Every organization aims to hire the right candidate for a particular job role, and the first step in the recruitment process is implementing the right sourcing strategies. Sourcing skilled candidates have become the most crucial task for recruiters.

The primary aim of sourcing candidates is to hire top talent, promote candidate engagement, and enhance the candidate experience. Having the right strategy by your side can help develop a positive employer brand and maintain relationships with candidates.

According to Red Branch Media, sourced candidates are two times more efficient than candidates who apply for a job role. Additionally, 80% of the business’s profits are generated by 20% of its employees. These stats indicate that the right sourcing strategy can help a business to hire the right talent, at the same time, generate higher revenue.

Sourcing is a part of the recruitment process which aims to find a qualified candidate for a particular job position. As a recruiter, when you implement the right sourcing strategies in your recruitment process, you can have an advantage in today’s competitive talent marketplace.

The information you get through sourcing is the candidate’s name, educational qualification, and contact details.

As a recruiter, if you’re struggling to onboard the right talent or implement the right sourcing strategies, here are 10 tips on how you identify and hire skilled candidates for your needs.

Know The Difference Between Recruiting And Sourcing

First of all, you should be clear about recruiting and sourcing. Sourcing means finding and qualifying suitable candidates. Whereas in recruiting, you handle the entire recruiting process such as interviewing, conducting pre-employment assessments, screening, etc.

If you have a small team, you must clearly define each step and timeline in the sourcing and recruiting process. This makes it more comfortable to handle the workload.

Online Job Postings

To retain the right candidates, you should not limit your job posting to only recruiting sites. Posting job vacancies on several job portals is a good practice, but you should never overlook the importance of social media platforms.

Apart from job portals, you can post your job vacancy on LinkedIn – the most trusted platform by candidates and recruiters. According to Kinsta, more than 55 million companies trust LinkedIn and post job vacancies regularly. Surprisingly, 87% of recruiters regularly use LinkedIn to acquire high-quality candidates.

So, this is an excellent opportunity to hire top talent who are proactively looking for a job.

Understand The Job Requirements You’re Hiring For

Before you start your search, you need to ensure that you are clear about the job requirements. If possible, you can discuss the requirements with the relevant hiring manager to avoid any miscommunication.

For example, suppose you’re hiring a web developer for your organization. In that case, it's not necessary to hire only experienced web developers but to hire someone with less experience who can perform at a higher level. It will help you ask relevant questions to the candidates. This also increases your pool of candidates to source in.

Develop A Strong Employer Brand

Developing a strong employer brand can be tricky, but it becomes easy to focus on a candidate-driven approach. Treat candidates like your customer – make them feel that you value them and avoid conducting lengthy and complex interview rounds.

A strong employer brand is a powerful recruiting tool that will also help you build an online reputation.

Establish A Referral Program

Your current employees can often be the best source for bringing new talent. Internal referrals are more effective in recruitment as your current employees know more about your potential employee than you do. As per the data by Jobvite, 78% of recruiters say that referrals have helped them find suitable candidates for their organization.

All employees have their connections, such as colleagues, friends, or relatives. Not leveraging the power of the employee referral program will be a missed opportunity.

Monitor Your Sourcing And Recruiting Metrics

Ask yourself the following questions to track the sourcing and recruiting metrics:

• How many attempts does it take to get a response from a candidate?
• How long does it take to convince a candidate to apply for a job?
• Where are the best candidates sourced from?
• How long does it take from the initial interview of a sourced candidate to hire?

Monitoring metrics will help you get a deep insight into your current sourcing strategies and help you optimize them to maximize your hiring success.

Leverage Online Platforms

From social media platforms to online platforms – candidates are everywhere. You just need to use the right platform to hire qualified candidates.

For example, suppose you’re looking for developers in your organization. In that case, you can start hunting for talent on online platforms such as GitHub, StackOverflow, etc. These are the platforms where candidates engage with an online community to solve a particular set of technical issues. By visiting the candidate’s profile, you will get a deep insight into the candidate’s technical skills.

Start Your Search With Your Database

It is not necessary to start sourcing candidates with Google. An ATS (Applicant Tracking System) provides more qualified candidates than the internet. It is a database of candidates who have previously shown interest in your company for a particular job role.

Use data and automation

Automation can help to improve efficiency metrics and reduce the time and cost per hire. Data can help find candidates who are better matches for a job’s requirements. It can also reduce bias in the recruitment process by eliminating the necessity for human decision-making.

Aid Your Organization’s Outreach Message

All your candidate sourcing efforts will go in vain if you don’t have the right introductory message.

Here are some rules to aid your outreach message:

• Write a compelling subject line that encourages candidates to open and read your message.
• Personalize your message with the candidate’s information.
• Introduce yourself and your organization.
• Explain how you think they could enhance the team’s productivity.

Today, candidate sourcing is one of the essential tasks of the recruiting process. As recruiting and sourcing are two different things, the hiring metrics may vary.

No plan is ‘perfect’ - you just need to keep on experimenting with the new strategies to get an insight into what’s working. Keeping in mind the above strategies will help you hire the right talent, enhancing the business’s overall productivity.