Sourcing the top-tier talents require a perfect strategy. The trickiest part is that there is no specific formula that will aid sourcing in every business. Strategic sourcing is always specific to the industry and must be tailor-made as per business needs. The talent market is dynamic and thus maximizing the results of sourcing is only possible with the perfect blend of market trends and best practices.
The winning sourcing strategy can be designed by gaining a deeper understanding of what top talents are demanding and what your competitors are offering. Diversifying a sourcing strategy based on these analytics can help your business gain a competitive edge.
Evolution of Sourcing in 2021 and beyond
After the outbreak of Covid 19, the recruitment cycle has transformed. More and more organizations are adopting technology, focusing on branding, engagement, onboarding to attract the top talents in the market. Sourcing is intertwined with every stage of the recruitment cycle. If the candidate experience is hampered in any of these stages, the purpose of sourcing is defeated.
The most striking evolution of work culture has been the drastic shift from work-from-office to work-from-home. Sourcing is now a complete virtual setup. There are no geographical boundaries as work arrangements are primarily virtual. Along with the remote work culture, flexibility has become one of the expectations that most candidates are prioritizing. Therefore, the recruiter must reevaluate the expectations of the candidates to source the right fit for their jobs.
While most people were afraid of losing jobs in 2021, the job market reports indicate the opposite in 2021. A major fraction of employees is seeking new opportunities that have led to the Great Resignation phenomenon. This landscape can be attributed to being historical. It surely indicates that most people have become risk-averse and are prioritizing their needs over companies’ demands.
Developing a sourcing strategy under the current circumstances requires empathy in its true meaning. Most companies had enlisted empathy in their core value without practicing them. Today, leveling up the sourcing game won’t be easy if recruiters fail to determine what actually moves and motivates candidates. It invokes meaningful conversation with the candidates unlike the routine questions and known answers.
Sourcing has evolved and it’s time for recruiters to make effort to win talents. It requires a deeper understanding of the candidate’s aspirations and priorities and the key to such engagement is starting a meaningful conversation.
Untapped Passive Talent Market
Talent marketing is one of the best practices that your sourcing strategy must include to grab the attention of talents in the market even though they are not actively looking to join your organization. It is a long-term strategy and requires consistency to bear the sweet fruits. Talent marketing serves as a great move to create employer brand image in public as well as build relationships with candidates.
Candidates may not be actively looking for a job change right now but may think of making a move after a few years. If the organization has been active through talent marketing, candidates will have a higher chance of joining it when they start looking for new opportunities.
Talent marketing is also a necessary sourcing strategy for new businesses that are trying to invade the market against big competitors. It not only attracts the eyes of the top-tier talent but also imparts education about the brand values and work environment.
Another strategy that can turn the tables for your sourcing game is encouraging the active participation of employees in meaningful discussions. It presents the organization as the field where every idea is welcomed. Moreover, employees active on a professional social media platform like LinkedIn or Glassdoor provide prospective candidates with honest reasons to join your organization.
Right Sourcing Tools
In 2021, the scenario has changed for recruitment. Sourcing is not just about publishing the job vacancy in the newspaper or other print media. The top four tools that help to source top-tier talents for organizations are referrals, opting for niche-specific job boards, LinkedIn job postings, and outsourcing sourcing activities to agencies.
- Referrals: Most companies are sourcing the right candidates from their own community. Referrals are being preferred from existing employees to source the right candidates for job roles. Also, it is one of the most cost-effective methods that makes sourcing the most eligible candidate easier and faster. It also reduces the hiring costs.
- Niche-Specific job boards: There are multiple job boards and some of them have niched down to specific departments. Posting jobs on niche-specific job boards attract applications from that niche, thereby eliminating the hassle of unnecessary applications.
- LinkedIn job posting: LinkedIn has become a professional social media platform for professionals from every field. Most reputed companies are harnessing the power of this professional network to reach out or attract the best candidates in the market. However, it is important to focus on employer branding if new or relatively unpopular businesses try to source candidates from LinkedIn.
- Agencies: Outsourcing the sourcing activities to reliable agencies can help companies source high-performing candidates without much effort. It eliminates the time and effort so that companies can focus on their core business operations. Appointing a third-party agency for sourcing enables the companies to enhance the chances of finding suitable candidates in a shorter period than in-house sourcing as most agencies tailor specific jobs for specific candidates. This ensures that expectations of the company as well as the candidates are aligned.
Making Your Sourcing Strategy Better
Strengthening your sourcing strategy not only depends on the hiring tactics but also on evaluating existing strategies based on data. The best way of developing the most appropriate sourcing strategy is to experiment and make decisions based on data inputs.
For instance, a company using niche-based job boards, referrals, and agencies at the same time has a greater chance of sourcing the best fit candidates at a lower cost than a company relying on referrals only. After deciding on the percentage of expected sourcing from each of the sources, it is essential to look through the source of hire data from each source. If one of the sources, say referrals, has shown better results, it’s best to double the investment of sourcing on that source.
Analytics of sourcing provides the company a clear idea to monitor the ROI as well as time spent on each source. Therefore, experimentation followed by robust reporting and quick decisions based on data is what strengthens your sourcing strategies.
The Bottom Line
Sourcing is considered to be the biggest challenge in recruitment. Sourcers do not have a hard-and-fast rule that will work every time. It is essential to evolve your sourcing strategy with time. In order to develop a sourcing strategy that works best for a company, the sourcer must experiment, evaluate, and adapt the hiring practices that are exhibiting the best results for the company.
Developing sourcing strategies and their implementation can become a headache for most companies. Pragna Solutions offers a quick and simple solution to ease that headache. We provide talent sourcing solutions adapting to the fast changing business needs. With Pragna Solution, your organization can hand over any recruitment responsibility and focus on your core business.