Contents

Candidate sourcing is one of the best ways of an effective hiring process, yet not everyone learns from the proven strategies and recruit with non-effective actions. 

  • What is sourcing candidates about?
  • How does it affect on recruitment process?
  • Which sourcing strategies are the best?

Find out everything about sourcing job candidates and learn proven methods to improve the employment process in your organization!

source candidates / find candidates

What is sourcing, and how does it differ from recruiting?

Sourcing refers to the process of proactive searching for well-qualified job candidates, to fill current or planned job openings in your or your customer’s company.

Rather than waiting for CVs and making time-consuming, not truly productive tasks, recruiters, HR expert or professional hiring manager create a strategy to find the best candidates and fill the position with the right person. 

The sourcing process includes:

  • defining the employer brand
  • creating a list of employer’s requirements
  • searching for proper candidates
  • identifying potential employees and contacting them
  • attracting applicants with the job offer
  • taking care of candidate experience factor
  • building long-term relationships with potential hires
  • collecting database of talents

Candidate sourcing is everything that happens before it comes to recruiting. The recruitment process starts when sourcing is done, and includes screening, interviewing, then evaluating and choosing the best applicants.

So, in a nutshell: sourcing refers to finding job candidates, and recruiting – to hire one of them.

Why does sourcing make recruiting more effective?

Once you have a list of potential employees, you can start recruiting, but the point is that only 36% of workers are actively seeking for new job opportunities.

If you want to hire top talent, you cannot rely on miracle: none of the best talents will look for your offer, especially if your company is a start-up or small organization. You have to find those people, who would likely take part in the recruitment process. 

search / online searching / jobseeker

Sourcing candidates is a strategic process, which is mostly part of recruiting process in the company. It affects on recruiting and make it possibly profitable by:

  • Reducing time-to-hire: 

Candidates (passive candidates too) are already initially screened for required skills and pre-selected for further employment,

  • Building talent-pipeline:

It gives ready-to-use databases of already engaged candidates, which is necessary during current and future hiring processes,

  • Helping to achieve long-term recruiting goals:

Recruiters often have more than one objective to achieve, and sourcing can be a great tool to get succeed in the HR field.

Did you know that 1 of approx 70 sourced candidates is hired? It is 50% better recruitment result than in case of inactive waiting for job seekers!

However, the candidate sourcing process has one, main target: collect a decent database of potential employees, already engaged and ready to take part in current or future hiring process.

How to source candidates? Few strategic tips

Sourcing can be more effective if you use proven strategies to find top talents. To achieve the best possible results, you can try some popular methods:

Candidate Sourcing with Applicant Tracking Systems

Once you have collected a database with well-skilled potential candidates (talent pool) – because you finished one employment process successfully and the company has chosen one of those candidates – you can rely on your sources. Those people are qualified to recruit for the future positions in the same (or similar) company. 

The challenge is to keep engaging of the candidates who were not hired before, but were interested in joining some team. If you’re clever, you run the processes with an eye on candidate experience and build strong, long-term relationships with qualified talents.

It is a good opportunity for you to offer another job for the same candidates with re-engaging them. The truth is that barely 50% of companies keep contact with candidates who didn’t fit the previously offered role. There is a space for your sourcing actions, which most likely will succeed.

sourcing efforts / way to source / resumes

Candidate Sourcing Process with great marketing strategy

Think like the great seller – after all, you have to find proper candidates and convince them to trust that you have the perfect suited open position for them. Engaged candidates will want to join the company which offered a role. 

To succeed, try to use some methods, which help in building employer brand. You can:

  • keep communication on candidate-focused level
  • use job-related websites, social media, and job boards to advertise job offers
  • don’t forget about strength of offline actions (f.e. events)
  • improve candidate experience by using automation tools
  • build long-term relationships with candidates

To improve candidate experience, you can use dedicated tools, f.e. web calendar which can show your availability and let candidates choose a convenient date for call or meeting. 

While messaging, use subject line which engage potential talents into reading your email. Pay attention to details and sell the open position to the right employee.

Candidate Sourcing Process with the Talent Acquisition Agency

If you are a founder or member of HR department in a small organization or start-up, most likely there is no space for the recruitment marketing and proper candidate sourcing. 

Don’t worry, there is a solution to hire the Talent Acquisition Agency. With relatively low costs, you can create a strong employer brand and engage top talents into the employment process in your company. 

HR specialists and hiring managers rely on proven techniques and use the best tools and databases to bring your organization good hiring results in a short time. It is one of the most beneficial candidate sourcing ways for those, who cannot afford to create huge, well-structured HR department.

recruiters / open roles / career path

Key takeaways: What should you and your HR department know about candidate sourcing?

Job applicants sourcing is a process, which refers to searching for candidates with the best practices. A well planned sourcing strategy will:

  • shorten time-to hire
  • create a decent database of qualified candidates
  • keep long-term relationships with potential employees
  • build strong employer brand
  • improve recruitment marketing in your organization
  • bring positive candidate experience

Learn more about sourcing techniques or find the best Talent Acquisition Agency to succeed in hiring!

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Lukasz Wybieralski

Lukasz Wybieralski

Founder and Chief Executive Officer at RemoDevs

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