Imagine moving to a new city where you don’t know anyone and don’t have access to the Internet. The first things you’ll need to do are find a safe place to live, a job you’ll love, childcare for your kids and a good doctor, all on your own. You have no recommendations from friends and family, no physician review websites, no Angie’s List and no online cautionary tales to keep you away from the three bedroom, two bath with the nightmare neighbor. You are forced to visit locations to do your research or use the phone to find information about moving and relocating.
It would likely take a while to sort all these things out, besides the fact that it’s scary to blindly entrust your children to a daycare you know nothing about or to choose a physician whose reputation is a mystery. As difficult as all this sounds, many hiring managers are putting themselves through the same agony by leading their recruiting efforts without sourcing.
Sourcing, proactively seeking out new job candidates through résumé databases, membership directories and online communities including social media, is essential to the success of any recruiting and hiring program. Whether it was through using membership binders, old smiling and dialing or browsing searching social networks like LinkedIn and Facebook, sourcing has always added to recruitment and hiring in ways that reactive hiring practices never could. It’s used now more than ever, with 62 percent of employers stating that sourcing is the most essential activity in talent management today according to a 2013 Aberdeen published study.
Sourcing is more powerful and important than ever before due to the sheer amount of online profiles and data available online. The internet makes my relocation process happen much more smoothly just like it does for recruiters searching for talent not just through phone sourcing but candidate sourcing happening online.
Pipeline of Candidates
Building a pipeline of candidates is the most surefire way to manage your company’s talent needs. Sourcing allows you to connect with potential candidates far before the need ever arises. This is especially valuable when you consider that hiring a new employee can take anywhere from a week to several months.
Less Wasted Time
There’s nothing more frustrating than walking away from an interview with a potential candidate thinking you just wasted an hour of your life. Sourcers are able to pre-qualify candidates based on the information and resources they provide on their blogs or communities like StackOverflow. What if this could be avoided by taking a quick glance at their LinkedIn page? That’s the timesaving power of sourcing at work.
Offer Acceptance
Many sourcing methods, from social sourcing on Twitter to networking within professional organizations, provide the opportunity to make a personal connection with candidates. Candidates may not have this connection with other employers attempting to recruit them, especially in the competitive geographic areas with low unemployment such as Oklahoma City or high competition technical positions like Silicon Valley’s Ruby Developers or Data Scientist. When the time comes to accept an offer, an established relationship with a hiring or recruiting manager will make the decision even easier. Relationships go a long way in recruiting and hiring, thus sourcing is one more place it extends.
Access to References
The great thing about sourcing is that the way its used today provides a bit of a behind-the-scenes look at potential candidates through their own blog, Twitter account or LinkedIn page. Part of that behind-the scenes look often includes mutual connections that could provide honest opinions and experiences from working with the candidate.
Broader Reach
Sourcing through a social recruiting and candidate management system allows you to reach potential candidates whom your traditional job postings on job boards or paper media would never reach on their own. Sourcing offers an aggressive and proactive approach to recruiting candidates using technology no matter the location, position or geography. To make the most of this aspect of sourcing, diversify your networks to include online, local, national, industry specific and more.
Including sourcing as part of your online recruitment and hiring efforts can completely transform your practices. If you’re considering sourcing but are hesitant, what are your greatest concerns? Let us know in the comments section below.