ATS SOURCING AGENT
Give your ATS a sourcing agent.
Use RecruitMCP's candidate search and profile enrichment, through API or MCP, to build a sourcing workflow inside the ATS your team already uses. Search external profiles by title, company, location and keywords such as skills, compare them with your own records, enrich selected candidates, and bring a reviewed shortlist into the recruiter's existing workflow.
1,250 free credits
Illustrative example. Northstar Technical Recruitment is a fictional recruitment agency. This page shows an example workflow, not a real customer, testimonial or measured result.
A sourcing workflow built around the ATS
With a custom sourcing agent powered by RecruitMCP, the vacancy becomes the starting point. Your integration turns the brief into search criteria, retrieves relevant profiles and compares them with your own records. Recruiters see a shortlist with clear reasons for review, then choose which candidates get a full profile or an email and phone lookup. Nothing is enriched or looked up for everyone by default.
Workflow
Where RecruitMCP fits is marked with (RecruitMCP).
- Open role. The ATS sends the job description and role details to your integration backend. The recruiter or hiring manager decides when sourcing starts.
- Build search criteria. Your backend extracts title, seniority and location as search filters, turns skills into free-text keywords, and separates hard requirements from preferences. Locations resolve to search filters with resolve_location (RecruitMCP). The recruiter can edit the criteria, and a dry run previews the cost before anything is spent.
- Search and deduplicate. search_people returns relevant professional profiles (RecruitMCP). Your application compares them with ATS records, its own contact history and do-not-contact statuses before the shortlist is shown. check_candidates tells you who is already in your workspace's seen register (RecruitMCP).
- Review and enrich. The agent explains why each profile was surfaced, using the job requirements and the returned profile data. The recruiter picks people for a full profile with enrich_profiles, or to find email and phone with find_contact_details (RecruitMCP).
- Save and sync. Approved people go to a named list with save_to_list (RecruitMCP), and your integration writes approved statuses back to the ATS. The ATS remains the source of truth. Outreach is in early access: see Outreach in Claude.
Example candidate card
Illustrative example. All details below are synthetic and are not RecruitMCP search output.
Text version of this example
| Field | Illustrative display |
|---|---|
| Current role and location | Senior Software Engineer, Ghent, Belgium |
| Relevant profile signals | Go, Kubernetes, distributed systems |
| Reason surfaced | Several stated skills match the vacancy. Recruiter should check depth of platform ownership and team scope. |
| Actions | Review profile, Check ATS duplicates, Add to shortlist |
Tools and endpoints
| MCP tool | REST route | What it does |
|---|---|---|
resolve_location | GET /v1/lookups/locations | Resolve a place to a location filter. |
search_people | POST /v1/people/search | Search people: profiles for a filter set. |
check_candidates | POST /v1/seen:check | Check the seen register for your workspace. |
enrich_profiles | POST /v1/people:enrich | Enrich profiles. The profile does not include email or phone. |
find_contact_details | POST /v1/people/contacts:fetch | Find email and phone. A dry run returns the estimate first. |
save_to_list | POST /v1/lists | Save people to a list. |
Base URL https://api.recruitmcp.com. Full reference: MCP tools Quickstart
Who this is for
Recruitment software teams, ATS vendors, internal engineering teams and agencies whose ATS should be the starting point for sourcing, not a passive database.
The challenge
Illustrative example. Northstar is a specialist agency recruiting software and platform engineers in Belgium and the Netherlands. A client opens a Senior Platform Engineer vacancy in Ghent that asks for hands-on Go, Kubernetes and distributed systems experience.
When a role like this opens, Northstar's recruiters repeat the same manual steps: searching for profiles, checking spreadsheets, looking for duplicates in the ATS and tracking who has already been approached. Useful candidates can be missed simply because the process is spread across too many places, and profile research often happens before anyone has confirmed a candidate is worth pursuing.
Keep the recruiter in control
RecruitMCP provides candidate search, profile enrichment, email and phone lookup and lists. Your application defines the matching logic, the recruiter experience and the rules for writing data back to the ATS. Recruiters decide whom to shortlist and contact. Your team builds the workflow around your existing permissions, audit trail and candidate-status rules.
What RecruitMCP provides:
- Candidate search by title, company, location and seniority, plus free-text keywords such as skills (search_people, resolve_location)
- Full professional profiles with work history, education and skills (enrich_profiles)
- Find email and phone for the people you choose (find_contact_details)
- Lists and a seen register to avoid duplicate work (save_to_list, check_candidates)
What your integration owns:
- The ATS connection, trigger and field mapping
- Ranking and fit explanations based on job-related criteria
- The recruiter interface, permissions and audit trail
- Write-back rules and data retention
What changes
Discovery becomes a repeatable part of the ATS workflow instead of a manual side task. Duplicate and prior-contact checks happen before the shortlist, profile enrichment is reserved for shortlisted people, and the recruiter stays responsible for every candidate decision.
FAQ
Does RecruitMCP install as a finished agent inside my ATS?
No. RecruitMCP gives you candidate data and tools through API or MCP. Your team or integration partner builds the ATS connection, interface, rules and field mapping.
Which ATS does this work with?
Any ATS your integration can read from and write to. RecruitMCP does not ship a direct connector for a specific ATS; write-back happens through your integration.
Where does the profile data come from?
We aggregate public professional data and don't disclose our providers.
Is every candidate's email and phone looked up automatically?
No. Finding email and phone is a separate call that your application makes only for the people a recruiter selects.
Can the agent contact candidates?
Outreach is in early access: see Outreach in Claude. Until it is enabled for your workspace, your application decides how and when recruiters get in touch.
Can I use it from Claude or Cursor?
Yes. Connect the RecruitMCP MCP server to Claude or Cursor, or call the REST API from your own backend.