--- id: mech.speculative_sourcing_talent_pooling_without_opening type: mechanism title: "Speculative Sourcing / Talent Pooling Without Opening" lang: en registry: 1.11.0 canonical: https://hoba.work/mechanisms/mech.speculative_sourcing_talent_pooling_without_opening json: https://hoba.work/api/v1/mechanisms/mech.speculative_sourcing_talent_pooling_without_opening.json --- # Speculative Sourcing / Talent Pooling Without Opening Recruiters open conversations and build candidate pools against headcount that has not been approved or funded. > **On the canonical path** — [Published with its terms on the page](https://hoba.work/process#proc.the_path_as_it_is_supposed_to_run-published) > > The posting states the compensation band, the location rules, the stages the process has and roughly how long each takes. It comes down when the search ends. > > This entry is one of the ways that commitment stops being kept. > **What made this ordinary** — [Zero rates and a same-year deduction](https://hoba.work/eras#era.zero_rates_and_a_same_year_deduction) (2008–2019), [The record funding years](https://hoba.work/eras#era.the_record_funding_years) (2020–2021) ## At a glance - Actor: recruiter - Nature: incentive - Visibility: opaque - Agency zone: none - Evidence: supported ## What it looks like Composite excerpts, written to be typical rather than copied. No particular message, company or person is quoted here. **What the outreach was actually for** — *reconstruction* ``` day 1 Candidate Great talking today. To set expectations — is there an open requisition behind this? > day 1 Recruiter Not yet. We are building a bench ahead of the Q3 planning round; if the headcount is approved you would be first in line. day 1 Candidate Understood, thanks for saying so. ``` *What to notice* A straight answer converts a mystery into a schedule. The same silence three months later means something entirely different once this line exists. ## From each side The same entry from inside each position that meets it: what reaches them, what it means from there, and what happens next given what they control. ### Recruiter - **What reaches them:** Planning signals about headcount that is not yet approved, and a market where the profiles worth contacting are contacted early. - **What it means from there:** A pipeline built now converts if the requisition lands; a pipeline built after approval starts from zero, and time-to-fill is measured either way. - **What happens next:** Opens conversations ahead of approval and holds them with no stage to move them into until the headcount is decided. ### Candidate - **What reaches them:** Direct outreach describing a specific role, then a conversation, then no reply — and no posting to check the role against. - **What it means from there:** Silence after a specific conversation reads as an assessment of the profile. Nothing in the exchange separates that from a requisition that was never opened. - **What happens next:** Asks whether a requisition exists and is funded before spending rounds on it, and treats the answer as the date the process actually starts. ### Employer policy - **What reaches them:** Headcount requests arriving at planning with named candidates already attached to them. - **What it means from there:** A team ready to move quickly if the role is approved. The conversations that produced the names are not part of the approval record. - **What happens next:** Decides funding on the quarterly cycle, and an approval or a deferral closes conversations this layer never saw. ### ATS vendor - **What reaches them:** Contact records held in a talent pool with no requisition attached, and nurture sequences configured against them. - **What it means from there:** A supported workflow behaving normally. The platform does not require a requisition to exist before outreach is sent from it. - **What happens next:** Ships the pool, the sequences and the expiry defaults; whether a record is attached to an open requisition stays a field the customer fills or leaves blank. ## What this observation does NOT establish - Ghosting after an outbound message indicates the absence of an immediate opening, not a rejection of the profile. ## Related entries - operates at — [bar.requisition_approval_public_posting](https://hoba.work/barriers/bar.requisition_approval_public_posting) — Requisition Approval & Public Posting - operates at — [bar.outbound_sourcing_talent_pool_contact](https://hoba.work/barriers/bar.outbound_sourcing_talent_pool_contact) — Outbound Sourcing & Talent Pool Contact - operates at — [bar.inbound_screening_triage](https://hoba.work/barriers/bar.inbound_screening_triage) — Inbound Screening & Triage - operates at — [bar.recruiter_screening_call](https://hoba.work/barriers/bar.recruiter_screening_call) — Recruiter Screening Call - emits — [obs.unsolicited_recruiter_outreach_followed_by_ghosting](https://hoba.work/observations/obs.unsolicited_recruiter_outreach_followed_by_ghosting) — Unsolicited recruiter outreach followed by ghosting - emits — [obs.complete_silence_after_submission](https://hoba.work/observations/obs.complete_silence_after_submission) — Complete silence after submission - emits — [obs.republished_job_posting_with_refreshed_date_and_identical_requirement_body](https://hoba.work/observations/obs.republished_job_posting_with_refreshed_date_and_identical_requirement_body) — Republished job posting with refreshed date and identical requirement body - amplifies — [mech.recruiter_volume_quota_incentive_distortion](https://hoba.work/mechanisms/mech.recruiter_volume_quota_incentive_distortion) — Recruiter Volume & Quota Incentive Distortion --- hoba — a public, versioned atlas of hiring obstacles. 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