Most sourcing you see at a conference is the highlight reel — the final candidate, the case study slide, the LinkedIn post with the win already locked in. What you never see is the middle: the dead-end string, the pivot to a completely different industry, the moment a search that looked hopeless suddenly clicks. That middle is where the actual skill lives, and nobody puts it on stage.

In this session, host Tommy Weinert puts three of the best sourcers in the world on stage, laptops wired into the big screen, and turns them loose on the hardest reqs. Some are pulled at random from three locked boxes — skill set, location, and a wild card (fluent in Mandarin, plays water polo) — stacked together into one brutal, worst-case-scenario opening. Others come straight from the audience — bring your toughest, most impossible-to-fill req and watch three different sourcers attack it live, in real time, with everyone in the room able to see every string, every pivot, and every dead end.

This is for sourcers and recruiters who want technique, not theory. You'll watch three different people solve the same impossible problem three different ways, and leave with strings, shortcuts, and lateral moves you can use the next time your own toughest req lands on your desk.

Attendee Takeaways

Live technique, not a highlight reel. Watch real searches unfold in real time on brutal reqs, with the dead ends left in. See exactly how top sourcers move when the clock is running and there's no do-over.
There's no single right answer. Three sourcers, one req, three completely different approaches. See how lateral thinking, adjacent industries, and niche communities open up paths a straightforward search would miss entirely.
Boolean strings, X-ray hacks, and AI prompts worth stealing. Walk away with specific searches and shortcuts you can put to work Monday morning — the kind that don't usually make it into a blog post.
How to source for what isn't in a field. Willingness to relocate, culture fit, soft skills that never sit cleanly in an ATS. Get practical approaches for finding what a standard keyword search will always miss.