Source and reach candidates with OpenClaw in Operator

Most strong candidates are employed and not browsing job boards, which means recruiting outreach starts with sourcing: building a list of people who could fit, finding a way to reach each one, writing a note that references something specific about their work, and following up with the ones who never answered. The first message takes a few minutes; the second and third touches are where most pipelines stall because nobody has time to chase twenty open threads.

Operator.io gives your OpenClaw agent a workspace file and scheduled jobs, so it can keep the sourcing list and the follow up cadence running while you stay on the part that needs judgment: deciding who is worth contacting and what to say. Connect Apollo to find people and Resend to email them from your domain.

What you get

Two services carry the work, and the agent runs the loop between them:

• Apollo holds professional records with filters for job title, seniority, company, skills, and location. OpenClaw calls the People API Search endpoint to find candidates matching your description, then enriches the ones you shortlist through People Enrichment to pull a verified work email.
• Resend sends from a domain you own through the send email API, so your note lands as mail from you rather than from a recruiting platform relay.

The agent keeps a CSV in its workspace with a row per candidate, the role you are filling, how many times you have reached out, when the next touch is due, and where they stand. The pipeline is a file you can read and query in chat rather than a black box inside a sequencing tool.

You tell the agent the role and the kind of person you want, it brings back matches with a draft for each, and you approve or rewrite before anything sends. Then it chases the people who did not reply on the cadence you chose and stops the moment someone answers or asks you not to write again.

Sourcing the right people

Recruiting-specific sourcing tools like Gem, hireEZ, and SeekOut combine candidate databases with sequencing and ATS integrations. Apollo covers a similar search surface for this workflow: filter by current title, years of experience, company size, industry, and location, then enrich the shortlist for email addresses. The agent searches with the filters you describe in chat, shows you the matches, and waits for you to pick who gets a note.

Personalization depth drives reply rates on passive candidate outreach. Research on sourcing campaigns in 2026, summarized in this analysis of passive candidate engagement patterns, shows how wide the gap runs.

The agent drafts from Apollo data and whatever context you provide about the role. You add the line that proves you read their profile: a GitHub repo, a conference talk, a product they shipped, or a skill that maps directly to your opening.

Sending from the hiring manager's address rather than a generic recruiting alias often lifts reply rates, because the candidate sees a direct conversation with the person they would work for. Set the from name and address accordingly when the agent asks during setup.

Before you start

You need an Apollo account, a Resend account, and a domain whose DNS you can edit so Resend can send as you. Apollo API access depends on your plan; confirm your subscription includes API access before you create a key. The free plan includes a small monthly credit pool for enrichment, and paid tiers raise credits and rate limits.

Resend's free tier covers 3,000 emails a month and 100 a day on one verified domain, which fits the deliberate pace good recruiting outreach runs at. Resend counts each recipient toward both limits, as documented in their account quotas page.

Apollo can send mail through its own sequences if you connect a mailbox, so Resend is optional. This guide uses Resend because sending from your own domain, with the agent composing each note rather than enrolling people in a fixed sequence template, fits personal recruiting outreach where every message needs custom framing.

Step 1: Create an Apollo API key

In Apollo, open Settings, then Integrations, then Connect beside Apollo API. Click API Keys and Create new key. Toggle Set as master key or select the search and enrichment endpoints.

The People API Search endpoint requires a master key. Apollo passes the key in an X-Api-Key header; the Apollo API key documentation has the details. Searching costs no credits, while enriching a candidate to reveal their email spends one credit per match.

Step 2: Verify a domain and create a Resend key

In the Resend dashboard, open Domains, add your domain, and copy the SPF and DKIM records into your DNS provider, then click Verify. The Resend domains guide covers it. After SPF and DKIM verify, an optional DMARC record helps deliverability.

OpenClaw can add those records for you if your domain is on Cloudflare. Then open API Keys, create one, and copy it; it starts with re_ and is shown only once, per the Resend API keys docs.

Step 3: Add both keys to Operator

In your Operator dashboard, open Environment and add APOLLO_API_KEY with your Apollo key and RESEND_API_KEY with your Resend key. Both are encrypted and shown once, and OpenClaw reads each by name, so neither ever appears in a chat. If you start from the prompts library, the card collects both keys inline before sending.

Step 4: Send the prompt

Connect Telegram or Discord on the channels page, then send the recruiting prompt:

Be my recruiting outreach assistant, sourcing candidates with my Apollo API
key and emailing them with my Resend API key. Create a spreadsheet in your
workspace, a CSV with columns for the candidate, their current company,
title, email, the role I am hiring for, the date I first reached out, how
many times I have followed up, when the next one is due, and where they
stand. When I describe the role and the kind of person I want, search Apollo
for people who fit and enrich the ones I shortlist to get their email, then
add a row for each, checking the file first so I never contact the same
person twice. Draft a short, genuinely personal note to each candidate about
the role and why I thought of them, show me the drafts, and send the ones I
approve through Resend from my name and address with an easy way to opt out.
Set up an automation that follows up with the people who have not answered on
the cadence I choose, stops as soon as someone replies or asks me not to
write again, and sends me a roundup here of who responded and who seems
interested. Before you start, ask me the role and the must haves, the from
name and address to send as, how many follow ups and how far apart, and a
daily cap so the outreach stays personal.

The same prompt lives in the prompts library, ready to send without retyping.

Using it day to day

You open a role by describing it and the must haves, the agent sources a shortlist and drafts a note for each candidate, and you approve or rewrite the ones you want to send. After that, the follow ups run on the weekdays you chose, and what reaches you is a steady stream of drafts to approve. The agent does not read your inbox, so a reply registers only when you forward it or tell the agent how someone answered, and then it updates their status and stops the follow ups for that person.

Because the pipeline is a CSV the agent keeps, you can ask it who is still warm, who went silent after a first note, or which version of your pitch is getting answered, with the reply column knowing only what you have reported back. Every row holds a candidate's name, current company, title, and the work email you enriched through Apollo, so the file is a sourcing list that belongs to you. Prune it as you go: drop the people who said no, clear a role once it is filled, or keep the notes for the next time you hire for something similar.

Reopen a search for the same role by describing refined criteria, or start a new role by giving the agent a fresh description. The file prevents duplicate outreach, so a candidate you contacted for one role will not get a second note unless you explicitly ask the agent to reach out again.

Follow up cadence

Most replies to recruiting outreach arrive on the first or second touch. A typical cadence for a single role is two to three follow ups spaced three to five business days apart, which keeps you visible without flooding someone's inbox. The agent checks the CSV on the weekdays you set, drafts follow ups for candidates who have not replied, and shows you each draft before it sends. When someone asks to be removed, the agent marks the row and stops.

LinkedIn InMail is a common complement to email for passive candidates, especially in senior and technical roles where people check LinkedIn more often than work email. This workflow runs on email through Resend; you can still send LinkedIn messages yourself for candidates who do not reply after the email sequence, using the same shortlist the agent built in Apollo.

Good to know

The agent sources names from Apollo, drafts personalized notes, and runs follow ups on your cadence. You approve or rewrite every message before it sends. For a single open role with a shortlist of fifteen candidates and two follow ups each, Resend's free tier and Apollo's search endpoint cover the whole run without hitting paid limits on either side.

To set it up, open the prompts library and send the recruiting outreach prompt to your agent.