Why having a strong candidate sourcing strategy is key to successful recruitment
Being smart and proactive in your sourcing allows you to increase your outreach, find great prospects, and create a strong talent pipeline when it comes to attracting and engaging quality candidates. Additionally, you must include candidate sourcing as a key component of your recruitment strategy if you want to succeed in the cutthroat talent market of today. To help you improve your candidate sourcing approach, we have put together this list of information. The vast amount of internet profiles and data available means that candidate sourcing is more powerful and crucial than ever. My relocation process is much more efficient thanks to the internet, just as it is for recruiters looking for talent that use online candidate sourcing in addition to traditional phone sourcing.
Candidate sourcing
Candidate sourcing is the process of looking for, locating, and connecting with potential employees in order to recruit them for open positions. Finding suitable people whose abilities match the roles you’re looking for and who would also be a fantastic culture addition to your company is a crucial component of it. To create a reliable talent pipeline, recruiters often begin sourcing prospects early in the hiring process. In this way, they can always turn to a sizable pool of eligible applicants when new positions become available.
Both inbound and outbound candidate sourcing fall into these two categories. To attract awareness and interest from those who are actively looking for work, inbound sourcing typically entails publishing job postings or job adverts on your career page, job boards, and social media. This sourcing strategy makes it simpler for recruiters to identify applicants because they are actively seeking new possibilities and applying for positions. Despite the fact that this sourcing strategy attracts more active job seekers, it does not draw in many passive prospects.
Conversely, outbound sourcing calls for recruiters to be more aggressive in their outreach since they want to contact individuals who may not be actively looking for positions at that particular time – or passive applicants. Typically, recruiters develop a targeted list of qualified candidates to contact and share any current or upcoming employment opportunities with them via email, LinkedIn, or other communication channels. With outbound sourcing, recruiters can start conversations with prospects, develop connections with them, and add them to their talent pool whether or not the prospect ends up as a candidate.
31% of all hires are proactively sourced
– Hubspot
Benefits of having a strong candidate sourcing strategy
Although sourcing demands some upfront time and effort, it also has many long-term advantages.
● Quality hires
As you actively look for excellent individuals, you’ll also have a deeper grasp of the qualifications needed for various tasks as well as the traits necessary for success in each. Additionally, as your sourcing skills develop, you’ll start making better hires; it’s a win-win situation! Since they aren’t actively seeking new jobs and attending interviews elsewhere, passive candidates can give you a competitive edge.
● A more robust employer brand
A major part in developing an employer brand, or the perception of the business as a desirable place to work, is played by candidate sourcing. Passive applicants will begin to notice and develop confidence in your firm over time if your recruiting team shows interest in them by keeping them informed about new roles and product upgrades as well as sharing company news and employee success stories. They might even spread the news about your business to their friends and other contacts, enhancing and building your employer’s brand.
● Increased Diversity in the Workforce
This is a crucial factor in the importance of sourcing for those of you with diversity initiatives. Because you won’t be in a rush to fill vacant positions thanks to sourcing, you won’t be forced to choose the first-best candidate—the “fast hire” frequently made through recommendations and past coworkers—and perpetuate the homogeneity in your company. Relying on referrals can indeed make diversity programs more difficult.
● It cuts down on hiring costs and hiring time.
The average time to hire is between 36 and 52 days, depending on who you ask (and depending on criteria like industry and role). However, because sourcing cultivates relationships with talent long before the need to fill a role materializes, you have a pipeline of pre-qualified, vetted talent to reach out to when anything opens up, reducing the cycle and promptly filling roles once they are recognized. You’ve already
started the “screening process” because you reached out to them based on information from their LinkedIn profiles, open source projects, or design portfolios, so you’re no longer waiting around for the appropriate applicant to apply.
● Broader Reach
You can source prospects through a social recruiting and candidate management system, reaching people who would never have found you on your own had you simply posted a job on a job board or in a newspaper. Regardless of the location, role, or country, sourcing offers a proactive and aggressive strategy for hiring individuals through technology. Diversify your networks to incorporate online, regional, national, industry-specific, and other connections to make the most of this part of sourcing.
The top two obstacles to increasing headcount are a shortage of candidates (31%) and lengthy hiring practices (27%)
Conclusion
In a sense, the battle for the finest talent has turned recruitment into a battlefield. One needs to have a strong recruitment plan in order to survive this struggle. Prior to that, though, there is something that demands your attention and is of utmost importance: sourcing. This is because understanding where to go for the most qualified applicants is the first step in successful recruitment. Inbound and outbound candidate sourcing should be a part of your recruiting strategy if you haven’t already. This will benefit your business in the long run and will make it easier for you to locate top talent in the highly competitive job market of today.