5 Candidate Sourcing Strategies to Find Top Talent
Finding the right talent is the priority of every organization. Creating a talent pipeline increases your chances of sourcing the best candidates for your organization. To do this, you require a strategy to target the right candidates and engage with them. A good strategy will boost the success and growth of the business. The key is to find a method that works for you. However, before we look at strategies for candidate sourcing, let us first what candidate sourcing means.
What is candidate sourcing?
Candidate sourcing can be seen as part of the talent acquisition process and is about finding the right people to work for your organization. Candidate sourcing requires you to be proactive and identify potential candidates and engage with them. You will need to build relationships. A good candidate sourcing strategy will lead to a talent pipeline of candidates who can be considered for present and future openings in your company.
Candidate sourcing vastly differs from a conventional recruitment method which relies on candidates applying for open positions. Candidate sourcing is all about proactively seeking them out and engaging with them. While only 36% of a workforce is actively looking for new opportunities, about 90% of them will be open to talking and learning more. Such initiatives can reach passive candidates who would otherwise not know anything about your company.
Candidate sourcing strategies
1. Define your ideal candidate persona
The profile of your ideal candidate will be based on the role that you are recruiting for, and the skills and experience that is required for that role. You could begin by listing down the qualifications required, the technical skills that are required, the soft skills needed and ways to determine a cultural fit into that organization. Good communication skills, ability to work in a team environment and ways to assess their adaptability can be added. Essentially, you require a reference point to evaluate potential candidates.
2. Diversify your online candidate sourcing channels
Most recruiters turn to their professional network or social media channels to find potential candidates. Find channels and outreach methods that are not used conventionally to reach candidates. Look for websites that attract people from specific domains like websites where engineers, tech talent or people interested in a startup visit often. Sometimes, your own employees can be good resources to find out which websites people with similar interests as them visit. Social media has some forums where it is possible to find a potential candidate and engage with them. It is important to find the right forum.
In addition, offline methods such attending events, conferences, are good hunting ground. You could even host a meetup for people with certain focus as machine learning engineers or marketing managers.
3. Tap your employee networks
Employee networks are a great starting point for candidate sourcing. Conduct a candidate sourcing session with your team and tell them about the open positions and ask for referrals to fill the open roles. Employees can be good referrals to build your pipeline of people with similar backgrounds, skills, and interests as those already working for you. Connecting with potential employees through your employees is a surer way of reaching and building relationships with potential employees. This is because they respond better to someone, they know rather than just a cold email or ping on social media.
4. Perfect your messaging
Ensure that your messaging is candidate focused. Focus on what information they would like to know. Ensure that your message is personalized and has relevant information for the potential candidate. You message must have an interesting subject line that will make them want to open the email and read it. If it is a personal meeting, the impact could be better. Take the opportunity to talk about your organization, the culture, and values. You could also talk about the role and how you think they can contribute to the organization. You will have to do this in a sharp and interesting manner without overloading too much of information. Try to stick to essentials that will interest a potential employee.
5. Building a strong employer brand
A string employer brand is a very effective tool to attract top talent. Candidates would consider leaving their present employment if they are offered opportunities to work with brands that have an excellent reputation. Use your website and social media to highlight feedback from your employees about the workplace and how they like it. This will generate goodwill serve as a strong magnet for potential employees. Find ways to showcase the culture of your company to potential employees. These could be through photos, events, videos or posts about your company on social media. Talk about the values of the company at every opportunity. This will attract people who share the same beliefs and will be a good fit for your team.
Summary
Focusing on creating a talent pipeline of qualified candidates who can fill future vacancies is the essence of candidate sourcing. This will not just save you time and resources but bring in people who are the right fit and qualified too. The key lies in finding newer talent pools, spreading the word and engaging actively with potential employees.
