims to simultaneously analyze over 850+ million candidate profiles to pinpoint matches for your. The result of this heavy AI lifting is pretty astounding: according to their stats, Pin is seeing ~70% of candidates it contacts end up accepted into hiring pipelines (a 70% candidate acceptance rate into process) and it can cut down time-to-hire from the typical 60 days to just 2 weeks in some instances. Those numbers grabbed my attention – and after using Pin on a few searches, I believe it. It finds quality matches fast.

Pin’s approach feels like hiring a supercharged virtual sourcer who also doubles as a coordinator. It doesn’t just find candidates; it actually reaches out to them for you. Once Pin’s AI identifies great-fit profiles (it scans 850M+ profiles on the web with “a recruiter’s eye and a computer’s precision”), it automatically writes and sends personalized outreach via email, LinkedIn, or even SMS. The outreach sequences are multi-channel and smart – they follow up, they nurture, and currently Pin boasts about a 48% candidate response rate on its AI-driven which is well above industry norms for cold outreach. From my experience, that high response rate comes from the AI’s ability to tailor messages and reach candidates on the platforms they’re most likely to respond to. And when a candidate expresses interest, Pin seamlessly moves to interview scheduling: it handles all the back-and-forth of finding a time, sending calendar invites, etc., syncing with your calendar so you wake up to interviews booked on your. I can’t overstate how much time this saves – scheduling is one of those tasks that can eat up hours in a week, and Pin essentially zeroes it out for you.

Now, if you’re recruiting in specialized sectors like GovCon or anything requiring security clearances, you might wonder how Pin stacks up. While Pin doesn’t (yet) advertise dedicated clearance filters the way SeekOut or PeopleGPT do, its AI is very context-aware. It reads entire resumes and profiles, so if a candidate has a clearance or works in a cleared role, Pin’s likely to surface them for a relevant search. The same goes for niche skills or certifications – Pin’s custom models are designed to pick up on those “exact match” requirements that normal keyword search might. I’ve found that if I include “TS/SCI clearance” or a specific cert in the job description I give to Pin, the candidates it returns check those boxes. In short, it’s quite capable in the cleared space, even if it’s not a core marketing point. Plus, Pin has features to support diversity hiring and multi-company or multi-role searches (important for agency folks or RPOs juggling different clients). For instance, it offers diversity filters to help broaden your pipeline and can manage hiring for multiple requisitions in one.

One thing I love about Pin is how agentic it truly is. Using Pin feels like delegating work to a competent colleague. You’re not babysitting it step by step – you provide the input (job spec and any must-haves) and the AI takes it from there. Steven Lu, Pin’s CEO (who previously founded a recruiting tech company), described the workflow perfectly: “Our actual workflow is you just hand us a job description, and we’re scheduling meetings into your calendar. You’re just talking to candidates.”. That’s exactly it – Pin handles sourcing, outreach, follow-ups, and scheduling, and presents you with interested, pre-screened candidates ready to chat. It’s as autonomous as it gets right now in recruiting tech. Of course, I still review the candidates it surfaces and the messages going out (especially initially, to make sure they match our employer brand voice), but I’ve rarely had to tweak much.

Since launching, Pin has been evolving quickly. They secured $3 million in seed funding to accelerate development, and you can tell the product is growing. Some new or notable features: an AI-powered resume screening tool that sifts your inbound applicants with “PhD-level precision” (so you don’t miss any great candidates who applied), a multi-channel team inbox that keeps all your outreach and replies in one place for the whole team to, and even a Chrome extension so you can source candidates on platforms like LinkedIn or GitHub and push them into Pin’s workflow. The platform also plays nicely with ATS systems – it can screen ATS resumes and update candidate statuses, acting as a co-pilot to your existing tools rather than a silo. All these additions show that Pin is aiming to be a one-stop-shop for recruiting: from first look at a profile to booked interview, all in one system. As a recruiter who’s juggled 5 different tools to accomplish the same thing, I really appreciate this consolidation.

In summary, Pin is like having an enthusiastic junior recruiter who works around the clock and never drops the ball. It’s been a joy to experiment with, and I suspect by the end of 2025 a lot more of us will be adding Pin to our recruiting tech stack – especially for those high-volume roles or when you’re a team of one recruiter who needs to multiply your efforts.

