Before Setting Up the Search

• Deep collaboration with Hiring Managers:
  
  
  • Conduct structured interviews with the Hiring Manager to uncover signals of excellence visible on prospect profiles.
    
    
• Create Role-Specific Criteria:
  
  
  • Pre-built by discipline: Sales, Engineering, Product, Marketing.
  • Create role-specific criteria that reflect resume-visible signals of excellence — the kind of attributes a top sourcer would be trained to spot in a profile. Avoid soft skills or subjective phrases that can’t be evaluated on a profile.

Examples

• For Sales
  • Experience closing B2B SaaS deals of $50K+ ARR as an Account Executive or in a similar quota-carrying sales role
  • Quota attainment of 100%+ in 2 or more years, visible in profile summary or role descriptions
  • Experience selling into enterprise or mid-market segments at a high-growth startup
• For Engineering
  • 5+ years of experience building and scaling backend systems using Python
  • Contributed to cloud-native architectures or worked with tools like Kubernetes or Docker
• For Product
  • 3+ years of experience as a Product Manager owning customer-facing products at a SaaS company
  • Experience launching products end-to-end, with mention of roadmap ownership or collaboration with engineering and design teams
• For Marketing
  • Led demand generation or lifecycle campaigns in a B2B SaaS environment
  • Experience using MarTech tools such as Marketo, Hubspot, or Segment
  • Demonstrated pipeline contribution or campaign results in profile description or listed metrics

During the Search Setup

• Maximize the Benefits of AI: Research shows AI Agents with one or both of the below options included produce higher quality profiles as measured by higher ATS passthrough rates
  • Select “What job are you sourcing for?”
    • Note: This is available if your ATS is connected to Gem, where your AI Agent can read your job posting to set AI-Suggested criteria (you can edit the AI-Suggested criteria later)
  • Paste your intake doc or include additional details on your ideal hire in “Suggestion: Paste in role intake doc or describe your ideal profile. Intake docs provide richer insights — more details lead to better results!”
    • Paste your work from the “Before Setting Up the Search” section into the text box
    • If your ATS is not connected to Gem or you’re running a search for a job not currently open in your ATS, paste the job posting into this text box
    • Mindset: If you had an assistant Recruiter, what information would you give them so they can find the top profiles for you? Paste that information into the text box!
      
      

After the Search Launch

• Rapid Iteration Cycles:
  
  
  • First 20–50 candidates reviewed within 24 hours, then adjust search settings dynamically.
    
    
• Train Recruiters to Look for High-ROI Profiles:
  
  
  • Coach them to spot potential not just pedigree — career momentum, project ownership, breadth of experience.
    
    
• Outcome-Driven Success Metrics:
  
  
  • Focus on quality of top 20 profiles, not raw pool size.

Best Practice: Instead of filtering by Companies or Years of Experience, the information is better included in the AI Agent either by

1. Having this set in the Criteria
2. As entered into the “Suggestion: Paste in role intake doc or describe your ideal profile” field. This prevents filtering out talent who are a fit, while ensuring you spend your time on the top talent since highest Match Scores are listed first

For More Information, See:

AI Sourcing Best Practices: Troubleshooting Too Few or Too Many Profiles

AI Best Practices: AI Scoring Criteria Best Practices

How to Apply Best Practices