The Million Dollar Sourcing Assessment
The Million Dollar Sourcing Assessment
We’ve hired quite a few sourcers, researchers, and sourcing leaders recently. And in every single interview, I asked the same question.
No trick. No trap. Just one simple search problem.
Which Boolean search returns more results?
recruiterrecruiter OR "senior recruiter"recruiter OR "senior recruiter" OR "senior IT recruiter"
Take a moment. Think about it. Really think about it — don’t just go with your gut.
The answer is… 🥁
Ha! I’m not going to tell you.
Not because I want to be annoying (okay, maybe a little), but because the answer matters less than how you get there.
In every interview, almost nobody got it right on the first try. And that’s fine. Most candidates explain the logic correctly and still get the answer wrong. They confidently walk through OR logic, string expansion, subsets… and then conclude that #3 must be the winner.
Because more is the merrier, right?
Well, not always.
What I’m looking for isn’t just the right answer. It’s whether real thinking is happening — out loud, under pressure, in front of a stranger. Can you step outside your default assumptions and wrestle with a new concept on the spot? Most sourcers find candidates. Exceptional sourcers treat sourcing as a cognitive game, constantly stress-testing their logic against reality.
So what does this question reveal?
Quite a lot.
✅ Do they pressure-test their own thinking? Rushing to an answer is itself an answer. Great sourcers don’t pattern-match — they pause, question, and commit only when the logic holds.
✅ Do they challenge what’s in front of them? Sometimes the brief is wrong. The requirement doesn’t exist. The search makes no sense. Do they notice — and do they say something? The ones who do are worth their weight in gold.
✅ Do they dare to ask questions back? This one is about the room, not the work. Are they comfortable enough in their own thinking to question you, the interviewer? Intellectual confidence doesn’t pause for hierarchy.
✅ Do they know what they don’t know? Someone who says “I think #3, but I’d want to test it” is already operating at a senior level. Overconfidence in sourcing is expensive.
✅ How do they react when they’re wrong? Defensive or curious — it shows immediately. Coachability isn’t something you assess over months. It’s right here, in this moment.
✅ How do they react when they finally get it? That’s the tell. There’s a specific look on the faces of people genuinely driven by intellectual honesty — a kind of quiet chapeau. Respect, Shifu. 🙏
One question. Two minutes. And you learn more than in an hour of CV review.
That’s why I call it the million dollar assessment — not because it’s complicated, but because the cost of getting this wrong, at scale, is very real.
What would your answer have been? Be honest in the comments — you’re in good company either way. 🧙🏻♂️👇
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