Hiring GlossaryWhat is sourcing strategy in recruitment?
What is sourcing and what is its role in recruiting?
What if the best candidate for your open role isn’t even looking for a job right now? That’s exactly why sourcing exists – and why it’s become an essential practice for recruiting teams.
According to Greenhouse Talent Acquisition Program Manager Generi Talens, sourcing is “the active outreach that talent professionals do to connect with potential talent. It’s the process of looking through our network to find great candidates that we think would be an addition to our org, and making that first move to get in contact with them.”
The sourcing process involves researching, identifying and connecting with prospective talent to convert them into job applicants and new hires through different types of outreach, such as in-person meetings, emails and phone calls. Some recruiting teams expect recruiters to spend a certain percentage of their time on sourcing activities, and others have dedicated sourcers.
As you can imagine, the sourcing process requires a lot more time than traditional recruiting, which tends to be more passive and focuses more on reviewing the applications that come in. However, the reason why many talent acquisition teams choose to invest in sourcing is because they believe the best candidates are already employed and not actively looking for a new role.
Camille Conrotto, Head of Talent Acquisition at Hedra (formerly at Niantic), explained why she’s such a proponent of sourcing talent and believes it gives you a competitive edge: “Engaging passive candidates gives you an advantage. In my opinion, the best folks are never looking. If folks are not actively looking, there’s a higher likelihood they won’t be interviewing elsewhere.”
The benefits of a strategic sourcing approach
Why should you make the investment in strategic sourcing? While it’s true that sourcing requires dedicated time and effort upfront, it also offers plenty of long-term benefits.
Improved quality of candidates
As you actively search for great candidates, you’ll also develop a better understanding of job requirements and what qualities are needed for success in various roles. And as you improve your sourcing capabilities, you’ll start getting better-quality hires – it’s a win-win! Sourcing passive candidates also provides you with a competitive advantage since they’re not actively looking for new opportunities and unlikely to be interviewing elsewhere.
Reduced time and cost of hiring
In the US, the average cost per hire is approximately $4,700, and it can take 36 to 42 days to fill an open role, on average, which eats up a lot of time, money and resources. When you consistently source candidates over time, it gets easier to fill positions as they open up since you’ve already built a pipeline of vetted candidates to choose from – reducing your time-to-hire and saving you money.
Stronger employer brand
Candidate sourcing also plays a crucial role in building your employer brand, which is your company’s reputation as a desirable place to work. When your recruiting team shows interest in passive candidates by keeping them updated on new roles and product updates or sharing company news and employee stories, they’ll start to recognise and trust your company. And even if they don’t apply for a role themselves, they may recommend your company to friends and people in their network, promoting and strengthening your employer brand through word of mouth.
More diverse pipeline
Finally, accepting only active candidates can lead to a homogeneous pipeline, which is why Generi Talens advocates sourcing. She said, “At Greenhouse, we recognise that people who apply on our website aren’t always a representation of the overall talent that’s out there, and it’s our responsibility to tap into underrepresented communities to diversify our top -of-funnel.”
To learn more about the benefits of strategic sourcing, see why having a strong candidate sourcing strategy is key to successful recruitment.
How to build a successful sourcing strategy
Let’s say you’re convinced of the importance of sourcing. How do you get started with your own sourcing strategy? Here are a few major steps to take.
Step 1: Create targeted lists of prospects
You’ll want to start by creating targeted lists of people to reach out to. Try to limit yourself to a few roles so you don’t get too overwhelmed. You might also find that it makes sense to segment prospective candidates based on skill set, role or other relevant criteria.
Step 2: Develop and maintain your sourcing pipeline
Most recruiting teams and companies use an applicant tracking system (ATS) to keep track of all the candidates who applied to jobs and candidates they sourced themselves, so make sure you’re making the most of this tool if you have it at your disposal.
Using an ATS can help you quickly find the right candidates by allowing you to use keyword searches that align with the job requirements, the skills you’re looking for and the hiring manager’s expectations.
One effective sourcing tactic for growing your pipeline is to review past candidates, such as silver medallists – those who did well in the interview process but didn’t end up getting hired. In addition to looking at past applicants, you can proactively source candidates through networking, hosting events, and searching online networking sites and databases.
Step 3: Make the most of data and analytics
If you have a dedicated ATS or candidate relationship management (CRM) tool, you can use it to automate processes and gain insights from your data and analytics. You can track things like how many prospective candidates respond to a specific message or convert from one stage to the next. This information can help you continue to refine your outreach campaigns over time.
And there are even more ways that these tools can help you build your talent pipeline to simplify sourcing in the future. For example, Greenhouse Prospect Posts allow you to collect applications from those who are interested in your company, even when you’re not actively hiring. You can build a pool of great talent to source from for future openings and configure custom questions and application rules for your Prospect Posts to help you identify the most promising prospects for your nurture strategy. Explore more pipeline management tactics in Greenhouse here.
Innovative sourcing techniques to attract top talent
Once you’ve got the basics down, you’ll be ready to experiment with some next-level sourcing techniques. Here are a few ways to expand your pool of prospective candidates.