SeekOut

Finally, we have SeekOut – a veteran in the sourcing world that continues to impress. I often call SeekOut the “power tool” for talent sourcing. It’s been around for a while (and many of you might already use it), but the SeekOut of 2025 has evolved significantly thanks to AI enhancements.

At its core, SeekOut is an AI-driven talent search engine and talent intelligence platform. One of its long-standing strengths is a massive database of candidate profiles – by some counts over 1 billion profiles worldwide – aggregated from countless sources. This means when you search on SeekOut, you’re searching one of the broadest talent pools available. But data is only as good as your ability to filter it, and SeekOut truly shines in its search capabilities. You can combine traditional filters (title, skills, location, etc.) with unique ones: for example, diversity filters to find candidates from underrepresented groups, or technical filters that find engineers who have contributed to GitHub or written research papers. It even has built-in modules to find specific talent personas, like veterans, healthcare professionals, or graduates from certain programs. For a sourcer, this is like an entire toolbox at your fingertips – you can get extremely granular or stay broad, whatever the search calls for.

A standout area for SeekOut (and why it’s beloved in GovCon and defense recruiting) is its focus on security clearance recruiting. In the past year or so, SeekOut introduced Enhanced Clearance Filters that are pretty much a godsend for those hard-to-fill cleared roles. These AI-powered filters infer a candidate’s clearance level from their work history and employers, even if the candidate doesn’t explicitly list their clearance on their. According to SeekOut, this delivers 5x more cleared candidates in your search results than traditional – and I believe it. You can filter by 12 specific clearance levels and accesses (Public Trust, Secret, Top Secret, TS/SCI, Full Scope Poly, Yankee White, you name it). The system knows, for example, that someone who worked at NSA likely has at least a TS/SCI, or that a software engineer at Northrop Grumman might have Secret even if it’s not stated. This kind of intelligent inference is hugely impactful. I used to spend hours building Boolean strings like (clearance OR TS/SCI OR polygraph OR etc...) and still missed candidates. Now, I just check a box for the clearance level needed, and SeekOut surfaces candidates I’d otherwise never find. No wonder a Senior TA Director at Raytheon said “SeekOut is one of the essential tools for sourcing talent with a security clearance.” – it’s practically built for the cleared talent market.

Beyond clearances, SeekOut leverages AI in other savvy ways. In early 2024, they rolled out SeekOut Assist, which included a GPT-powered conversational search feature. This was SeekOut’s answer to the generative AI trend: you can type a natural language query describing your ideal candidate, and the system will generate the search criteria for you, combining its filters with AI. For example, a recruiter could ask, “Find product managers at small companies who used to work at FAANG” and SeekOut will understand that means past companies like Meta, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, Google, with current titles of Product Manager at companies under a certain. It then suggests the modified search parameters and you can run the. It’s like having a personal sourcing coach inside the platform that turns your ideas into actionable searches. Having used SeekOut Assist, I can say it really lowers the barrier to doing complex searches – you don’t need to remember every advanced filter, you can just describe what you want. For seasoned recruiters, it speeds things up; for newer recruiters, it’s a great learning tool to see how search criteria are constructed. And it’s not just search – SeekOut Assist can also help craft outreach messages (using GPT to draft personalized emails to candidates) and summarize profiles or generate interview questions. It’s like a little AI sidekick that makes the whole recruiting process more efficient.

What about agentic AI? Even the established players like SeekOut are exploring autonomous AI helpers. SeekOut recently announced a service called SeekOut Spot, which takes a unique approach to AI recruiting. Instead of just giving you a tool, Spot is more of an AI-driven service. Essentially, SeekOut pairs its AI technology with human recruiting experts to deliver qualified, interested candidates to you as a managed. You provide a job req and do an intake meeting (to define “what good looks like” for the role), and then SeekOut’s team deploys their agentic AI to handle the sourcing and outreach, under human. Within a week or two, they come back with a slate of 5-10 candidates who meet your specs and are ready to. It’s like outsourcing your sourcing to a hybrid AI/human team. This is a fascinating development – it acknowledges that AI alone isn’t a silver bullet, but AI + humans together can dramatically speed up hiring. For large enterprises with tons of roles, I can see Spot being a way to scale up fast without having to hire a bunch of contract sourcers. It’s also a sign of where things are going: maybe in the near future, every recruiter will have an “AI agent” on their team handling a chunk of their pipeline tasks.

