Sourcing frustration is usually diagnosed as a volume problem. Not enough candidates in the funnel. Not enough searches. Not enough outreach.

Steven Lu thinks it's the opposite problem.

Steven is the co-founder and CEO of Pin.com and the founder of Interseller, a recruiting outreach platform that helped place over 40,000 candidates before being acquired by Greenhouse in 2021. After two years inside Greenhouse studying the top of the recruiting funnel, he launched PIN to solve a specific, persistent problem: the candidates most worth finding are the ones current sourcing tools miss.

In this episode, Steven explains why 30% of top talent is essentially invisible in LinkedIn searches. He breaks down how PIN's shadow resume technology rebuilds candidate profiles from external data to surface people who've never described themselves online. He also shares the outreach approach that generates 30 to 40% response rates, the exact sequence he recommends (3 emails and 2 LinkedIn touches), and the four most common mistakes that quietly destroy deliverability.

The bigger picture matters for every recruiter working in an increasingly noisy market. The era of high-volume outreach is coming to an end. Email providers are measuring engagement signals. Spam filters are getting sharper. The recruiters who win over the next two or three years will be the ones who source fewer candidates, make each one count, and treat every outreach like it's going to the one person who can fill the role.

This is a practical conversation about what's changing in sourcing and how to address it.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• Why the most qualified candidates rarely appear in standard keyword searches

• How PIN's shadow resume makes unfindable candidates findable

• What PIN's autopilot mode does and how to set it up with just two inputs

• Why you should cap your outreach sequence at five steps

• The four most damaging outreach mistakes recruiters make

• Why including a Google Doc link beats pasting the job description every time

• How to structure omnichannel outreach across email and LinkedIn

• Why the top 1% of billers operate from a very short candidate Rolodex

Episode highlights:

• [3:49] From Interseller to Greenhouse to PIN - Steven's journey

• [9:34] The talent curve: why top candidates don't show up in search

• [13:36] PIN's North Star KPI: 7 out of 10 candidates accepted

• [27:32] Autopilot mode: 50 candidates sourced for you every weekday

• [37:34] Why volume sourcing is running out of road

• [44:57] The four outreach mistakes killing your response rates

• [49:50] The 5-step sequence Steven recommends

• [1:04:12] How the top 1% of billers think about their candidate pipeline

Guest bio: Steven Lu is the co-founder and CEO of Pin.com. He previously founded Interseller, which helped place over 40,000 candidates before being acquired by Greenhouse in 2021. He spent two years at Greenhouse before launching PIN in December 2024. Steven is based in Brooklyn, New York.

Connect with Steven: Pin.com - book a free demo or start a free trial

Connect with Mark: Free 30-minute strategy session: recruitmentcoach.com/strategy-session Mark on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/mwhitby Follow on Instagram: @RecruitmentCoach