What is candidate sourcing?
Candidate or talent sourcing is the process of proactively finding qualified candidates to fill current as well as future vacancies. This is done to collect information, pre-screen candidates and build relationships with them to fill relevant positions.
In today's competitive job market, finding the right candidate is no easy task. Imagine finding a Team Lead who fits all the boxes. Has great depth in the stack, has worked in a similar industry, gives the product the needed direction, makes all decisions independently, can manage the team, and even lead their hiring process - all from DAY 1 - it sounds overwhelming right?
One of the biggest hurdles faced by recruiters is the talent scarcity for certain roles and functions. This is where a well-defined talent-sourcing strategy comes into play. It serves as your roadmap to navigate the seemingly endless talent pool.
Sourcing is usually classified into inbound and outbound sourcing strategies. Inbound sourcing refers to the various methods you employ to organically get on the radar of potential candidates. The candidates find out about your company and vacancies without you reaching out to them.
On the other hand, outbound sourcing refers to all the methods you use to find potential candidates and get them to apply to a particular job. Both strategies can be used at different times of the process.
Difference between candidate sourcing and recruiting
Sourcing is the process of actively finding candidates who may suit a job role. In this stage, the recruiter finds and engages with candidates to form relationships with them. Dedicated ‘sourcers’ do the job of finding candidates in a lot of industries. However, in some, sourcing, as well as recruiting, is handled by the same people.
Recruiting is the process that starts after sourcing when you are actually evaluating a developer for a given role. In recruiting, you’d be screening and interviewing the candidates in various stages.
A sourcer does tasks like:
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Finding active candidates as well as passive candidates (those who aren’t actively looking for a role)
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Engaging with them and form relationships
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Building a network of candidates
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Preparing the company to meet recruitment goals
On the other hand, some of the recruiter’s tasks would be:
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Screening the candidates who have been sourced
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Scheduling and (if needed) conducting interviews
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Communicating the open positions, and
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Negotiating with the evaluated candidates
As is clear from the tasks, the sourcing stage involves everything before the actual screening and evaluation of the candidate starts.
However, in startups, this distinction is not clear, usually due to smaller team sizes. The role of a sourcer and recruiter is the same and is done by an HR professional who specializes in it.
What is the need for talent sourcing?
Sourcing talent helps to create a strong talent pool and you don’t have to frantically lookout for candidates when it’s time to recruit. This greatly reduces the time to hire a candidate.
Moreover, when candidates are actively sourced, you’d also improve the quality of candidates in the talent pool and thus, of your recruits. The cost of hiring also is reduced when you have a pool of candidates who have been sourced. You don’t have to worry due to lack of resources.
The reduced time-to-hire and cost-to-hire saves a lot of money for the company. A sourcing pipeline also helps companies meet their business and product goals as well thereby keeping it on track.
Thanks to sourcing, the company is better able to meet long-term hiring goals, such as having a more diverse workforce. Also, due to the long-term efforts, the employer branding will be improved. Better relationships with potential candidates creates more trust in the brand and help spread awareness about it.
A sourcing strategy should have both - outbound and inbound methods. Outbound sourcing helps to reach a wider audience and Inbound on the other hand makes organizations improve employer branding.
Process: Understanding talent sourcing in a real-world scenario:
Sourcing is done in multiple stages and the exact steps would depend on your company’s needs. The overall sourcing process would roughly be the same for all.
Imagine you're the founder of a budding startup with a team of ten members, and you've just secured seed funding for an innovative direct-to-consumer concept. Now, you're in need of Fullstack developers to build your Minimum Viable Product (MVP). The question is, where do you go from here?
Having a structured sourcing strategy helps to source quality candidates in an efficient and effective manner. We recommend the below process for successful sourcing:
1. Gain clarity on the role
Understanding the specific role is crucial for strategic talent sourcing. Irrespective of whether you're an early-stage startup or an established corporate entity, gaining role clarity can be challenging due to evolving team dynamics and business objectives.
Here are three key questions to answer to achieve role clarity:
1. How does the role fit within the team?
It's essential to identify where the new role fits into the existing team dynamics to source. For example, if your team excels in frontend development but lacks backend expertise, you might need a developer with specific backend skills. If you're building a team from scratch, the end-goal perspective will help align your priorities with the product roadmap.
