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What is talent
sourcing anyway?
Before we dive into the best practices that will help you uncover and
secure the top candidates for your job openings, it’s important to level
set on what talent sourcing is. In a nutshell, sourcing is the act of
searching for, identifying and engaging with talent.
This goes way beyond simple searches on LinkedIn or your standard job
boards like Monster.com and CareerBuilder.com. Sourcing is an art form
that involves creativity and the ability to leverage every available channel
at your disposal to find that perfect candidate and engage them in a
way to drive your conversions to placed new hires.
Gone are the days of hammering the phones and scouring job boards.
Posting on job boards and waiting for the right prospect to call isn’t
working anymore as great candidates are falling through the cracks.
With the advent of new technologies and the ever-connected world
of the social network, there are exponentially more ways to find
and connect with talent—expanding the sourcer’s reach into a larger
pool of candidates.
Now that we have the same understanding of what talent sourcing is,
let’s get into some strategies and unique techniques that will transform
the way you do your job!
Are you getting in front
of the right people?
Finding the right people for the right job is tough. Consider the
pressures of competition and various market factors, and that challenge
increases tenfold. Recruiters are finding themselves spending more time
and resources trying to compete for top job seekers only to see their
response and conversion rates drop precipitously because their current
strategies have quickly become stale and non-differentiated.
Even for companies that have a strong brand and market presence and
receive a steady flow of inbound candidates, that’s still not enough
volume or quality to satisfy hiring needs. A study by The McKinsey
Group shows that only 20% of the workforce is actively searching for a
new job at any given time which means companies that focus their
strategies on inbound candidates are not maximizing their potential
reach into the workforce. Aberdeen Group, a research analyst firm,
recently concluded that one of the least effective solutions for sourcing
top talent are job boards designed to reach active candidates. (Source:
Aberdeen Group, Talent Acquisition Strategies Report).
Only 20% of the workforce
is actively searching for a
new job at any given time.
Talent sourcing is: the act
of searching for, identifying
and engaging with talent.
Introduction
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So how do companies
effectively tap into this
other 80% of the market?
While most of the recruiters feel that push strategies like job boards are
ineffective, a pull strategy—actively seeking out resumes and candi-
dates—proves to be more successful. To accomplish this, many turn to
expensive contingency agencies who employ various sourcing strategies
to find qualified candidates which is pushing the cost per hire through
the roof. What companies need are strategies and tools that are low
cost and highly effective in finding candidates fast.
This best practices guide will unveil some of the secrets of staffing
agencies and seasoned sourcing gurus, providing you with practical
strategies and innovative ways to find and engage with top talent.
When it comes to using social networks for business, many
people still scoff at the idea of using a personal tool for business
purposes. What many people aren’t seeing though is that these are
vibrant and generally untapped channels to simply find new candidates
who might not be active on your standard job boards. Generally, the
social media sites with the most active and engaged audiences are
Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. But you should also research and know
all the top sites that your target community visits and tap into those
sources to find, identify and engage the best talent. For example,
LinkedIn is clearly one of the most common professional networks, but
its demographics is made up of financial and technology professionals.
What if you are looking for registered nurses, hospitality professionals,
or machinists?
When it comes to Facebook, many recruiters will object to the popular
network because they assume that people on Facebook don’t want to be
contacted by strangers. But the opposite is actually the reality. Check
these stats out: 81% of Facebook users want to see job opportunities
posted 85% of recruiters currently using Facebook would recommend it
to others as a recruitment tool. (Source: www.Work4labs.com)
It all comes down to your approach. If you don’t come off as a pushy
recruiter and you genuinely try to be a part of the community, you can’t
go wrong. Like and comment on status updates. Participate in relevant
group discussions. Send messages to candidates you’re interested in,
research their public profiles and show genuine interest for their
personal and professional interests.
85% of recruiters currently
using Facebook would
recommend it to others as
a recruitment tool.
Strategy #1:
Let’s Get Social!
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Also, messages sent through social media are far more likely to be
noticed, opened, and generate a response. That makes initial contact
and ongoing communication a lot easier. Why you might ask? Have you
ever noticed how often people check their Facebook or LinkedIn
accounts? In fact, the average person spends 1 in every 7 minutes
online on Facebook. If you send a message through a popular social
media site, chances are it will be seen.
The popularity of social media and the growth of social networks
has allowed candidates to put themselves on the map and make
themselves more accessible than ever. The challenge however is
the sheer number of social networks that you have to search including
LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and so on, making it very
difficult for sourcers to be efficient in their work. Not to mention, the
lack of quality candidates that you’ll have to sift through because the
barrier to post your resume online is so low.
This added complexity to the job market has since spawned an entire
genre of online technologies focused on “intelligent” talent sourcing
and recruiting tools. I’m not referring to your online job boards or your
Application Tracking System (ATS). The proliferation of these disparate
social networks and the maturity of Big Data have created opportunities
for technology companies to build tools that essentially aggregate
public social profiles and filter them based on your requirements, all in
a single view so you don’t have to jump around to find talent.