Aside from these headline features, SeekOut has continued to refine its platform in 2024-2025. The database keeps growing (they highlight, for example, having 39 million software developers and tens of millions of research publications for those looking for deeply technical or academic talent). They’ve improved integration capabilities – e.g. syncing with your ATS so you can search internal candidates or former applicants in SeekOut alongside external profiles. And they remain a leader in Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI) sourcing tools, offering ways to reduce bias (like blind resume review modes) and find talent from diverse backgrounds to meet your DEI hiring goals. The analytics and talent insights on SeekOut are also worth mentioning: you can analyze talent markets, see diversity breakdowns, and get competitive intelligence (who is hiring what, where) – great for strategic planning.

In summary, SeekOut in 2025 is a powerhouse that blends robust data with cutting-edge AI assistance. Whether you’re hunting for a polyglot full-stack developer who contributes to open source, or trying to fill 50 cleared analyst roles for a government contract, SeekOut has your back. It’s a tool that every recruiter or sourcer should at least be familiar with, and with these new AI features, it’s only become more formidable. (And yes – SeekOut is still one of my personal favorites, even as new players that I also love like Juicebox PeopleGPT and Pin.com - AI Recruiting shake things up!)

Bonus Tool: Clay – Powerful (But with a Learning Curve)

One more tool that deserves a quick shout-out is Clay.com. It’s an incredibly powerful platform for enriching candidate data, automating personalized outreach, and organizing your sourcing pipelines. Clay can instantly pull detailed contact info, company data, and social media profiles, turning simple spreadsheets into rich talent databases. Honestly, the depth of what you can accomplish with Clay is pretty amazing—especially if you’re running high-volume sourcing campaigns.

But fair warning: there's definitely a learning curve here. Clay’s capabilities are extensive, and mastering its features can initially feel overwhelming. The interface and workflows require some patience and experimentation before things click. If you’re comfortable diving into new tech tools and spending some time getting familiar, Clay can become a game-changing asset. Just be ready for a bit of a ramp-up before it truly pays off.

It's pretty simple, in the AI-driven era of recruiting, it’s clear that those who leverage these tools can source faster and smarter – but the human touch remains irreplaceable. My strategy is to let AI do the heavy lifting on data and outreach, while I focus on building relationships and evaluating the nuanced qualities of candidates that algorithms can’t yet discern. 2025’s sourcing tools are the best we’ve ever had, and they’re getting better every month. It’s an exciting time to be in recruiting, and I hope these insights help you level up your talent game.

Happy sourcing, and see you at the next Elite Recruiter event!

• Listen to The Elite Recruiter Podcast – Stay on top of recruiting trends and tech with weekly episodes featuring industry experts and innovators. It’s free learning for your commute or lunch break – don’t miss out!
• Attend the AI Recruiting Summit 2025 – Dive deeper into AI tools & techniques with leaders in the field. Mark your calendar for Sept 2–5, 2025 – this summit will equip you with actionable strategies to harness AI in your recruiting.
• Join the “Finish The Year Strong 2025” Event – An exclusive virtual summit (Oct 13–17, 2025) to supercharge your Q4 recruiting strategy. Let’s crush those year-end goals together and share success stories as a community.

Here’s to finishing the year strong and gearing up for an even better 2026! 🚀

If your organization needs experienced leadership or critical talent, Benjamin Mena and Alyssa Thomas are ready to help you source, attract, and hire exceptional executives who move missions forward.

Benjamin is also the host of The Elite Recruiter Podcast, recognized as one of the top recruiting podcasts globally—where industry leaders share insights and strategies to empower recruitment professionals worldwide.

👉 Ready to connect with talent that makes a difference? Reach out to Benjamin Mena or Alyssa Thomas today.