A candidate checks LinkedIn and finds: “Dear Candidate, I came across your impressive profile. We have an urgent opportunity. Kindly send your CV.” There is no company, reason for the approach or clue whether the role is relevant. Delete.
The recruiter blames a difficult market. Usually, the first failure was a message designed around the vacancy rather than the candidate’s attention.
Mads Faurholt-Jorgensen’s TEDx talk treats recruiting as a leadership discipline. Applied to sourcing, that means fewer, better-considered conversations.
Define who actually needs to hear from you
Start with the hiring brief: outcomes, essential capabilities and trainable skills. Identify which kinds of work could provide credible evidence, including adjacent sectors and less obvious titles.
Suppose a Gqeberha manufacturer needs a maintenance planner who can prioritise shutdown work and coordinate artisans, suppliers and production. Searching only one automotive title may miss comparable people in food processing, ports or renewable energy. Search for evidence of the problem, not a clone of the former employee.
A clear talent hypothesis narrows irrelevant contact while preserving legitimate routes into the role. That beats collecting profiles and hoping volume fixes weak definition.
Personalise around evidence, not identity
Personalisation should answer: “Why did you contact me?” Use professional information the person deliberately made visible—a project, skill, publication or stated interest—and connect it to the job.
“Your public case study about coordinating rooftop-solar installations stood out because this role will standardise project handovers in Gauteng” is specific. “You look young and energetic” is not. Do not infer race, age, religion, disability, pregnancy, family status or other sensitive characteristics to manufacture familiarity.
South African employment-equity guidance confirms that applicants are protected against unfair discrimination. Relevance must come from job-related evidence, not guesses about identity.
Make the first message useful
Do not hide the opportunity behind “Can we chat?” Give the person enough information to decide whether a conversation is worthwhile.
Identify yourself and the employer, explain the connection, describe the problem the hire will own, share settled practical details you may disclose, and offer a low-pressure next step. Clarity about location, contract type, working pattern and an approved salary range can prevent wasted calls.
For example: “Lerato, your work improving stock accuracy across multiple branches looks relevant to an inventory-control role with a Durban distributor. The person will investigate recurring variances and build a weekly view for branch leaders. It is permanent and site-based. I can send the full brief if useful; if not, no reply is required.”
Do not paste a full job description or claim to have carefully reviewed a profile you barely opened. Trust begins with accuracy.
Let “no” be a complete answer
Follow-up can help when people miss messages. Repeated nudges across LinkedIn, email, WhatsApp and phone feel like surveillance.
There is no universal perfect cadence. One thoughtful follow-up may be appropriate; five copies are not. Respect visible channel preferences, make declining easy and record objections so another recruiter does not restart the chase.
If the timing is wrong, ask whether the person wants future contact instead of silently adding them to a permanent talent pool. A relationship exists only when both sides understand it.
Build privacy discipline into sourcing
POPIA is not a reason to stop recruiting, but it requires deliberate processing. Consent may be an appropriate lawful basis in some situations; it is not the only possible basis for processing generally. Organisations should document the basis, purpose and retention approach for the activity.
Collect only information relevant to a defined hiring purpose and record its source. Explain who is contacting the person and why. Secure prospect lists, limit access, maintain accuracy and provide a route for access, correction or objection. Review cross-border tools and vendors rather than assuming a browser extension makes processing acceptable.
Avoid mystery CV databases and exported lists with no reliable provenance. Do not collect identity numbers, health information or family details because they might be useful someday. Recruitment outreach is not automatically direct marketing; classification depends on its purpose and context, while POPIA’s broader processing conditions still matter. If an electronic message is direct marketing, section 69 adds stricter rules, including prior consent or the Act’s limited existing-customer exception. Get legal review before treating a recruiting campaign as exempt.
Measure signal, not sending activity
Counting messages rewards volume. Track relevant contacts, interested replies, qualified conversations, objections, mistaken matches and candidate feedback. Review why people decline: scope, pay, location, timing or poor targeting.
LinkedIn’s own analysis observed stronger response patterns for shorter and personalised messages. Treat that as a prompt, not a formula: the research was platform-specific and observational, so it cannot prove that particular wording caused a reply.
Audit patterns too. If sourcing overlooks qualified groups or applies different standards, a high response rate does not make it fair.
Turn every contact into reputation
Sourcing is often a person’s first experience of an employer. Answer questions, close the loop when a role changes, and do not disappear after requesting a CV. Do not circulate details for unrelated vacancies without an appropriate purpose and process.
Hiring managers can provide a real description of the work and respond quickly to suitable prospects. Recruiters can preserve appropriate context instead of treating every campaign as a fresh data harvest.
The goal is not a clever message that defeats resistance. It is to earn attention with a credible opportunity, a defensible reason for contact and respect for choice. That sends fewer messages—and gives each one a reason to exist.
Sources and limits
- Mads Faurholt-Jorgensen — How to Master Recruiting, TEDxWarwick. The talk inspired the leadership-discipline framing; it is commentary, not legal authority or proof that every recommendation works everywhere.
LinkedIn’s analysis is older, observational and platform-specific; it does not establish universal causation or guaranteed response rates. Consent is not the only possible basis for processing generally, but POPIA section 69 applies stricter rules when electronic outreach qualifies as direct marketing. Whether recruitment outreach falls within that definition depends on its purpose and context. This article offers general operational guidance, not personal legal advice.