Examples of these types of tools would be TalentBin, Work4Labs,
Gild, and Entelo. These tools allow for a speedier and more efficient
candidate pooling process because everything you need to find and
pre-qualify a candidate is right there at your finger tips.
Often times, these software tools also uncover contact information that
might not be readily available as well as providing you with a number of
ways to engage with a candidate such as email or Facebook messages.
One thing to keep in mind is that many of these tools do well for specific
roles only. For example, TalentBin specializes in helping companies
uncover software developers by providing them with a snapshot of
their aggregated social footprint including ways to see code samples,
what their specific skills are, and even if you have shared connections
that can help make an introduction.
Strategy #2:
Evolve Your
Toolkit
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Finding the cream of the crop often times takes a bit more
ingenuity. Take into consideration the fact that your competitors are
all looking for the same candidates, and all of a sudden your job gets
much more difficult.
In this war for talent, many companies are now looking beyond the
traditional methods of sourcing talent—especially when it comes to
filling specialized positions that require niche skills and are hard to
come by. So how can you ensure you’ll find and secure the best people
for your job openings before your competitors get to them first?
1Get Involved
in Communities
Whether it’s online or in a live setting, professionals tend to socialize
and mingle amongst each other. One way to get in front of the right
people is to start engaging with communities related to a specific job.
This could mean joining groups on LinkedIn and participating in the
online conversions. Belonging to and engaging in online groups is an
essential part of networking and becoming a go-to resource in these
groups will pay huge dividends in the future.
Then you have your regional events such as conferences, meet ups or
user groups. For example, let’s say you’re looking for a project manager
who specializes in Agile. With some basic research, you can easily
uncover a handful of organizations and events designed to bring these
types of people together in a small and intimate setting, giving you a
prime opportunity to network and meet qualified candidates.
2Trust
in Referrals
Word of mouth marketing is the oldest and most effective form of
marketing. This tried and true approach to marketing is just as relevant in
the world of recruiting as well, where trusted referrals can exponentially
increase the odds of a successful hire. In fact, studies show 92% of
people trust recommendations from friends and family above all other
forms of advertising. Don’t just take it from us though. Referral
recruiting is becoming the most effective form of recruiting.
Sources of External Hire by Recruiting
(Source: CareerXRoads Sources of Hire Report, 2011)
Strategy #3:
Think Outside
the Box
The easiest and most effective way to leverage referral recruiting is to
harness the power of the social web to enable others to find candidates
for you. Making job postings available on social networks is one thing.
But enabling your extended network to share about job openings to
their networks is different.
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
JOB BOARDS
REFERRALS
CAREER SITE
COLLEGE
OTHER
DIRECT
SOURCING
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Strategy #4:
You Had Me
at Hello
Hello!
Not only are you finding more candidates faster, but you’re also putting
yourself in a position to make more quality hires. Good referrals can
reflect well on referring employees, motivating them to find top
candidates and avoid poor performers. In fact, in a study by the MIT
Sloan School of Management, researchers found that employees
recruited through referral programs had significantly higher performance
than those hired through other recruitment options.
3Practice the
Art of War
As you know, there is a fierce battle for top talent these days. And
everyone is looking for different ways to find and connect with these
candidates. With the advent of new technologies and techniques to win
talent, some companies are turning to tactics that reflect guerrilla warfare.
Here are a few examples to get your battle-ready juices flowing:
• One national insurance firm routinely visited the parking lot of a
competitor’s regional training facilities on the days they offered
certification classes. The “guerilla” firm used a video camera to record
employees’ license plate numbers and searched state motor vehicle
databases to identify the employees’ names and contact information.
• One national trucking company realized that truck drivers don’t
always use job boards or social media, so it’s very difficult to find
candidates. The creative way they used to find and engage with truck
drivers was to identify the busiest truck stops and rest stations and
posted job flyers as well as placed staff at the sites to interact with
drivers and market the positions. Needless to say, they were able to
find interested in drivers and increase their fill rate dramatically.
• A major bay area software company would send multiple staff to
scout coffee shops and popular bars in neighborhoods highly
populated with competitors’ employees. Then they’d talk about
the hiring company, focusing on positive attributes or interesting
topics in order to draw the attention and curiosity of their targets.
Sure enough, there was an influx of resumes from a certain set
of competitive companies.
Finding a qualified candidate is only half the battle. Once you’ve
found that perfect fit, you then have to engage with them and hope
that they choose you over your competitor. The best ways to drive a
high response rate is to ensure that your message is rock solid.
