{
  "registry_version": "1.0.0",
  "data": {
    "title": "Speculative Sourcing / Talent Pooling Without Opening",
    "status": "active",
    "evidence_ids": [
      "evidence.hidden_workers_untapped_talent_hbs_accenture"
    ],
    "content": "# Speculative Sourcing / Talent Pooling Without Opening\n\nRecruiters open conversations and build candidate pools against headcount that has not been approved or funded.\n\n### Structural Context\n- **Actor:** `recruiter`\n- **Nature:** `incentive`\n- **Removability:** `none`\n\n### Causal Relations\n- Amplifies `mech.recruiter_volume_quota_incentive_distortion` — Recruiter Volume & Quota Incentive Distortion\n\n### Non-Inferences\n- Ghosting after an outbound message indicates the absence of an immediate opening, not a rejection of the profile.",
    "aliases": [
      "M-016"
    ],
    "id": "mech.speculative_sourcing_talent_pooling_without_opening",
    "type": "mechanism",
    "summary": "Recruiters open conversations and build candidate pools against headcount that has not been approved or funded.",
    "operates_at": [
      "bar.requisition_approval_public_posting",
      "bar.outbound_sourcing_talent_pool_contact",
      "bar.inbound_screening_triage",
      "bar.recruiter_screening_call"
    ],
    "emissions": [
      {
        "artifact": "obs.unsolicited_recruiter_outreach_followed_by_ghosting",
        "fidelity": "distortion",
        "likelihood": "high",
        "evidence": [
          "evidence.hidden_workers_untapped_talent_hbs_accenture"
        ],
        "observed_at": [
          "sourcing"
        ]
      },
      {
        "artifact": "obs.complete_silence_after_submission",
        "fidelity": "void",
        "likelihood": "medium",
        "evidence": [
          "evidence.hidden_workers_untapped_talent_hbs_accenture"
        ],
        "observed_at": [
          "sourcing"
        ]
      }
    ],
    "facets": {
      "actor": "recruiter",
      "nature": "incentive",
      "visibility": "opaque",
      "removability": "none"
    },
    "amplifies": [
      "mech.recruiter_volume_quota_incentive_distortion"
    ],
    "masks": [],
    "evidence_level": "supported",
    "honest_baseline": false,
    "specimens": [
      {
        "kind": "chat",
        "label": "What the outreach was actually for",
        "lines": [
          {
            "speaker": "Candidate",
            "at": "day 1",
            "text": "Great talking today. To set expectations — is there an open requisition behind this?",
            "tell": false
          },
          {
            "speaker": "Recruiter",
            "at": "day 1",
            "text": "Not yet. We are building a bench ahead of the Q3 planning round; if the headcount is approved you would be first in line.",
            "tell": true
          },
          {
            "speaker": "Candidate",
            "at": "day 1",
            "text": "Understood, thanks for saying so.",
            "tell": false
          }
        ],
        "reading": "A straight answer converts a mystery into a schedule. The same silence three months later means something entirely different once this line exists."
      }
    ],
    "perspectives": [
      {
        "actor": "actor.recruiter",
        "sees": "Planning signals about headcount that is not yet approved, and a market where the profiles worth contacting are contacted early.",
        "reads": "A pipeline built now converts if the requisition lands; a pipeline built after approval starts from zero, and time-to-fill is measured either way.",
        "does": "Opens conversations ahead of approval and holds them with no stage to move them into until the headcount is decided."
      },
      {
        "actor": "actor.candidate",
        "sees": "Direct outreach describing a specific role, then a conversation, then no reply — and no posting to check the role against.",
        "reads": "Silence after a specific conversation reads as an assessment of the profile. Nothing in the exchange separates that from a requisition that was never opened.",
        "does": "Asks whether a requisition exists and is funded before spending rounds on it, and treats the answer as the date the process actually starts."
      },
      {
        "actor": "actor.employer_policy",
        "sees": "Headcount requests arriving at planning with named candidates already attached to them.",
        "reads": "A team ready to move quickly if the role is approved. The conversations that produced the names are not part of the approval record.",
        "does": "Decides funding on the quarterly cycle, and an approval or a deferral closes conversations this layer never saw."
      },
      {
        "actor": "actor.ats_vendor",
        "sees": "Contact records held in a talent pool with no requisition attached, and nurture sequences configured against them.",
        "reads": "A supported workflow behaving normally. The platform does not require a requisition to exist before outreach is sent from it.",
        "does": "Ships the pool, the sequences and the expiry defaults; whether a record is attached to an open requisition stays a field the customer fills or leaves blank."
      }
    ],
    "non_inferences": [
      "Ghosting after an outbound message indicates the absence of an immediate opening, not a rejection of the profile."
    ],
    "agency_zones": {
      "recruiter": "high",
      "candidate": "low",
      "employer-policy": "low",
      "ats-vendor": "low"
    }
  }
}