Turning
people
into candidates.

The hiring manager leads, because they know what's being looked for and know their team. I am their direct sourcer: I find, attract, adjust at their side. Your talent acquisition manager (or HR) picks up the next step, assessment and team coherence. Between the three of us, we cover the business need, the reality of the market and the quality of outreach.

A standard 4-sprint mission runs over 4 to 6 calendar weeks, depending on your interview pace. A critical mission (7 to 8 sprints) lasts 8 to 12 weeks. A specific mission (mapping) can be delivered in 2 to 4 weeks depending on scope.

Finding people to contact always happens. That's the mechanic of sourcing: we map, we identify, we approach. The real question is what we do when the market does not respond, or when nothing aligns with your expectations.

The advantage of sprints is to understand exactly where it blocks. Salary, brand perception, technical requirements, state of the market. From there, we have options: add sprints to readjust angles, revisit the role together, or close cleanly.

Sometimes an mission does not produce an immediate hire. That is rare, and always for a reason we will have identified. But the relationships initiated stay. Missions categorized "no hire at time T" have generated hires 12 or 24 months later, when the context of the approached profiles had changed.

Sourcing is rarely a failure. It can be a long timeframe.

Not by contract, by common sense. I am on a flat fee, I don't need formal exclusivity.

What's compatible: your entire in-house recruiting dispositif keeps running in parallel. The ad on your site, referrals, spontaneous applications. If the right profile comes through another channel during my mission, all the better. I come in support of your dispositif, not in its place.

What makes no sense: launching several firms on the same role in parallel. Not for commercial reasons, but because it blurs the market. You no longer know who is contacting whom. Two or three vendors may approach the same profiles with contradictory angles, and it's your employer brand that pays the price. I always work in alignment with your brand. The others, you don't know.

No upfront list. My criterion is the impact of the mission on the world's trajectory. If I see it goes the right way, I take it. Otherwise, I decline. It's not a dogma, it's case-by-case judgment.

I worked for Philip Morris on business transformations toward tobacco alternatives. Sports betting companies sometimes reach out and we discuss. Defense companies too: we look at the mission, the objective, the impact, and I decide. I've declined helping build certain AI systems, and I've helped others stand up their team from zero. I've said no to missions in some politically or geographically tense contexts, and yes to others in the same sectors elsewhere.

What I systematically decline are missions that don't require my expertise (simple roles, juniors, volume). Not an ethical question, a utility question.

What particularly matters to me: quantum physics, nuclear fusion, energy stakes. Those are the terrains where I give my best.

When in doubt, we talk. The conversation stays between us.

Not exactly. Both terms designate the same thing, and we do share the core mechanic: direct approach. But the model is very different.

A head-hunter works externally. They search, qualify, propose you a shortlist of candidates, and choose for you who's on it. They bill a percentage of the annual salary (30 to 35%, one-third on signature, non-refundable), mobilise a team (consultant, researcher, assistant) and often work on several missions in parallel.

I work as if I were in-house, but without being part of your team. Flat-fee, single operator on the mission. No commercial layer, no delegation, no percentage. We co-build the target and outreach angles, you see everything, you validate everything. No black box, no imposed shortlist. The difference is not in the approach method: it's in the posture and the economic model.

No. A placement agency works externally: it speaks "for its client" without being integrated into your employer brand. It rather manages inbound (ads, spontaneous applications) and proposes you a shortlist of its own making. Sourcing may exist there, but it is not the core craft.

I work the opposite way. No CV base, no candidate in stock. For each mission, I start from zero based on your problem. I map the market, I go fetch directly the profiles who were not looking, and all of them know it's you who's hiring. Like your in-house sourcer, complementing your dispositif (ad, referrals, spontaneous applications). We co-build, you validate every step.

On exceptional occasion, I've helped sort through inbound applications for a client, at their request. It was their ad, on their site, under their brand. Not mine.

Not as a subcontractor. I am not here to replace a firm or staffing company and do their work for them on one of their clients' missions. On that point, it's no.

On the other hand, I train. Teach to fish, don't fish for them. If a team from a firm or staffing company wants to source better, structure their direct approach, build an in-house sourcing function, I can train them. Sourcing know-how is something I have no problem sharing. It's even what I do via People Attraction Theory, my dedicated training practice.