2. What is the role's functional alignment?
Knowing the exact functions the new hires will focus on is crucial. In an early-stage startup, the engineer’s role would be to enable other functions by creating the MVP, which is essential for sales, marketing, and customer success operations. So you need to source talent strategically depending on the role’s functionality.
3. How does the role serve the business goals?
The final piece of the puzzle is understanding how the role contributes to the company's business objectives. Identifying the impact this role will have on revenue is paramount. The engineers will be critical to create the product which kick starts the business.
Formulating a talent persona
Once you have clarity on the role, you’d know exactly what characteristics to look out for. In other words, you’ll have a talent persona that you need to find a fit for. Classifying the necessary characteristics into good-to-haves and must-haves will also make your hunt easier.
2. Addressing talent scarcity when formulating your sourcing strategy
Sourcing strategies must also account for the scarcity of talent in the market. By assessing the talent pool using factors such as individual experience, technological fluency, and past work, you can quickly categorize talent. Also, understanding the "leap"—the difference between what the talent has and what your organization needs—is crucial. It's about assessing what the talent can offer and taking calculated risks.
For instance, at Flexiple, we've vetted over 100,000 applicants. Our sourcing strategy involves evaluating candidates based on their experience, past work, and the "leap." A developer experienced in legacy systems at an established corporation may struggle in a startup environment with the latest technology stacks.
In essence, the talent sourcing strategy is not just about filling roles but finding the best fit that aligns with your team, function, and business goals. As a hiring manager, your focus should always be on strategic talent sourcing to overcome talent scarcity and foster a prosperous organizational culture.
3. Personalize the brand messaging
This stage involves crafting tailored communication to target the candidate. With compelling messaging, this candidate sourcing stage highlights the company’s value proposition. Company culture, growth opportunities provided to the candidate, and other points that would make a candidate want to associate with a given firm are presented here. Messaging shows the organization as a unique place and differentiates it from the competition.
In recent years, candidate preferences have broadened beyond just salary and job role. Factors like work-life balance, growth opportunities, and company culture have climbed the priority ladder. Therefore, presenting your brand transparently and holistically becomes a crucial step in attracting top talent.
Here are some vital points to consider:
1. The Team They'll Join
Job seekers value inclusion in decision-making and company growth. A young developer, for instance, appreciates working directly with stakeholders and team leads, which not only offers a sense of involvement but also learning opportunities about the business.
2. The Problems They'll Tackle
Clarify the depth and significance of the challenges they'll address and the broader impact of their problem-solving contributions. It helps them connect with your company's long-term vision and goals.
3. Risks and Rewards – The Full Picture
Transparency is key when discussing the benefits and potential uncertainties of a role. Acknowledge industry volatility if it exists and emphasize the opportunities for career advancement, skill development and overall growth.
4. Career Growth Opportunities
Convey the potential for career progression and learning attached to the role. For instance, if a role involves client interaction, highlight how this offers the chance to solve problems and contribute to their success.
5. Role Expectations and Impact
Illustrate the role's contribution to the company's objectives and its growth trajectory within the organization. This helps candidates understand their potential impact and significance. Various channels can be utilized to amplify your brand's message, such as interviews, job descriptions, the careers page, the 'About Us' page, and social media.
Leveraging platforms like Flexiple can be another effective strategy; developers trust us as a credible platform that connects them with top-tier opportunities. Many organizations have benefitted from our services, securing quality and pre-vetted talent within a week!
4. Contact suitable talent
This is the outreach stage of talent sourcing. It means reaching out to the talent through various channels such as social, networking platforms, job boards, referrals, etc. We have elaborated more on this stage in the next section.
Once the candidates have been contacted, or communication has been established, sourcers can start engaging with them. As we’ve already mentioned above, this helps in building fruitful relationships.
5. Pre-screen candidates
Pre-screening, as the word suggests, is the initial assessment stage before the main evaluation begins. The candidate is generally scrutinized based on their qualifications, experience and fit for the role. In turn, this allows the sourcing team to filter candidates and shortlist the best ones for future stages. Time and resources are saved in the selection process through effective pre-screening and it helps to streamline the further stages.
