Being in talent acquisition for the past 17+ years, primarily as a specialist in talent sourcing, has allowed me to see various changes in the process of hiring great candidates for wonderful positions. When I started in the industry, there were just a handful of applicant tracking systems (shout out to Taleo) and tools to source candidates from (shout out to Monster and CareerBuilder). As technology boomed, platforms like LinkedIn became great new places to find and connect with potential candidates, and training solutions like AIRS helped people like me get creative in locating talent on the internet. At this point, I learned the two most significant skills in this career I carry with me today: continuing to pivot and learn with technological changes and being creative with how I think of leveraging technology.
In the industry, certain practices have remained static, which include widespread job postings without adequate follow-up and the undervaluation of sourcing as a foundational skill in recruitment. While yielding some success, these approaches can obscure a brand's image, affect the recruitment profession's reputation negatively, and lead to inefficient resource allocation. It's essential for businesses facing significant hiring demands to employ skilled recruiters and talent sourcers, who are crucial in crafting effective sourcing strategies. Sparks (2023) noted that top talent acquisition teams recognize the importance of actively recruiting passive candidates to discover and engage high-quality professionals for available positions.
At Talent Growth Partners, a boutique women-owned HR consulting and recruitment firm, we service multiple industries and clients internationally. One of the critical ways that we do this successfully is by developing a unique sourcing strategy for each recruiting engagement we partner with clients on. Being intentional about building custom passive candidate sourcing strategies for each role has paid off. Talent Growth recently filled more than 100 roles with candidates our sourcing team found using these methods. In 2024, our hiring costs were 7-12% lower than our competitors.
What is a sourcing strategy?
“In your talent sourcing activities, developing a talent pipeline increases your chances of hiring the best candidates for your future growth. The right candidate will mean lower employee turnover and greater productivity. On the other side of the equation, hiring the wrong candidate can mean harming your company culture and wasting resources in training an employee who will prove temporary. This is a complicated problem. Your recruitment team needs to know how to engage candidates, but they also need to streamline the process to target the right professionals for the position.”
Your sourcing strategy is the backbone of your talent acquisition process. Without it, you waste resources, risk your reputation, and lose great candidates. With it, you become more efficient and targeted in your talent acquisition process, your recruiters are supported with an active pipeline of qualified candidates, appropriately leveraging recruitment technology, and you become proactive vs. reactive in the race for good talent. Every company that is hiring should have a sourcing strategy in place.
Some steps you can take now to implement a sourcing strategy:
1. Have a talent sourcing resource on your hiring team.
I will just say it: Talent sourcers are the wizards of your recruitment team, or at least they should be. For years, I have tried to help leaders understand that recruiters and talent sourcers are different skill sets. Recruiters should be skilled at candidate conversations, the selection process, negotiation, and hiring manager relationships. “A talent sourcer is a professional who works as part of a recruitment or HR team. These professionals seek candidates who haven't yet applied for a role and who the company feels might excel in the position. To discover potential candidates with suitable qualifications, a talent sourcer may search resume databases, job boards, and social media platforms, depending on the hiring organization's industry. Once the sourcer finds a qualified candidate, they may encourage them to apply for a specific role. Typically, talent sourcers complete this cycle for multiple candidates, which increases the likelihood of an organization having multiple candidates to choose from when filling roles (Indeed, n.d.).” All of this work is influential in creating and executing a sourcing strategy, and your team needs a talent sourcer resource or an external resource like Talent Growth Partners to be that resource.
2. Equip your sourcing resource(s) with the right technology and relationships to be successful.
Building a sourcing technology stack is like building a software engineering stack. The rule is the same: you must use the right technology to get results. The extremes are buying a lot of tools available but not utilizing them correctly or not equipping your sourcer(s) with hardly any technology, which, in turn, leads them not to be able to deliver results. The middle ground, which is the avenue I recommend, is to allow bandwidth to explore the right tools for the sourcing strategy that makes sense for your company or clientele. The good news is we are experiencing a technological boom in recruitment and sourcing tools. There are a lot of options to choose from. Here are a sample few of my favorite tools for sourcing and data organization:
Zoho Recruit: Applicant Tracking System
LinkedIn Recruiter Lite: Affordable Professional Network for Sourcing
Indeed Resume: Active Candidate Database
Hunter.io: Contact Information Search
I urge you to introduce your talent sourcer(s) to hiring managers or external client managers as an integral part of your hiring process and team. Doing so allows them to hear firsthand what the talent needs are and implement those needs into the sourcing strategy they are building. These relationships should be more than just introductory; they should continue until the right candidate is hired and leveraged for pivots in the sourcing strategy for future roles. At Talent Growth Partners, from the kick-off call to the close of a search, our sourcing team is a part of the relationship and conversation. This approach also solidifies the sourcing skill set as just as valuable as the recruiter skill set.
Utilize the right components to begin building your sourcing strategy.
A sourcing strategy is made up of several components. Once you have a dedicated, well-equipped sourcing resource on your team, they can build a sourcing strategy for your current searches and future hires. The sourcing strategy should be a living document that is evolving as your company does and should pivot as technology and recruitment techniques change. Here are a sample few of my favorites to include in a sourcing strategy:
Target Competitors & Industries:
Here, I am looking to build a list of companies and industries that are precise places to look for passive candidates.
Transferrable Competitors & Industries:
The talent market is becoming increasingly competitive, so you often need to go outside the traditional target market. This list should be of acceptable competitors and industries where the candidate experience needed is easily transferable.
Salary Information:
We all have worked for hiring leaders who want a low salary for a high-level candidate. Bringing salary data to your hiring leader conversations as part of your sourcing strategy can help set realistic expectations and ensure you are targeting the right talent level. Since 2020, these ranges can be challenging to target, so data from live candidate conversations should also be a part of this strategy.
Sample Search Strings & Tools:
I will often list the tools I plan to use in my sourcing strategy and sample strings I will start with. Doing so allows me to have transparency and communication within my recruiter relationship on how I plan to succeed in my search, think proactively about tools I will use, and pivot if I am not getting the results I wanted during the search.
Target Job Titles & Synonyms:
These days, companies are creative with their job titles, and candidates are creative with the synonyms they use to describe themselves in resumes and online profiles. Including ideas about job titles and synonyms is a good way for talent sourcers to be creative. They can include this in their sourcing strategy and implement it within their work. I often utilize ChatGPT for some of this research, and here is a sample prompt I might use:
Ready to optimize your hiring strategy?
At Talent Growth Partners, we specialize in crafting tailored recruitment sourcing strategies and identifying exceptional talent to elevate your team’s performance. Whether you're looking to implement an effective sourcing strategy or engage a partner to discover and recruit top-tier passive candidates, we’re here to help. Connect with us today to discuss your talent needs and learn how our expertise can benefit your organization.
Sources:
Indeed. (n.d.). Sourcer vs. Recruiter: What's the Difference? Retrieved March 14, 2024, from https://ca.indeed.com/career-advice/finding-a-job/sourcer-vs-recruiter
Lever. (n.d.). 10 Candidate sourcing strategies to find top talent. Retrieved March 14, 2024, from https://www.lever.co/recruiting-resources/articles/candidate-sourcing-strategies/
Sparks, S. (2023, June 26). How to create a better candidate sourcing strategy. Jobvite. https://www.jobvite.com/blog/candidate-sourcing-strategy/