How Recruiters Go From Dabbling With AI to Real Results, with Vanessa Raath

Vanessa Raath recently trained a team in Canada who thought they were using AI quite well. They all had the paid version.

They just didn’t know what it could do.

Vanessa helps recruitment teams put AI to work on their desks. She was already known worldwide for talent sourcing training when ChatGPT launched in November 2022. Within six months, she recognized how much sourcing work it could support and began training recruiters on AI. Today, she works with teams around the world from a small town on the South African coast.

In this conversation, Vanessa walks Mark through a repeatable workflow that combines a raw CV, interview notes and a LinkedIn profile into a formatted CV and executive summary in under five minutes. She explains how she gets AI to help write her sourcing prompts, organizes client information, and teaches it to sound like her.

They also discuss what recruiters need to do with the time they save. Vanessa explains why she ignores headhunters she can’t find online, and why a visible presence in your market gives clients and candidates a reason to trust you.

If your team pays for AI but is still dabbling with it, this episode will help you decide what to set up first.

In this episode:

How to identify a recurring recruitment task for AI to help with

Building a reusable skill for candidate CVs and executive summaries

Why Claude gave Vanessa the best results when she tested three tools

Removing sensitive personal information before uploading candidate documents

Using Exa for candidate research and Tavily for competitor intelligence