Do you know when a recruiter says

"it's going down the rabbit hole" while sourcing candidates, 

they typically mean that:

🔍 They’ve gotten deeply involved in a complex or time-consuming search — often far more than they expected.

Let me tell you about a time I completely went down the rabbit hole while sourcing. You’ll probably relate.

So a few months ago, I was working on this Senior Backend Engineer role — Python and Django, full-time onsite in Austin, Texas. It was for a fintech startup that had just raised their Series B. They wanted someone with startup experience and fintech exposure — very specific, but not unreasonable.

I started my usual LinkedIn search. First profile? Looked solid… until I saw their entire background was in large enterprises. Definitely not a startup fit.

Then I found someone who checked every box — startup background, solid tech stack, great fintech experience. But he was based in Seattle.

Still, I messaged him. And he got back right away — said he’d be open to relocating, but… only if full relocation was included. And I don’t mean just a stipend. He asked for everything: flight tickets, movers and packers, temporary hotel stay, and even help finding long-term housing.

To be fair, he was very respectful. 

Said something like, “I just want to make sure this is possible before we all invest time.”
 

I appreciated the transparency, but I honestly wasn’t sure if the client would cover all that — so I messaged them to confirm.

And that’s where the rabbit hole started.

While waiting for a response, I thought, let me just peek at his GitHub.
 

I saw a cool Django project he’d collaborated on — so of course, I clicked into the other contributor’s profile.

Turns out, she worked at a Series B fintech company.

So then I clicked on her company’s LinkedIn page, started looking through their engineering team, saw someone who’d spoken at a Python meetup… clicked into that blog post...

Before I knew it, I had 23 tabs open, messaged 3 people, pinged the client once, and still hadn’t finalized a single candidate for screening.

Yep — classic recruiter rabbit hole. 🐇

The intend of telling this is to let you know that it is natural to get into a rabbit hole, but more important is to identify the right time to pull your back from it; to save yourself time.

So now? Whenever I catch myself clicking into one-too-many related profiles or GitHub trails, I stop and ask:

👉 “Am I actually moving this search forward… or just endlessly exploring?”

Because sourcing isn’t just searching — it’s strategy. 

Happy Recruiting!