Before you begin sourcing for candidates, you must get a clear understanding of the position you are trying to fill. Don't rely on traditional job descriptions to source candidates. Instead, ask the hiring manager what the person needs to do in order to be successful. Find out the critical skills that are needed, and then find out what skills could be developed on the job. Are there growth opportunities with this job? If so, get details. This could be a great selling point for the job you are sourcing. Remember, the best candidates will explore a job if it offers growth opportunities.
Have potential candidates heard of your company in a positive light? If not, how do you get your brand in front of potential candidates to enhance your recruiting efforts? Research shows that 2 in 3 candidates say they will accept a lower salary if the employer has a good brand.
As you begin sourcing, act with urgency. There's been a significant shift from employers to candidates. Top talent is in high demand. If you are wanting top quality candidates, move quickly, or your competition will snatch them up!
If there's a high volume of candidates, the emphasis should be on screening. Consider an automated pre-screener with scoring if the volume is too high. If there's a low volume of candidates, consider focusing more on sourcing. Attracting viable candidates should be the rule of the day in this scenario.
During the sourcing process, and afterwards, continue to build your talent pipeline. A candidate may not be the right fit today, but they might be the perfect fit for a future role. That's why you should leave candidates with a positive feeling about your organization.
Don't forget about the metrics. Regardless of whether you love numbers or not, you must have a gauge on how effective your sourcing and screening process is to your overall recruiting efforts. Some of the key metrics you should track include source tracking, pre-screen to interview ratios, interview to placement ratios; number of candidates delivered, as well as qualified candidates delivered.
Write a compelling job posting. When writing the job description, avoid the traditional and boring lingo. Ads need to be creative. Include an attractive title, compelling content, and benefits of the job and the company. Include a description of what the person will be doing, learning and becoming. Try to filter in the right candidates instead of screening out undesireables. Opt in rather than opt out. Describe the skill in the context of how it's used. For example, try this verbiage: "Use your accounting background in manufacturing to help us build a new reporting system." you’ll attract some top people to the candidate pool.
Finding top candidates in a resume database can be time-consuming. You should maximize your return on time invested by calling the best candidates within a week -- otherwise they could be gone. For the rest of the best, you need to convert these sometimes dated resumes into active candidates without calling any of them. Instead, write a great email message describing your remarkable opportunity; consider using a pre-screener questionnaire to ensure you are getting only qualified candidates back. Another possible response could be to say "I found your resume on the Internet and was very impressed with your background. If you're still looking for a position, you might be interested in this opportunity (insert job description). If you'd like to pursue this, please send me your current resume and a quick paragraph describing your most significant accomplishment in the area of (whatever may be relevant, e.g., launching new industrial products etc.)."
You've heard the mantra before, every good recruiting strategy has to include networking; same goes for looking for the best candidates. Ask everyone you talk to if they know someone appropriate for the job. It's a great way to find top candidates. However, if the job is not compelling enough, you may only get names of people looking for work; avoiding the all-to- valuable passive candidates. To get a name of a top passive candidate, you need to describe a compelling job.
If you combine these 7 steps you will improve your sourcing effectiveness. Soon you will have a pool of top candidates to consider for your job opening, and a successful placement.
As you consider your next sourcing project, consider M4 Workforce Solutions as your partner in recruiting. We can save you time and costs related toward sourcing, and recruiting your next qualified candidate. Visit us at www.m4ws.com
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