What are the Sourcing Tactics that will Help You Find Exceptional Candidates?

Attracting top talent is crucial for every organization. To succeed as an organization, you need to find the right candidates for your company. How should one define exceptional candidates? The right candidate means great productivity and lower employee turnover. Creating a talent pipeline will boost your chances of finding and employing the best employees for your future growth.

According to a study by the Korn Ferry Institute, there may be over 85 million open positions by 2030. On the other hand, if you hire the wrong candidate, it could harm your company culture, and you may waste time and effort in training an employee who will not stay with you longer.

It is not an option but mandatory for the hiring team to engage and hire the best candidates for the organization. Your competitor will also try to get the best talent. Therefore, if you are not using some tactics to find exceptional candidates, it is time you start doing it.

What is candidate sourcing?

Candidate sourcing is a process of actively searching for qualified candidates. Through this process, the hiring team engages with prospective candidates that can be moved to your talent pipeline to fill future positions.

The most important recruitment skill for anyone looking to hire top talent is finding extraordinary applicants. The best prospects aren't applying for the position in large numbers. Instead, the recruiters need to find them. It serves as the beginning of the hiring process and is crucial to creating a strong talent pipeline. Candidate Sourcing includes building an employer brand, so candidates understand the benefits of working with your company.

What are some of the factors to consider while sourcing the right candidate for the organization?

Some of the factors that you should consider while sourcing the right candidate for your organization are:

· Before adding a prospect to the database, recruiters can speak with them directly during sourcing to learn more about their strengths and skill sets.

· When it comes to recruitment, there will be more candidates vying for the position, which puts pressure on recruiters. However, when it comes to scouting, it's the opposite.

· Recruiters can improve the calibre of applicants who are accepted into the workforce by sourcing the best hires.

· Recruiters have a competitive advantage over direct hiring when they source candidates.

· Before a need occurs, sourcing enables the business to get in touch with potential candidates.

· There are numerous sourcing techniques, such as using Twitter and LinkedIn platforms to interact with possible hires, as doing so enables the firm to receive referrals from bright people in their network.

· The best part about sourcing prospects today is that it offers a glimpse behind the scenes, frequently revealing the reciprocal link.

What are some of the best Sourcing Tactics?

Below are some sourcing tactics that organizations can adopt to excel in sourcing:

1. Define the right skills: The first thing you need to do is to set a meeting with a hiring manager. You need to define the right qualities and skills you are looking for in a candidate. A job description may not be enough to answer everything and may not interest the candidates. Hence, it would be best if you came up with something to get excited about. For example, you can showcase the culture your company offers.

2. Get ATS in place: Scouting exceptional talent does not end with hiring. Candidates may not be suited for now, but you may want to re-engage them for a future role. For a recruiter, it could be a challenge as they cannot track every piece of information, expectation, and progress of candidates all the time. The solution to the problem is Application Tracking System (ATS). It helps to hire managers track all the details of the candidates and allows them to make the right decision for candidate engagement.

3. Engage the candidates: If the talent is exceptional, many companies will undoubtedly be after them. You need to engage the candidates in the best possible way by making the job vacancy. Engagement attracts talent, and one of the ways to engage them is to keep the communication line with the management.

4. Have a diversified sourcing platform: Most hiring managers have a favourite or their go-to platform to hire candidates. It could be LinkedIn or a specific job portal. It's hardly surprising that 87% of recruiters routinely use LinkedIn given that the site has more than 58 million companies listed on it and that 50 million people seek for jobs there each week.

Instead of relying on one or two platforms, you should use all the sourcing platforms - both offline and online. Also, some platforms let you get a specific type of candidate.

For example, LinkedIn may be the better platform for a Business Development (BD) role. Also, if you are using LinkedIn, make sure you check out the Similar Profiles list. You might just hit a jackpot there!

5. Use employee networks: Companies must take advantage of this option - expand the talent pool by hiring through their employee networks. You can have a rating system in place and reward employees if they refer exceptional talent. Employees can help a company reach the untapped talent pool and improve the candidate response rates for the hiring candidates.

6. Work on your outreach message: You work hard to source suitable candidates, but you need to engage them with yourself to do good for your organization. This is where your outreach program will help you source process. Outreach example - sending more candidate-focused messages. In short, you need to focus on their wants and needs. Your message targets the candidate's goals rather than your company's.

7. Build a strong employer brand: Your organization's brand could be the difference between the best talents joining you or ignoring the offer. If your organization's brand is negative, candidates are unlikely to respond to your outreach. However, a strong company's brand is an incredibly effective recruiting tool.

8. Look for candidates according to future plans: Hiring managers should always lookout for new candidates that match your required personas and company culture. The hiring team should be trained to have future hiring plans in the back of their minds at all times. Evaluate your company's business and growth plan and predict hiring needs for the upcoming period. You need to find which teams need expansion and what kind of talent will be required. It will give you a head start on the shift in the workforce and your competitors.

9. Learn from mistakes: Even with the best efforts, the hiring success rate will be low. One way to learn and improve as a hiring team is to monitor candidates that are not hired. Eventually, you will identify the reasons why the best candidates are not joining or what they are looking for. It will help you hire the best talents in the future.

10. Be careful about passive candidates: Hiring managers should be wary of spending their time on passive candidates. Yes, they are great potential resources but tread carefully and do your due diligence. LinkedIn estimates that 70% of the world's workforce is passive talent, with the other 30?tively seeking employment.

You need to figure out if they are interested in joining your organization. If not, you should not waste time. How to conclude the candidate is passive? Look at their LinkedIn profile, and if you see an out-of-date profile, you can tag them as passive candidates.

Conclusion

Sourcing strategies in recruitment are like snowflakes - no two look exactly the same because what your company requires will be significantly different from what another organization requires. The greatest talent sourcing can help the firm build a strong talent pipeline. Therefore, you need to find the right sourcing strategy and see if it works for your company. Gradually work your way to better the strategy, so you get excellent candidates