Sourcing in 2026: How Recruitment Leaders Are Filling Hard-to-Fill Roles

Finding candidates has never been easier. Finding the right candidates has rarely been more difficult.

Artificial intelligence has transformed recruitment at remarkable speed. Recruiters can search millions of profiles in seconds, candidates can tailor CVs to individual vacancies using AI, and automated outreach has become commonplace across the industry. Yet despite these advances, organisations continue to report increasing difficulty filling specialist roles, while the professionals employers most want to hire are becoming harder to reach than ever.

During a recent TRN World webinar, Bel Martijena, CEO of Kleos, explored why this apparent contradiction exists. His central message was clear: competitive advantage no longer comes from searching harder. It comes from sourcing smarter.

For recruitment leaders, that means shifting focus from generating more candidates to identifying better talent, engaging people more effectively and making far better use of the data and relationships already within their business.

The sourcing challenge has changed

One of the biggest misconceptions in today's recruitment market is that more applications should naturally lead to faster hiring.

In reality, the opposite is happening.

While application volumes have increased significantly over recent years, recruiters are finding it increasingly difficult to identify genuinely suitable candidates. AI has made it easier than ever for applicants to tailor CVs around keywords and job descriptions, meaning many applications appear highly relevant during initial screening.

The result is that recruiters spend more time reviewing candidates but gain less confidence in what they are reading.

At the same time, hiring managers continue to face genuine skills shortages, particularly within specialist disciplines. According to the market data shared during the session, employers across the world continue to report growing difficulty filling vacancies, with AI capability now overtaking engineering and IT as one of the hardest skill sets to recruit.

The challenge, therefore, is no longer simply finding people. It is separating genuine capability from increasingly sophisticated noise.

Passive candidates are becoming even more passive

Hard-to-fill roles have always depended heavily on passive candidates, but today's market presents additional challenges.

Many experienced professionals are choosing stability over career moves, preferring to remain in existing positions rather than risk changing employers. At the same time, the most in-demand specialists receive a constant stream of recruiter approaches every week.

The consequence is predictable.

Generic outreach becomes easier to ignore, response rates continue to fall and automated messaging simply adds to an already crowded inbox.

This changes the role of sourcing considerably. Recruitment businesses can no longer rely on sending greater volumes of outreach. Success increasingly depends on identifying the right individuals and approaching them with messages that are genuinely relevant to both their experience and career aspirations.

Quality of engagement has become more important than quantity of activity.

Better sourcing starts with better segmentation

Artificial intelligence has made candidate matching significantly faster, but Bel argued that ranking candidates alone is no longer enough.

Two professionals may achieve almost identical match scores while representing entirely different career paths or specialisms.

He illustrated this with an example from healthcare recruitment. A search for nurses produced hundreds of candidates with almost identical AI match scores. On closer analysis, however, the candidate pool naturally separated into distinct groups, including frontline clinical nurses and case management professionals.

Although both groups looked equally relevant on paper, they represented different experience, different motivations and different opportunities.

Rather than relying solely on a ranked shortlist, recruiters benefit from understanding these natural talent segments before engaging candidates.

This creates more relevant conversations, stronger personalisation and a clearer understanding of which talent pools genuinely align with the client's requirements.

It also supports more responsible candidate engagement by ensuring recruiters contact people with a legitimate and relevant opportunity.

Sometimes the perfect candidate does not exist

One of the most valuable observations from the session concerned recruiter conversations with hiring managers.

When talent markets become constrained, continuing to search for an exact match often becomes an exercise in frustration.

Instead, recruiters should begin identifying adjacent capability.

Rather than focusing exclusively on identical job titles or identical sector experience, the discussion shifts towards transferable skills, related disciplines and neighbouring talent pools that could deliver the same commercial outcome.

Technology can support these conversations by providing market intelligence and visualising the size of available talent pools. Instead of simply reporting that recruitment is difficult, recruiters can present evidence explaining why candidate availability is limited and where opportunities may exist if hiring criteria are adjusted.

