Free playbook for recruiters

Brief Claude like a junior resourcer and get candidates who actually fit

The sourcing brief template, the shortlist prompt and the scoring rubric we hand recruiters in onboarding, ready to copy into Claude on your next live role.

Why 94scored against the spec

Six years of Go in productionmet
Led a migration with no freezemet
Payments or ledger backgroundmet
German at working levelnot shown

Sound familiar?

“You paste the job description into Claude and get back a list of people who only match the title.”
“Claude tries to search LinkedIn on its own, gets blocked, and scores candidates on half a profile.”
“The list misses the people you would have found yourself, because Claude never heard what the client said on the call.”
“You spend longer fixing the list than it would have taken to source it by hand.”

What changes for your desk

Brief Claude like a junior resourcer, give it the right tools and a scoring rubric, and every search returns candidates who fit instead of a list you have to redo.

Lists that fit the first time
Must-haves, nice-to-haves and no-gos are written down before the search runs, so Claude filters the way you would.
Less time fixing, more time calling
A brief that carries the call and the reference profiles removes most of the back and forth that eats a sourcing morning.
The people a title search misses
Competitor sweeps, step-up candidates and lookalikes find the people who never wrote the right keyword on their profile.
The same standard on every desk
One brief template and one rubric mean every recruiter on the team sources and scores the same way.

Before and after Claude

Today

A job description pasted into Claude as the whole brief
Claude searching the open web and getting blocked on LinkedIn
Scores based on a headline and a current title
A list you redo by hand before a client sees it

With the playbook

A brief with must-haves, no-gos and reference profiles from the call
Searches across built-in people databases with dated work history
Every score backed by a quoted line from the candidate's history
A list you can screen and send the same day

Three fixes turn Claude into a sourcer you can trust.

Sourcing briefOne promptScoring rubric
You give it
Build the sourcing brief from the job description, the call with the hiring manager, your notes and two or three reference profiles. Claude interviews you on the gaps.
+51 more
hyreflow does
hyreflow gives Claude the people databases and work histories it lacks on its own. Claude searches competitors, step-up candidates and lookalikes, then scores everyone against your rubric with the evidence quoted.
Candidates who fitReviewRun end to end
You decide
You read a ranked list where every score has a reason, and choose who to call.

Three moves the playbook sets up

Each one is a play you run from the same conversation. The playbook gives you the prompt, the settings and what to do when a list misses.

Source from the competitors first

Name the companies your client would hire from and Claude maps the people inside them who match the brief, before it searches the wider market.

Source from named competitors

Claude

hyreflow connected

Use hyreflow and source backend engineers from these five companies only. Apply our off-limits list and tell me who it dropped.

AI Arkpeople at the named companies found
Recruit CRMoff-limits list applied

Acme PaymentsSix engineers match

Acme MobilityFour engineers match

Acme BankDropped: current client

Find the step-up candidate

The person one level below the role is often the realistic hire. Claude finds them and rates how ready each one is, with the evidence for and against.

Find the step-up candidate

Why 94scored against the spec

Six years of Go in productionmet
Led a migration with no freezemet
Payments or ledger backgroundmet
German at working levelnot shown

More like your best reference profile

Point at the person the client wants more of. Claude writes down what makes them a fit, you correct it, and it searches for people who share those traits.

Lookalikes of your best placement

Claude

hyreflow connected

senior-backend-engineer-jd.pdf

Use hyreflow and turn this job spec into a ranked shortlist. Berlin or remote in Germany, score each person against the must-haves, and find a personal email or LinkedIn profile for the top ten.

AI Arkpeople databases searched
Exapublic profiles read
LeadMagicpersonal emails found

Kenji Sato

Staff Engineer, Acme Payments. Berlin

Ran the ledger migration the spec describes. Six years of Go, on-call lead.

GoPaymentsSix years in production

Lucia Moreno

Senior Backend Engineer, Acme Mobility. Munich

Meets every must-have. No payments background, strong distributed systems.

GoKubernetes

Amara Bello

Engineering Lead, Acme Cloud. Remote

RustThree years in role

What's in the playbook

9 chapters, from connecting Claude to running the search every week without asking.

01
Why Claude sourcing usually fails
The three reasons we hear in almost every onboarding call, and what fixes each one.
02
Connect hyreflow to Claude
One connector gives Claude the people databases, work histories and contact data it lacks.
03
The sourcing brief template
The brief you would give a junior resourcer, with must-haves, nice-to-haves and no-gos, ready to fill in.
04
Feed it everything you know
How to turn the job description, the call transcript, your notes and reference profiles into one brief.
05
Build the brief with Claude
A prompt that drafts the brief, interviews you on the gaps and brainstorms search angles until it is complete.
06
The shortlist prompt
The copy-paste prompt that runs three sourcing strategies and scores the result.
07
The scoring rubric
A 100-point rubric with hard gates, weights and call tiers, so every score means the same thing.
08
Correct the first ten, then scale
The plain-English corrections that fix a list that misses.
09
When it goes wrong
The fixes for the snags we see most.

The first prompt

Claude prompt

Use hyreflow and build a ranked shortlist of 10 candidates from the sourcing brief above. Run three searches: people at the competitor companies I list, people one level below the role who are ready to step up, and lookalikes of my reference profiles. Pull each person's dated work history, drop anyone who fails a must-have or hits a no-go, and score the rest with the rubric above, quoting the evidence. Show me the list before you look up any contact details.

Who it's for

Agency recruiters and resourcers already using Claude for delivery
Desk owners who want every recruiter to brief and score the same way
In-house recruiters running hard searches without a sourcing team

What you need

Claude (the desktop app or claude.ai). The free plan allows one custom connector, which is enough
A free hyreflow account
One live role, with the job description and your notes from the intake call

This playbook, answered

Something else? Bring it to Open Office, the weekly open call.

Can I use the brief and the rubric without hyreflow?

Yes. The template and the rubric work in any Claude chat. Without tools, Claude can only score the profiles you paste in; it cannot find new candidates or read their full work history.

Do I need accounts with LinkedIn, Apollo or other data tools?

No. The people databases and contact-data providers are built into hyreflow. You only need Claude and a hyreflow account.

Does hyreflow touch my LinkedIn account?

No. It never logs into LinkedIn. It searches its own data providers, so there is no account risk.

How is this different from the shortlist playbook?

This kit is the briefing and scoring layer. The shortlist playbook walks a full run end to end, including contact data and pushing the list into your ATS.

Which Claude model should I use?

Opus. A small, fast model skips steps and returns weak lists.