Hiring top-level talent takes a lot of time. It is not something that can happen overnight.

It requires dedication on the part of both employer and applicant, as well as plenty of communication, education, and research to ensure the match is beneficial for everyone involved. It also means doing your homework up-front to know what you are looking for from an employee or contractor before reviewing resumes or interviewing candidates.

This guide will provide some tips on how to find top talent for any position: sourcing strategy, hiring process overview, recruiting best practices (including online tools), and more!

Talent Sourcing Strategy Guide

When it comes to recruitment, two important terms are sourcer and recruiter. A team with one of each generally works well, but the teams can be mixed and matched as needed according to the demands of a role or company’s structure.

The recruiter would be responsible for understanding what type of person your business needs, where to find those people, how to reach out to potential candidates as well as persuading them into accepting an offer with you. The sourcer, on the other hand, evaluates job postings and performs an extensive search to find qualified leads which are then passed on to recruiters who contact those potential candidates.

Not often do we talk much about the sourcers’ role in recruiting. We believe they play the most important part in the process, as they are responsible for finding qualified candidates that will be recruited by recruiters.

Sourcing talent is always time-consuming and costly but it’s what can make or break your company in the long run. Sourcers have to work hard every day on their research in order to find new leads that might fit with your business needs.

There’s no doubt about sourcer’s importance when we talk about recruiting the best talents into our organization.

In this article, we’ll cover everything a sourcer does to help you find the perfect candidate for your organization.

What is Talent Sourcing?

Talent Sourcing is defined as the process of identifying potential candidates for a job position in your enterprise. It’s usually the first step of hiring and recruiting.

The ‘sourcer’ is responsible for finding qualified candidates that will be recruited by recruiters. This might include posting ads, sorting through resumes, searching on LinkedIn or social media, conduct pre-interviews, or otherwise screening potential prospects to weed out the unsuitable applicants from ones worth pursuing further.

In some cases, sourcers will also meet directly with those who are potential hires to offer additional information about the company’s culture for consideration in their decision of whether or not they want to work there.

Depending on the structure and needs of a specific company, sourcers and recruiters can be one and the same but others also have them operating separately.

Talent Sourcing Specialist

A talent sourcing specialist (aka Sourcer) focus on sourcing, recruiting, and hiring talent for a specific position or job. They are the ones who go out to find potential candidates in various industry sectors and backgrounds.

Their job is to make sure that they have their finger on the pulse of what’s happening across different industries so they can be able to quickly respond when there are openings at their client.

If you’re looking to fill a position in your company, it can be worth contacting a sourcer for help. They will have knowledge of the latest trends and industry happenings which can be beneficial when filling specific positions like CEOs or engineers.

When sourcing talent, they are also responsible for understanding what type of person their client is interested in hiring as well as what types of jobs will best fit them so they don’t waste time on unqualified candidates.

They should also understand the role that is being filled and who else may already work there before presenting any potential applicants to make sure whoever gets hired has an appropriate level of experience and skill set needed by the team.

The sourcers not only find talent but also manages the hiring process.

Types of Talent Sourcing Strategy

There are many ways to obtain a candidate for a specific job, but the following are some of the most popular strategies.

Social Media Recruiting

Searches for people should be done where people are so social media proves to be an excellent place to start looking for top talents. It may have some caveats as this platform is so big and widely used that a lot of applicants may come flooding in but fret not. The right tricks can make things simpler for you.

How? It’s all about where you’d do your search. If you’re looking for top-management professionals, you might want to look at places where these folks gather like LinkedIn. Strategies like this can work well in your favor.

Here are few social media platforms you can use to find the perfect talent for your organization:

Social Media For Professional

• LinkedIn is a social networking website where professionals from around the world can connect.

Social Media For Designers / UX

• Dribbble is a creative community of designers who share their work and provide feedback on others
• Behance is a popular website for designers to showcase their work in hopes that it will be picked up by new clients
• DeviantART is an online community for artists and designers where users can create profiles, share their art, see the work of others, and post messages.
• COLOURlovers is an online network that only focuses on color trends and insight. Users can create colors, palettes, and shapes using the site’s online tools.

Social Media For Engineers

• GitHub is a public service where approximately 65 million developers participate in the future of software. In addition to uploading and downloading files, users can contribute to open source projects, manage their Git repositories, or collaborate with other programmers from around the world.
• Stack Overflow is a website where programmers can post questions and get answers from fellow professionals, as well as other enthusiasts.

Social Media For Product Managers

• Creative Product Managers (LinkedIn Group)
• Product Coalition is the world’s largest independent Product Management community with 1,000,000+ monthly readers, 7,000+ Slack members, and 10,000+ podcast downloads.

Job Fair Recruitment

The best place to find talent may be in your own backyard. Job fairs are excellent places for you to go and scout out new hires as they will typically have a good mix of entry, intermediate, and top-level professionals all under one roof.

There is no better way than this strategy when it comes t finding high-quality people who might not otherwise know about the job opening or opportunity that got presented in their area but now has some light shed on them because of an event like a job fair.

You could also set up booths at prominent events where potential candidates hang around with flyers advertising open positions posted near the booth so more qualified individuals to get exposed to what’s available for applicants such

Employee Referrals

Your own employees will most likely have networks that might help you find a great candidate for an open position so try to explore that as well. Encourage and incentivize employee referrals so you can be sure to get top talents.

Recruitment Databases Software

Leverage your organization’s existing database of resumes to find the right candidate. Some may have already used their ATS system for years, with a database of thousands of resumes at their disposal. This is good news because you can rely on an easy source and save yourself hours trying to source elsewhere.