For recruitment businesses operating in specialist markets, this advisory role becomes increasingly valuable.

Relationships remain the strongest sourcing advantage

Despite advances in AI, one sourcing channel continues to outperform almost every other.

Referrals.

Bel highlighted that referrals represent only a relatively small proportion of overall applications while contributing a disproportionately large share of successful hires. They also tend to reduce time to hire considerably.

The lesson is straightforward.

Recruitment businesses should view every candidate interaction as the beginning of a long-term relationship rather than a single transaction.

Candidates who narrowly miss out on one role may become ideal placements for future opportunities. Existing contacts may introduce colleagues who are better suited to a vacancy than they are themselves. Historic relationships can often provide access to passive candidates that cold outreach never reaches.

Technology can support this by helping recruiters understand the strength of relationships across their existing networks, but the underlying principle remains entirely human.

Trust continues to outperform unsolicited outreach.

Your database is probably your most valuable sourcing asset

One of the strongest themes throughout the webinar was the value hidden within recruitment databases.

Many agencies invest significant time and money building candidate databases over many years, yet relatively little of that information is used strategically.

Previous applicants, silver medal candidates, historic placements and long-standing relationships often contain opportunities that are overlooked while recruiters begin fresh external searches.

Bel encouraged recruitment businesses to think differently about these assets.

Instead of viewing the database as a record of past activity, it should become an active sourcing resource that is continuously refreshed, segmented and maintained.

Doing so allows recruiters to identify suitable candidates more quickly, uncover referral opportunities and reactivate relationships when appropriate.

Naturally, this must be done responsibly, with GDPR compliance and lawful processing forming an integral part of any re-engagement strategy.

Well-maintained data is not simply a compliance requirement. It is a competitive advantage.

AI makes recruiter judgement more important, not less

Few topics generate more discussion than artificial intelligence replacing recruiters.

Bel took a different view.

While AI undoubtedly accelerates sourcing, screening and administrative activity, it also creates entirely new challenges.

Recruiters increasingly encounter AI-generated CVs, automated candidate content and even the potential for deepfake interviews. As technology makes it easier for individuals to present themselves convincingly, validating genuine capability becomes even more important.

This reinforces rather than diminishes the value of experienced recruiters.

Technology can analyse conversations, assess language capability, automate early screening and improve productivity, but human judgement remains essential when evaluating authenticity, building trust and recommending candidates to clients.

In many respects, recruiter expertise becomes even more valuable precisely because AI is becoming so capable.

Technology succeeds when it supports process

Throughout the webinar, one point remained consistent.

Automation alone is not the answer.

Technology delivers the greatest value when combined with clear recruitment processes, disciplined data management and experienced consultants who understand how to interpret the information being presented.

The most successful recruitment businesses are not replacing recruiters with AI. They are removing repetitive administrative work, improving candidate visibility, strengthening database intelligence and allowing consultants to spend more time where they add the greatest value - advising clients, engaging candidates and making informed hiring decisions.

That balance between technology and human expertise is becoming the defining characteristic of high-performing recruitment businesses.

A new measure of sourcing success

As recruitment leaders continue investing in AI and automation, one question stands out from Bel's presentation.

How many of your successful placements come from candidates already within your own database?

For many businesses, that figure is surprisingly difficult to answer.

Yet understanding it provides a valuable measure of how effectively an organisation is using one of its greatest commercial assets.

The recruitment firms filling the hardest roles in 2026 are unlikely to be those sending the highest volume of outreach or adopting every new AI tool.

They will be the firms that understand their talent communities, build lasting relationships, use data intelligently and equip their recruiters to make better decisions.

Technology may continue to evolve at extraordinary speed, but sourcing success still depends on combining better information with better judgement. That remains a distinctly human advantage.

Speaker: Bel Martijena - CEO, Kleos

For more information about Kleos, visit their Partner page here.