How to Improve Talent Sourcing in Your Organization?

Sourcing is an indispensable part of any talent acquisition process and effective sourcing is essential to build a quality and qualified pool of job seekers to hire as and when requisitions are opened. An effective candidate sourcing strategy in recruitment ensures you are not left out in lurch when the company growth or an outgoing employee creates a need for hiring. (Also Read: Importance of Sourcing in Recruitment)

Know how to build a robust sourcing strategy.

It can be a real headache for recruiters trying to find the best candidate for a new job opening. If the process is not right, organizations risk hiring incompetent and inconsistent talent that does not fit well with the business goals and values. Therefore, it is imperative to have a strong sourcing plan for recruiting to ensure right talent finds their way in your organization. Here are tips for the same.

• Employing sourcing specialists should be part of recruitment sourcing strategy
• Using multiple job posting channels is one of the best ways of sourcing candidates
• Finding an end to end recruiting solution is an innovative source of recruitment
• Using employee referrals is one of the best methods of sourcing candidates
• Making sourcing a continuous activity is one of the sourcing best practices

Employing sourcing specialists should be part of recruitment sourcing strategy

Hiring is often a time consuming process. This can be changed if organizations put more emphasis on sourcing and employ specialists for the same. In most organizations, same set of individuals oversee sourcing of candidates and their subsequent hiring, or they may delegate this “menial” task to entry level recruiters who have pretty much no experience in talent acquisition. This is a fatal mistake. For any hiring process to run smooth, the first step needs to be taken care of by the most experienced professionals. Therefore, organizations should employ sourcing specialists for this job who have an eye for talent and proven expertise in finding the best fit candidates. Also, it pays to have a well-documented and standardised sourcing process that acts as a guide for all stakeholders to ensure all individuals adhere to the organizational needs  while making a selection.

Using multiple job posting channels is one of the best ways of sourcing candidates

Gone are the days when posting a job on the job portals was enough. Today jobseekers are always looking for an opportunity to strengthen their career graph. Hence you should proactively utilize every single channel out there to find these candidates. Most recruiters have their own favourite, go-to channel for recruiting. But instead of stopping there, recruiters must also look out for active jobseekers on less frequently sourced channels. Think from the perspective of jobseekers. It isn’t hard to understand that candidates will be more receptive to outreach messages than simply posting the job on career website or a job portal. Whether it is reaching out on Facebook or whatsapp, nothing is out of bounds for recruiters anymore. The more channels you use for sourcing, the bigger will be your talent pool.

(Also Read: Hiring trends in 2018 That You Can’t Ignore)

Finding an end to end recruiting solution is an innovative source of recruitment

If you are using a recruitment software for managing hiring process, it is essential to find one that not only automates your end to end hiring but also increases your sourcing channels and provides the best candidate experience. Making a good recruiting solution part of your innovative sourcing strategy in recruitment leads to reduction in time to hire as it automates repetitive tasks like posting the same job on different job boards. Thus recruiters have more time to fish for candidates from sources other than that are traditionally used. At the same time, a good recruiting software allows helps recruiters in sourcing candidates through social media, referrals, vendors, career site etc. from a single platform.

(Also Read: How Recruitment Software Works, its Benefits and Main Features)

Using employee referrals is one of the best methods of sourcing candidates

Many of recruitment specialists are guilty of underutilising a very potent sourcing channels – the employee network. The employees who are already working in the organization have gathered a solid understanding of the work culture and are aligned with the business goals. Hence, when they refer a friend or someone from their network, the recruiters don’t have to worry so much about whether the incoming candidate has knowledge of the existing work culture of the organization. May be, this is the reason why employees hired through referrals stay longer and are more consistent in their performance. Also, employee referral, as a sourcing channel, is much cheaper compared to other sources where there is a constant advertising expense associated.

(Also Read: Purpose of Having a Dedicated Employee Referral Program)

Making sourcing a continuous activity is one of the sourcing best practices

Recruiters make a critical mistake when they only source candidates once an opening is there. There are other recruiters too who discard any “extra” CVs from their folders once the hiring has been completed. This is a strict no-no if you want to maintain a quality talent pool. Hiring takes a long time even if we have employed the best recruitment software. One of the best ways to avoid this delay in hiring is to keep growing your database of sourced CVs. This will ensure you have some candidates ready when a vacancy arises in the organization next time. It pays to have a talent pool that you can readily refer to whenever necessary. You will save a lot of repetition, reduce hiring time and improve productivity.