Hire External Sourcers or Recruiting Agency

If you don’t have the time or resources to hire top talent on your own, you can outsource it to an agency. Specifically, a sourcer will find individuals without vetting them and send resumes your way while a recruiting agency would provide vetted talent for interviews.

Recruiters work on behalf of a company to find suitable candidates for them. They usually work for a given company and are the arm of their human resource department. Their mission is to obtain this talent for open positions at their organization. Depending on the position, recruiters charge 20% – 30% of the candidates’ first-year salary.

The Sourcers search for qualified resumes that meet the client’s requirements, and they present them to the company. Sourcers generally take a flat-monthly fee to find the right individuals for your business.

Job Posting

One of the common approaches to finding new talent is posting jobs on job boards like ZipRecruiter, Indeed, LinkedIn and others.

We recommend you post a job on a specialized board. Since most large boards are not hyper-focused, there is less chance that the best talent will be found.

Networking Events

As mentioned above, recruiting at networking events is a great way to scout for top talent. Whether they are offline or online, networking will always give you the chance of meeting new people who could become valuable team members.

Leveraging networking events for recruiting is a great way to connect with potential employees. Networking events are a great way to develop relationships with people you might not normally meet, and get to know whether or not they would fit into your organization’s culture.

Internal promotions

On many occasions, sourcers don’t have to look far and wide to fill a specific spot, especially if it’s a higher ranking position. The existing talent within the organization will already suffice as a resource for talents.

This method is important for businesses to consider as it can simplify the sourcing process and provide motivation to their current team. If promotions are possible and done regularly instead of hiring from the outside, team members will be more likely to feel inspired and determined to do better in order to get promoted in rank.

Active vs. Passive Candidate

When sourcing top talents, it’s also crucial to learn about active and passive candidates. These are two very different kinds of potential employees as they require different treatments and handling.

• Active candidates, for starters, are those who are actively seeking employment. They’re already in the market to move to the next chapter of their careers. They can still be employed at the moment but they’re already seeking new employment.
• Passive candidates, on the other hand, are talents who are currently employed and are not looking for new employment at the moment. They are still considered as candidates as it’s still possible to get them to make the move even if they’re not really actively taking steps to do so.

It may seem confusing for the inexperienced but passive candidates may not be looking for new employment right now but they can still be making themselves available to interesting offers. A lot of top talents are considered passive candidates as companies want to get them because of their promising performance.

Passive candidates also usually need to be recruited. It’s very likely that they don’t have to actively seek employment because they’re highly in demand. They’re more challenging to find as well.

Steps in Sourcing Active and Passive Candidates

How do you source active and passive candidates? Here are some tips:

1. Get to know the available position

The very first thing that you need to do when sourcing any kind of candidate is to take a close look at the open position. It’s crucial that you understand what it is and what it’s for so you can know what to look for.

Many experts recommend meeting with the people with the same position and others surrounding it to learn more about what they do and what skills they need to accomplish their tasks. It’s also ideal to work with the manager of the open position to find out more about the spot you’re trying to fill.

2. Create a good job description and posting

A good job description is essential if you want to catch the eye of the right talents. It should appeal to your target audience so it should be crafted well. The information you got from the step above should help you out in this area.

3. Assess which method is best to use

With everything said above, it can be said that different sourcing and recruiting methods apply to different kinds of positions and candidates. This is why you should think about which method to use before diving into the search.

For example, you’re looking to fill an entry-level position. Looking at active candidates will be ideal for this as there are lots of great options when it comes to such spots.

However, if you need to fill a spot that requires more experience and expertise, you should also explore looking at passive candidates. The more specialized the position is, the more you should look into such candidates as they may be the best options you have.

4. Look for candidates

Once you’ve decided which methods to use, you can already start looking for candidates. Start working on gathering resumes from applicants.

5. Reach out to the best potential candidates

After getting applications, go through them and start considering the top options. Depending on the structure of your company, you may only need to forward the applications that you’re considering to be a great fit to the hiring managers and they’ll take the next necessary steps for you.

Best Practices for Sourcing

Need some tips to do your own sourcing? Here are some highly recommended techniques:

Plan Ahead

Having a plan is always essential if you want to be efficient and effective in whatever you intend to do. This proves true for sourcing as well. Make sure to check and understand the job description, come up with a list of skills and traits you’re looking for, and look up the best ways to source such a candidate.

Scan First

Skimming through the applications for someone that has what you’re looking for would be the most efficient way to filter through all of the resumes you will receive. Separate the ones that meet your needs and go through them again more carefully the second time around. This will make narrowing down your pool of potential candidates simpler and faster.

Optimize Your Search

When using a digital database, you can use technology to narrow down your options. Using specific key terms will help you find ones that are on the same page as you. Of course, you can also broaden your search if you wish to.

Check Out Other Places

Never stick to just one database for applicants if you want the best talents. Not all job seekers use several platforms to find a job so it’s best to check out as many as you can to broaden your search.

Look at Old Resumes

If this is not your first rodeo in sourcing, you can also go back to the candidates you’ve found before and check if they’re still up for what you can offer. There are lots of possible reasons why they may not have worked out before and things could’ve changed by now so they’re certainly still worth considering.

In closing …

We hope this guide will help you find the right talent to join your team. Of course, if ever in doubt always talk with a specialist who can give you some good advice about how best to proceed.

And as always, we are here to help. Email us hello@modernrecruiters.com

Good luck!