Candidate Sourcing Metrics
While sourcing a candidate, you’d have to consider a number of metrics such as the conversion rate, efficiency of the sourcing process, the speed of hiring and the responsiveness of the candidates. This would also differ based on the experience level of the candidates. For instance, when sourcing junior candidates, speed and cost-effectiveness are more important. On the other hand, while sourcing senior candidates, you’d be more concerned about responsiveness. Cost wouldn’t be such a big factor as in this stage, quality is more important and you want to ensure that the candidates are responsive. We have elaborated more on each metric for sourcing in this blog.
Ways to source candidates
Below are a number of sourcing channels you can consider as a part of your sourcing strategy. The essence of a robust talent sourcing strategy lies in understanding the costs and time investment associated with each channel. Each role, and the corresponding volume of leads you aim to engage, requires you to select the most efficient sourcing channel.
The Power of Experimentation
The initial phase of talent sourcing, usually the first 10-15 days, should be dedicated to exploring different channels. Scrutinize the applicant flow from each channel, evaluating which yields the best outcomes in terms of candidate quality and volume. Once you pinpoint the most potent channel, devote more resources and time to extract further value.
Getting Creative for Complex Roles
It's worth noting that some channels work exceptionally well for specific roles. For instance, inbound tactics like job postings or online job boards excel for junior-level positions such as L1, L2, or L3. Yet, for higher-level roles like L4, these channels may fall short. During such instances, alternative strategies become essential - leverage your professional networks or employ tools like Apollo and LinkedIn Sales Navigator for sourcing the candidate lists.
Remember, while diversifying your channels is beneficial, overdoing it can lead to management challenges and ineffective candidate tracking. By continuously evaluating the costs and time invested in each sourcing channel, you can optimize your talent sourcing strategy, attracting the most suitable candidates efficiently.
Here are the channels you can consider to source candidates:
1. Existing talent pipeline
Leverage your company’s existing talent pipeline, i.e. the individuals who have previously shown interest in working with the company and have been added to the talent pool. We have elaborated more on talent pipelines in this blog.
2. Referral program
Implement a referral program where current employees are encouraged to refer qualified candidates for open positions. This can be an effective way to tap into their networks and find high-quality candidates who may not be actively searching for jobs.
3. Vetted talent agencies
Collaborate with vetted talent agencies such as Flexiple that specialize in your industry. These agencies have pre-screened and qualified candidates, saving you time and effort in the recruitment process.
4. Online job boards
Post job openings on popular online job boards that are relevant to the industry you function in. These platforms attract a large pool of active job seekers, making it easier to reach a wider audience. You can post your job openings, browse through resumes, and even proactively reach out to potential candidates who have listed their qualifications and experience on these platforms.
5. Social media platforms
Make use of social media platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter to promote job openings and engage with potential candidates. With the use of social media platforms, you can access features such as targeted advertising options. These platforms also provide opportunities for networking and direct communication. You can join industry-specific groups, follow relevant hashtags, and post job openings to catch the attention of potential candidates.
6. Campus recruitment
Establish partnerships with universities, colleges, and technical schools to participate in career fairs, host information sessions, or offer internships. This allows you to connect with young talent and build relationships with students who may become future candidates.
7. Offline job posting/drives
Consider traditional offline methods such as posting job openings in local newspapers, industry-specific publications, or hosting job fairs. It can help you attract candidates who may not be actively searching online.
8. Creating a positive employer brand
Develop a strong employer brand by showcasing your company culture, values, and benefits. A positive reputation can attract passive candidates who are more likely to consider opportunities with organizations known for their positive work environment.
Conclusion
In conclusion, candidate sourcing is highly essential in your overall recruitment strategy. It involves proactively finding qualified candidates, building relationships, and creating a strong talent pool.
A well-defined sourcing strategy helps overcome talent scarcity, reduces time-to-hire and cost-to-hire, and improves candidate quality. By personalizing brand messaging, contacting suitable talent through various channels, and pre-screening candidates, organizations can optimize the sourcing process.
Implementing a mix of inbound and outbound methods, leveraging existing talent pipelines, referral programs, vetted agencies, online job boards, social media platforms, campus recruitment, offline job posting/drives, and positive employer branding are effective sourcing approaches. Strategic talent sourcing leads to successful hiring, a diverse workforce, and long-term organizational growth.
