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Top 5 Recruitment Sourcing Strategies To Find Talents in 2024

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Posted by: David Garcia June 01, 2022

Companies dedicate massive amounts of time, energy, and financial resources to identify the perfect candidate for a role. Even after all that effort, there’s no guarantee that they’ll accept your offer. When that happens, you have to start over again.

But there’s a better way to do this. It all begins with identifying the top sourcing strategies.

The better prepared you are to deal with recruitment challenges, the fewer impediments to interrupt your workflow. With a solid HR team and recruiting strategy, your team can identify, connect with, and hire great candidates consistently and effectively.

Here’s what you need to know about recruitment and sourcing strategies and how to develop the perfect approach for your company’s unique needs.

What Are the Different Types of Recruiting Sourcing Strategies?

Before you can develop a recruiting strategy and tailor it for your company, it’s helpful to understand the different recruiting strategies commonly used by HR professionals. See if any of the approaches on this list resonate with your goals!

Job Postings

When people approach recruitment or job searches, the go-to is often traditional job postings. In the past, job boards were public spaces, like libraries and newspapers, and employees would place ads in these places to scout prospective employees. In today’s world, most of these listings have moved online.

Today, digital job boards on websites make it easier for employers to share a job opening across multiple platforms. Digitization of job boards is great for businesses, as it means qualified candidates will more easily find your listings. Your open positions will be available to a broader pool of applicants.

On the other side of the job search, candidates can tailor their job search to their specific credentials or interests. When they apply, they are more likely interested in the particular role rather than limited to jobs in their local area like they were in the past.

However, it’s not all beneficial. While online postings are great for active job seekers, they aren’t the best option for passive recruitment.

For example, suppose a high-level, skilled worker at a company is happy with their job. They are the ideal candidate that you want to tap for your organization. However, because that worker is content in their position, they most likely won’t be looking at job boards. They may never see new opportunities your company lists if you wait passively, hoping for them to reach out.

Internal Hires

The most straightforward way to hire for a role is by turning to your current employees. Internal hiring is an excellent option for companies, especially those committed to succession planning.

Employers can take advantage of the talent they’ve already found and fostered at their organization when hiring internally. No one knows the ins and outs of your company the way your current staff does. An internal job listing can be an excellent option for companies hiring for niche roles in unique fields.

Additionally, hiring from within allows employers to bypass the need to work with a third-party recruitment service, saving time and money.

The downside to internal hiring is that it only works if you have the talent in your staff for the available role. You also need to be able to shift jobs around within your organization. Plus, you’ll need to make it worth the while for the employee to step into the new role.

Referrals

If you have a great team of people at your company, there’s a solid chance they have peers, former colleagues, or old classmates who would be a great addition to your staff. Through a referral program, you can motivate your current staff to connect your hiring team with their personal networks.

Typically, a referral program involves financial incentives. For example, suppose an employee refers a candidate to your company. If that applicant is a successful hire, the employee will receive a bonus for that referral.

Referral programs are a win-win for everyone. The company gets a great new staff member; the employee gets compensated, and the candidate receives a great new job!

Referrals can also work within talent acquisition agencies. Candidates can refer others to the agency for a referral fee. This process motivates individuals to make referrals and identify new talent.

One of the setbacks with the referral recruiting strategy is that it can lead to the risk of nepotism. An employee might think their former colleague is a great fit, but that’s not always the case.

A robust screening and interview process is necessary regardless of the recruiting source.

Recruitment Databases

A recruitment database is a common technique used by in-house hiring teams and external recruitment services. A database holds candidates’ records, including resumes, references, and contact information. There are databases open to multiple companies and databases that individual agencies monitor and keep for their own hiring needs.

Recruitment databases can be tremendous assets because they give employers an easy source when looking for a qualified candidate. Typically, people listed in a database are interested in your company, actively looking for work, or open to making a career change if a great opportunity pops up.

Recruiters can contact potential candidates directly from the database. There’s a good chance those listed in the database are active job seekers or interested in your company.

It is worth mentioning that a database strategy is only as strong as the quality of the database. If the database is full of out-of-date info or poorly maintained, it’s unlikely to lead to successful hires.

Social Media 

In today’s world, almost everyone is on social media. If that’s where the people are, it makes sense that recruiters would want to be there too!

The most popular social network for professionals is LinkedIn. Used by businesses and employees from all industries, it’s an excellent platform for connecting with job seekers or recruiting individuals with desirable credentials. By posting job ads on social media or reaching out to potential candidates directly, recruiters can easily connect, communicate, and steer job seekers toward specific positions.

Of course, social media recruiting does have its limitations. Not all job seekers utilize these platforms or use them actively if they’re currently employed. Therefore, it’s essential to diversify your recruiting approach to include all possible candidates.

Why Are Recruiting Strategies Important?

For the first time since the US began keeping employment records, the number of job openings exceeds the number of job seekers. Because of this, it is more challenging than ever to find qualified candidates for open positions.

An effective recruitment strategy may help ease the burden on your hiring team, increasing the likelihood that this smaller pool of applicants will come knocking at your door.

Hiring can stall without an effective recruitment strategy, especially in competitive industries. With multiple companies hoping to attract the same candidates, you need to efficiently identify and connect with qualified job seekers. Otherwise, you’ll lose skilled talent to other companies.

A well-researched, consistent recruitment strategy can be the difference between securing that talent for your agency and missing out.

5 Tips to Develop an Effective Recruiting Sourcing Strategy

If you put in the effort to develop a solid recruiting strategy upfront, you will lessen the workload for the long haul. Here are some must-do tips to get you there.

1. Designate Recruitment Roles

Sourcing, recruiting, and hiring talent are different stages of recruitment. The same staff members don’t have to work on all these stages.

It can streamline the process if you have a designated staff member or team locating qualified candidates and connecting them to your recruiting team. The recruiters can take over to conduct screenings and arrange interviews.

2. Create an Ideal Candidate Profile

Take time to carefully analyze the job requirements before moving forward with any listings or recruitment. Who is your ideal candidate? What are the must-have and desired qualifications for the role? Where are you most likely to connect with this type of candidate?

By crafting the profile of the perfect candidate and identifying the best way to recruit that specific individual, you can tailor your strategy to fit the vacant job.

3. Make Hiring a Collaborative Process

Even the most skilled HR teams don’t know the ins and outs of every job at their company. As such, it’s crucial to collaborate with various team members while developing your recruitment strategy.

If there is a vacancy due to a staff member leaving their job, involve that individual in this process. Have them help write the job description.

Your sourcing team should also involve the direct supervisor or any other collaborators for this role. By setting the standards together, you’ll identify candidates who can succeed in the role and be a good fit in the long term.

4. Revisit Previous Recruitment Materials

There’s a good chance you’ve hired someone for this role or similar roles in your company before. You shouldn’t have to start over completely to fill the position. Look through your database of past candidates and begin your search there.

Don’t have a database? It’s time to set one up! In the long run, it’ll serve you to store applicant data so you can reach out to them or future opportunities with your agency.

Broaden Your Search

Don’t limit your potential reach by only looking in the obvious places. Expand your search terms and cast a wide net with related keywords, experience, and qualifications. You may be surprised by the candidates you’ll find in unexpected places.

Conclusion

With so much riding on hiring decisions, organizations invest massive amounts of energy, time, and money in recruiting the best candidates.

But there’s an easy way to streamline this. You focus on finding your people. Let ScoutLogic handle the rest. ScoutLogic offers bulk screening services, so your company can focus on what matters: connecting with top talent.

Reach out today to meet your designated scout recruiter.

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