Create meaningful connections on social media
You can connect with prospective candidates in different ways through social media. For example, many platforms allow you to communicate one-on-one through direct messaging, replies or comments, in addition to broadcasting information to a wider group of followers or subscribers. This can create a personalised experience for potential candidates that builds their trust and helps them see your company as more authentic. Learn more about social media recruiting strategies here.
While LinkedIn is the go-to social media platform for talent sourcing, other platforms like Medium, Slack, GitHub and Quora can also work for directly engaging with prospective candidates. Sales Advocate at Onward Platforms, Ted Prendergast (formerly at Slalom), advocates for gradually building relationships with other people on these platforms. By asking questions and starting conversations, you can create a list of potential candidates who are knowledgeable and engaged. These tactics take sustained time and effort, but as Ted explained, “Even if you get one hire on one platform, it’s completely paying for itself.” Read more of Ted’s sourcing recommendations here.
Focus on networking and relationship-building rather than filling roles
Don’t forget that a successful sourcing strategy must include building long-term relationships with people. There may not always be an immediate payoff, but it’s still important to keep an open mind when it comes to connecting with people. A great way to build and nurture these relationships is by setting reminders to check in on a monthly, quarterly or yearly basis.
Camille Conrotto explained, “As I’ve grown in my career, I’ve relied more and more on relationship-building as a sourcing strategy. Building upon relationships I’ve made in the industry, from venture firms to university professors. Quarterly, monthly, yearly check-ins with candidates I’ve previously engaged.” You can expand your network and build relationships by attending events in person, connecting on LinkedIn, and offering to help people by reviewing their CVs or introducing them to relevant opportunities.
Re-engage with past candidates and referrals
An average corporate role has 250 applicants, but you generally only hire one person. This means that you’re constantly growing the community of people who are familiar with your company and who have engaged with your hiring process.
A CRM will allow you to re-engage with prospects and candidates rather than starting candidate pipelines from scratch every time you open a new role. It also serves as a historical record that helps you track all the relevant information for a particular prospect or candidate – when you were last in contact, who from your team was in touch and what the appropriate next steps would be.
Using a CRM means you can pick up the conversation with past candidates and referrals in a way that feels seamless and natural, increasing the chances they’ll be open to responding and re-engaging with you.
Measuring the effectiveness of your sourcing strategy
When it comes to sourcing, which specific metrics should you track? Some common key performance indicators (KPIs) related to sourcing include the following:
- Conversions at each stage: You’ll want to know what happens after each touchpoint you have with a prospect – how likely are they to move on to the next stage?
- The average number of messages it takes to get an initial response: Keeping track of the average number of messages it takes before you receive a response can help you plan out your communication campaigns.
- The most effective sources – and how much you’re spending on them: There are countless tools and services you can use to source candidates, but the prices can vary significantly, so it’s important to determine which ones provide the best return on investment.
Because most sourcing strategies tend to rely on communication campaigns, you’ll want to keep close tabs on which email campaigns are generating the most opens, clicks, replies and conversions – and which aren’t – so you can adjust your strategy accordingly.
This is an area where a tool like Greenhouse can really support you. In Greenhouse, you can see reporting data across your team and email campaigns, and you can view the data for individual email steps within a specific campaign. This allows you to recognise how each step is performing so you can identify the most engaging subject lines, email copy and calls-to-action to optimise your campaign performance. Learn more about how Greenhouse can help you measure and improve your sourcing strategy here.
Best practices for implementing your sourcing strategy
Now that you’ve got all the essentials you need to get started, here are a few best practices to keep in mind as you begin to put your sourcing strategy in place.
Create a collaborative hiring team approach
While recruiters or sourcers may take on the majority of the sourcing work, they’re rarely working completely alone. If you’re revisiting past candidates, for example, you may end up reaching out to someone a TA team member previously built a relationship with. Or if you’re sourcing senior or executive candidates, you may need to work closely with someone from your company’s leadership as a talent magnet to get the prospect’s attention and increase their chances of responding.
When everyone sees that sourcing is a collaborative effort, they’ll be much more likely to follow data best practices that will benefit everyone in the long term.
Continuously improve and adapt your strategies
It’s rare for things to stay the same forever. Whether it’s the roles you’re hiring for or the technology you’re using to do it, the world of recruiting is constantly in flux. This means that your sourcing strategy will also need to change over time.
Based on what you learn from tracking your KPIs, you’ll be able to monitor the effectiveness of recruiter outreach, candidate engagement and conversion rates. And you can use this information to run experiments and make adjustments as necessary.
Integrate technology and tools into your workflow
We’ve already covered a few ways that technology can help automate and enhance your sourcing efforts. If you have both an ATS and CRM that connect to each other, you can seamlessly transition prospects into candidates and track all your interactions over time.
You might also want to consider specialised talent sourcing tools. Some are focused on helping you identify candidates with specialised skill sets, while others help you find candidates from underrepresented backgrounds. Not sure where to start? Greenhouse integrates with a number of sourcing tools, and you can easily browse the tools that are most popular with your peers. Check out our list of partners here.
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