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AI for Agency Recruiter

Use LinkedIn Recruiter's AI Hiring Assistant to Source Candidates Automatically

Tool:LinkedIn Recruiter
AI Feature:Hiring Assistant
Time:15 minutes
Difficulty:Beginner

What This Does

LinkedIn's AI Hiring Assistant auto-sources candidate shortlists for your open requisitions and drafts personalized InMail messages — using the AI features already included in your existing LinkedIn Recruiter subscription.

Before You Start

  • You have access to LinkedIn Recruiter (individual seat or team account)
  • You have an active job or project set up in Recruiter
  • You're logged into LinkedIn Recruiter (not regular LinkedIn)

Steps

1. Find the AI Hiring Assistant

Open LinkedIn Recruiter and navigate to your Projects tab. Select an existing project or create a new one for the role you're filling. Look for the Hiring Assistant button or icon in the upper right of the project view — it may appear as a sparkle icon or a dedicated "Hiring Assistant" tab depending on your Recruiter version.

What you should see: A panel that asks you to confirm or describe the role you're hiring for.

Troubleshooting: If you don't see Hiring Assistant, your account may be on an older tier. Check with your firm's LinkedIn account admin — it's included in most current Recruiter subscriptions but may need to be enabled.

2. Define the role requirements

When prompted, either link an existing job posting or describe the role directly. LinkedIn will ask about: required skills, years of experience, location preferences, and work model. Be as specific as possible — the more criteria you provide, the more targeted the sourcing.

What to type: For a Finance Director search, you might enter: "Finance Director, CPA preferred, 10+ years progressive finance experience, manufacturing industry background, hybrid, [City] metro area."

What you should see: The assistant begins surfacing a ranked list of candidate profiles that match your criteria.

3. Review the candidate shortlist

The Hiring Assistant will present 20–50 candidate profiles ranked by estimated fit. Each shows the candidate's current role, company, tenure, and key skills. Review the shortlist and:

  • Mark profiles as "Interested" (queues them for outreach) or "Not interested" (helps the AI calibrate future suggestions)
  • Rate several profiles so the AI learns your preferences for this search

Troubleshooting: If the shortlist is too narrow or missing obvious candidates, go back and loosen one or two criteria (remove a nice-to-have skill, expand the location radius).

4. Use AI-drafted InMail messages

For each candidate you mark as Interested, LinkedIn's AI will draft a personalized InMail based on the candidate's background and your role. Review the draft — it will reference something specific from the candidate's profile. Edit the first sentence if needed to make it sound like you, then send.

What you should see: A pre-written InMail draft, already personalized. Most require only a light edit to pass for human-written.

Real Example

Scenario: You have a new req for an Operations Manager at a mid-size logistics company. You typically spend 60–90 minutes per day sourcing manually.

What you do: Open the project in Recruiter, activate Hiring Assistant, describe the role (Operations Manager, 8+ years, logistics or supply chain background, local to [market], direct-hire). AI surfaces a shortlist of 35 candidates within 2 minutes. You mark 12 as Interested. LinkedIn drafts personalized InMails for each. You review, edit 3 that feel off, and send all 12 in under 15 minutes.

What you get: 12 sent InMails in 15 minutes vs. the 45+ minutes it would take to source and write them manually.

Tips

  • Use the "Not interested" feedback consistently — the AI refines its suggestions based on your ratings, improving shortlist quality over time.
  • Save your sourcing criteria as a reusable template within the project if you fill the same role type repeatedly.
  • Check if your firm has LinkedIn Recruiter team features enabled — sharing candidate shortlists across recruiters on the same team helps surface candidates found by colleagues.

Tool interfaces change — if a button has moved, look for similar AI/magic/smart options in the same menu area.