Here are a few basic tips to help fine tune your messaging practices:
1Personalization
and Context
Sending a generic message with no context isn’t going to get you
anywhere fast. One way to overcome this is to take the time to
personalize your message and add words that your candidates will
gravitate towards. This could be as simple as including the candidates
name in the message and referencing where you found them and why
you think they are potentially a good fit. Another nice touch would be
to then include a link to the job listing so they can easily and quickly
reference the job to see if it’s of interest.
What’s Guerilla Recruiting?
It’s a style of recruiting
that leverages specific
competitors’ weaknesses.
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2Make It Punchy
and Memorable
The subject line of your message is probably the most important
element of your message. It’s what the recipient will read first and that
often times will determine if they read on or if they delete. Make sure
your subject line is compelling. If it’s a job in Hawaii, call that out! Also,
keep your subject line within 50 characters or less.
3Multiple Ways
to Connect
For every message you send or social media update that you post, be
sure to include a way for your candidates to find you. Include in your
signature your email and phone number. Also, add links to all of your
social profiles using LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and Pinterest.
Wherever you find candidates, help them find you everywhere else.
4Zero in on the Best
Performing Channels
There are a number of messaging channels at a sourcer’s disposal, so
why does everyone rely so heavily on email? Typically, email response
rates hover between 2–3% depending on the quality of the message
(see tips #1 and #2) and candidate fit. Today, social networks give you
access to top talent in new and effective ways. With LinkedIn, you can
either connect with a candidate and then send a message or you can
send an InMail that goes directly to the inbox. And with Facebook,
95% of sent messages are opened which makes sense since it’s a highly
popular method of personal communications. If you leverage the various
channels available to you, your response rates will definitely go up.
5Double Check
Your Work
When given the choice between two online recruitment ads—one with
typos and poor grammar and one written to perfection—nearly 90%
of job seekers surveyed, both active and passive, said that improper
grammar and spelling errors in recruitment content played a significant
role in their decision not to apply to a position.
Getting your initial outreach message right can increase the number of
candidates that respond and foster deeper relationships with potential
employees. Even if they’re not the right fit for the role you’re currently
recruiting for, you can gather more data on them to determine if
they’re qualified for other openings in the organization.
Quality sourcing doesn’t happen without a little commitment.
In order to do talent sourcing right, you need to employ the right
strategies, have enough bandwidth and resources to establish a rhythm
and most importantly, test what’s working and what’s not. Unfortunately,
most organizations don’t have the luxury of a dedicated team of
sourcing black belts and unlimited budget to spend on social networking
accounts, fancy tools, incentives, and the like. But just because you
don’t have the same budget or the resources as your biggest competitors,
that doesn’t mean you still can’t compete... ferociously.
If you fall under this category, there is a better way. Try outsourcing
your talent sourcing function to a third party vendor that specializes in
that role. These companies tend to be expert recruiters and sourcers
with years of experience. And since this is their business, they dedicate
all of their resources to the latest and greatest technologies, tools and
methods to source top talent. So how does spending on an outsourcing
company help reduce cost?
Strategy #5:
Limited Budget?
Outsource!
Hello!
95% of messages
sent from Facebook
are opened.
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Just take into consideration the cost of your team and the value of their
time. If your full cycle recruiting team works an 8 hour day and they
spend the industry average 3 hours of their day sourcing for talent,
that’s 38% of their day spent hunting for candidates rather than higher
valued activities like interviewing, hiring and onboarding new hires.
Factor in other costs such as the cost to advertise on job boards,
sourcing tools like LinkedIn Recruiter, aggregators, and particularly
contingency agencies that tend to charge an average placement fee of
20–30% per successful hire, and you wonder why you don’t have any
additional budget left to spend.
The smart way to allocate funds is to focus on things that can consolidate
your spend and give you more bang for your buck. Not to mention, by
shifting your team’s focus from the mundane yet necessary tasks of
searching on LinkedIn and Facebook to higher valued tasks that bring in
new hires such as interviewing and onboarding, your team will be
operating more effectively and more satisfied with their workday to boot.
In order to win in today’s hyper competitive world of talent sourcing,
organizations need to focus on innovative strategies to find and
message prospects in order to drive pipeline and ensure you meet your
placement goals. It’s important to embrace change and technology in
order to excel. Social networks, employing unconventional techniques,
paying close attention to the content you push out, and trusting in
outside firms that specialize in sourcing will help you be more effective
and stand out from the crowd.
The talent is out there and ready to be found if you have the means
and the smarts to find them. Follow these tips and best practices and
you’ll put yourself on the path to ongoing success.
About Velocity Resource Group
Velocity Resource Group is an on-demand, scalable recruiting
solutions company that leverages our global workforce to deliver
resumes overnight. Our disciplined process for candidate prescreening
is an unparalleled strategic advantage to companies looking for
qualified candidates.
If you’d like to learn more about how Velocity Resource Group can
help you with your sourcing needs, we’d be happy to run you through
a live demo of our methodology and proven system. Just contact us at
http://www.velocityresourcegroup.com/contactus.php.
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