Candidate Sourcing Strategies
Top talent is a must-have for your organization for future gains and immediate results if possible.
Most businesses find challenges from multiple competition tricky to grapple with. But with the right talent in your employ, it could be easier to become a top-performing organization in record time.
But there’s one thing about sourcing candidates – finding the right applicants could be HARD.
With companies reporting more than half of applications they receive are from unqualified people, it’s a worrisome trend. Also, many businesses report having fewer than expected candidates applying for their positions.
So much competition for top talent makes it much harder for businesses, particularly less-established ones, to find sizzling talent. Many businesses rely on a candidate sourcing tool to help find suitable applicants. But without a solid strategy, these talents may not fancy your offer.
Why grovel for qualified candidates or settle for less when you can employ the best hands?
All your recruiting effort needs is a set of strategies designed to maximize candidate sourcing without stress. And that’s what you’ll get right here for free!
What is Candidate Sourcing?
Sourcing candidates entails a detailed search for qualified applicants to fill company’s vacancies, now or in the future.
With most members of the active workforce not keen on a new opportunity, new talent drives several recruitment decisions.
With candidate sourcing, businesses get access to a huge pool of talent. Passive and active candidates are likely to apply for your vacancies, only when they know what your company is offering.
Effective sourcing efforts give recruiters control of applications, making it easy to pick candidates your business needs.
Candidate Sourcing Strategies
Strategy 1: Engage internal HR managers
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Before initiating a candidate-sourcing effort, it is essential to be on common ground with your hiring managers. A meeting or two could suffice in helping you all agree on what candidate the company needs.
Also, it becomes easier to enhance communication among your hiring managers with a heads-up on your approach.
Through such meetings, it could become less challenging to get essential info to help loosen or tighten requirements.
Strategy 2: Consider PECs First, Organization Pool Second
Previous-engaged candidates, or PECs, could make your applicant sourcing effort a lot less cumbersome.
That’s why it’s essential to keep a comprehensive record of PECs, particularly pre-final or final interview applicants.
Also, there’s a chance you’ll have come across candidates that fit your vacancy which wasn’t available earlier.
But it’s not all rosy when considering PECs.
Recruiters need to keep an extensive record on why each candidate was not hired. With such information, your time and that of the potential employee isn’t wasted.
Strategy 3: Initiate a Multi-Channel Online Sourcing Approach
Honestly, it’s a rat race out there for top candidates.
That’s why you’ve got to spread your candidate-sourcing effort across multiple channels. Many recruiters rely on one channel to advertise their vacancies. Even if this isn’t wrong, it may not yield excellent results every time.
Take your job ad campaigns to where your candidates are likely to be. A multi-channel approach is poised to yield more results over time without stress.
Strategy 4: Leverage In-House Networks for Broader Sourcing
Candidate sourcing activity could get a significant boost through in-house networking. With sites like Facebook providing advanced search support, you could unravel candidates in unlikely places.
Reaching untapped talent through employee connections through GitHub, Twitter, or LinkedIn could yield better results.
Strategy 5: Go Offline While You’re Online
It’s great to build a candidate sourcing strategy around online platforms. Many companies use sites like LinkedIn entirely for career ads and interacting with potential employees.
But that’s not enough if you plan to look everywhere.
Even in such a computerized age, there’s a chance you could still miss top talent without an offline strategy.
Massive job board meets and career conferences are great places to meet prospects one-on-one.
Recruiters who take out time to contact prospects face-to-face before interviews are taken more seriously. Also, there’s a high chance of positive feedback from applicants along with a less-stressful onboarding process.
Other offline strategies abound, but if you’re looking for a direct approach to sourcing candidates, meet in person.
Strategy 6: A Solid Brand Reputation is Everything
With a strong brand reputation, there’s little you can’t do when engaging candidate sourcing efforts.
Engage your candidates only when it’s certain your reputation is solid. And a great way to maintain your public standing is through effective customer service management and client feedback.
When individuals and other businesses can vouch for your brand, your reputation becomes stronger than ever.
Bottom Line
With such high demand for the right candidates, it could become challenging to get top talent without a solid strategy.
Competition for top talent from other businesses doesn’t help either when you’re keen on top applicants.
But when you make use of the strategies below, getting top candidates could be a walkover.
