The Dos And Don'ts Of Sourcing In The Now Of Work

Guidelines recruiters should follow when navigating today’s sourcing landscape

In the past, sourcing employees for open positions was an antiquated process. Companies would attempt to find qualified applicants directly from schools, through trade publications, or from personal connections.
 

Today, technology has dramatically changed the sourcing landscape. Since the pandemic, technology has increasingly played a significant role in the process of recruiting, interviewing, and onboarding employees. Without the help technology innovations can bring to the sourcing process, finding that perfect candidate for a role can be like finding a needle in a haystack.

Even given what technology can add to the recruitment stage of hiring, there still remain some hard and fast rules for sourcing in today's work environment. Preventing hiring mistakes and making sourcing a seamless, well-run process takes research, patience, experience, and creativity. Here are three of the top “dos” and “don’ts” of sourcing in today’s business environment.

DO Standardize Your Sourcing Process

With some tasks, one may take a "throw every option at the wall and hope something sticks" approach. Employee sourcing, however, should not be one of those tasks.

By taking a standardized approach to sourcing, you may be able to see what's working — and what's not — in short order. By asking the same questions, using the same evaluation touchpoints, and ensuring candidates get the same treatment in the sourcing stage of hiring, everyone on the hiring team will know what to expect.

DON'T Forget to Personalize

There are so many websites and applications out there designed to help companies source top talent. Sites like Indeed have ways of quickly entering information about the positions you have open. While this makes the process of listing positions faster, it doesn't personalize the recruitment process.

If the old way of describing positions is not garnering the best response in terms of talent, companies may want to pivot and try something new. When a bad hire occurs, companies will want to first look at the job requirements that sourced that hire in the first place, tweaking what needs to be tweaked to prevent the same mistake from happening twice.

DO Turn to High Tech Tools

Sourcing talent is different from the active hiring process in that it looks at the qualified candidates for positions that may be open now or in the future. It looks at candidates that may or may not be actively seeking a job.

Software has been developed to help HR departments better compare qualified candidates that speak directly to the sourcing process, not necessarily the active hiring process. Many programs have been custom designed for recruitment companies and headhunters to streamline the sourcing and recruitment process, saving them both time and money.

DON'T Forget About In-Office Recruitment

The best talent may be right under your nose. When considering a position that may be opening in the future, recruiters may want to first look at those already employed with the organization, who could be prime candidates for an internal, vertical move or promotion.

Hiring from within can help bolster retention, especially in this current climate of The Great Resignation. It can also save time and money in sourcing because, often, HR may already be familiar with the current employee's strengths.

DO Embrace the Power of Social Media

Social media has many positive applications, and sourcing top-tier talent is one of them. Through savvy social media use, recruiters can identify candidate targets that match their organization's values and culture. They can highlight that culture to possible candidates through branded social media content, and easily engage candidates in comments and direct messaging. Social media can also provide a window into candidate personalities through their profiles.

DON'T Be Unethical

In most cases, recruiters will be on the up-and-up when sourcing talent for their organizations. However, there exist some unscrupulous recruiters who rely on unethical methods to try to get a leg up on finding candidates.

Some of these unethical approaches include misrepresenting one's company online or in job listings, allowing unfair referral practices that do not promote or hire based on merit or skill, and shady use of social media. I'm confident in saying that many of us have, to some extent, encountered scammers or phishing expeditions on sites like LinkedIn. Recruiters who always keep ethics and transparency at the forefront of their approach will get further with quality hires and retention in the long run.

Sourcing talent has been made a lot easier with tech advancements, both in available software and social media options. By standardizing the approach, learning from mistakes, and utilizing technology thoughtfully, recruiters can find success in a highly competitive sourcing landscape.

Author Bio

Kelly Robinson is the Founder & CEO of Panna Knows Recruiting. Follow https://twitter.com/krobpanna?lang=en