Recruiter Mode: How It Works
Stori's Recruiter mode flips the usual job search on its head. Instead of waiting for openings to appear on a job board, you go directly to the hiring managers — search a database of 800M+ professionals, build a shortlist of the people you want to talk to, and email them with personalized outreach. Available on the Outreach plan.
The Three-Section Flow
Recruiter mode lives under the Recruiter nav and is organized into three sections you'll move through in order:
- Source — search the 800M+ database for hiring managers matching your target. Free to search; pay 1 credit per contact unlock.
- Shortlist — your saved targets, with outreach status tracking (drafted, sent, replied).
- Email — composer + sequences + inbox. Send one-off emails or build multi-step drip campaigns.
Most candidates iterate through this loop a few times — source a batch, shortlist the strongest, draft and send, then go back and source more.
Searching for Hiring Managers
The Source page lets you filter the database by:
- Job title — "VP Engineering," "Director of Product," "Head of Marketing," etc.
- Company — by name, by size (1-10 up through 5000+), or by industry.
- Location — city + optional radius.
- Department — Engineering, Product, Sales, etc.
- Person name — when you already know who you're looking for.
Click the microphone icon to search by voice. Speak the search ("hiring managers in fintech in San Francisco") and Stori parses your sentence into structured filters automatically. See Voice Features for details.
Save any search to come back to later, or run it again next week to see fresh results as PDL refreshes its data.
How Credits Work
Searching is free. Looking at basic info — name, current job title, company, location — is free. Unlocking the contact details (email, phone) costs 1 credit per unlock.
Your Outreach plan includes 40 credits per month, refreshing on your billing date. Unused monthly credits don't carry over. You can buy credit packs that do carry forever:
- 50 credits — $29
- 100 credits — $49 (15% off)
- 200 credits — $79 (32% off)
Stori always uses your monthly credits first before dipping into purchased packs. So if you have 50 monthly + 100 purchased and you unlock 30 contacts, you spend 30 monthly credits — your purchased credits stay intact.
Building Your Shortlist
When you find a hiring manager you want to reach out to, add them to your shortlist. The Shortlist page tracks each contact's outreach status:
- Drafted — you've started an email but not sent it.
- Sent — your email is out.
- Replied — they wrote back.
You can manually edit contact info (sometimes you find a better email address through other channels), add notes, or remove contacts from the list. Bulk actions let you draft emails to multiple contacts at once or enroll them all into a sequence.
See Shortlist Management for the full guide.
Sending Outreach
The Email section is where outreach actually happens. Connect your Gmail or Outlook account first — Stori sends from your address so replies land in your inbox naturally and the recipient doesn't see a third-party sender.
The composer supports:
- Templates — start from one of Stori's defaults or save your own.
- Variables —
{{contactName}},{{candidateName}},{{companyName}},{{profileUrl}},{{yearsExperience}}, and others. - Personal video embed — drop in a clickable video card linking to your Stori profile. Animated GIF preview, full video on click.
The Inbox tab tracks replies automatically when your Gmail/Outlook is connected.
Sequences for Multi-Step Outreach
For candidates serious about reaching senior hiring managers, single emails don't cut it. Sequences let you build multi-step drip campaigns that follow up automatically — and pause the moment someone replies.
Same lifecycle as the client side: Draft → Active → Paused → Archived. See Email Sequences for the full guide.
Plan Required
Recruiter mode is part of the Outreach plan. Starter (free) doesn't include it.
- Starter (free) — profile, Stori interview, traits assessment. No Recruiter mode.
- Outreach ($34/mo) — everything in Starter plus Recruiter mode, 40 outreach credits per month, Gmail/Outlook integration, sequences, sequence enrollments.
Upgrade from Settings → Billing.