Why Sourcing is The Only Plausible Future of Your HR Strategy
Last update: 23 June 2023 at 11:29 am
5.00/5In recent years, Millennials, as well as Generation Z, have quickly become the cornerstone of the working population.
Their fluid and transient approach to employment, far removed from the “job for life” attitude of baby boomers, often results in a fairly high turnover rate. As a result, companies must now be proactive and use sourcing to overcome the major challenges facing the talent market.
Indeed, recruiting has become a kind of battlefield, where one is constantly fighting to find and acquire the best talent.
To be successful, you need a solid strategy. The foundation of successful recruiting starts with knowing where to find the best candidates.
Sourcing: The Secret to Successful Recruitment
First of all, sourcing refers to an activity that is part of talent acquisition.
Generally speaking, this process involves proactively identifying, contacting, and engaging qualified candidates rather than waiting for them to decide to apply on their own.
Recruiters, whether third parties or companies, may consider this to be one of their responsibilities. However, many organizations today prefer to use teams of specialized professionals who focus exclusively on this task.
Many find that the primary goal of this approach is to bring candidates with very unique or niche experience into the recruitment funnel.
To achieve this goal, the use of various communication channels (such as phone calls, emails, and social networks) is paramount. However, sourcing is increasingly becoming a digital activity.
That’s because talent acquisition professionals are using Boolean search techniques on search engines or combing through profiles on LinkedIn to identify potential applicants.
Also, HRs utilise Talent Acquisition Software with powerful features like Advanced Database Search to quickly source the most suitable talent from the company’s candidate database.
Some recruiters perform the sourcing function all the way to hiring, which means:
- Gathering valuable information about candidates (such as resumes and work sample portfolio) ;
- Shortlisting candidates whose skills match the proposed roles;
- Contacting and informing candidates of available positions;
- Establishing long-term relationships with potential hires.
Others specialize in only one aspect of the cycle (i.e., finding suitable profiles). In this case, the sourcers focus solely on identifying potential candidates. They then “hand off” the names to another department of the recruiting team for selection, interviewing, and placement.
Recruitment marketing agencies can help businesses in many ways shape or form to find their best candidates and often use the form of sourcing.
How Does Sourcing Affect Recruitment?
Most of the time, sourcing is used to refer to highly specialized talent searches. For example, a company may be looking for someone with a background in mechanical engineering who understands OOP (object-oriented programming).
Sourcing professionals know exactly where and how to find this particular profile. They have a thorough knowledge of the different sourcing tactics available on the web.
They exploit candidate lists on the Internet and can also extend their investigation to competing companies.
In order to determine the best focus keywords and context to search for, it is essential to understand the requirements of the position. Therefore, effective sourcing requires a thorough understanding and mastery of both the industry and the business. Furthermore, sourcing specialists know the best acquisition channels to find the right profiles with the right type of experience.
However, sourcing is not limited to this analysis work. It also refers to the strategy surrounding a large part of the recruitment effort.
For example, it may be necessary to identify the next generation of management talent through a comprehensive program of hiring university students in that field.
Similarly, a company may need a technique to acquire machine operators in a specific location. Thus, sourcing is not just about searches. The term can also encompass organizational issues for any source of need for a given company.
International Sourcing: A Real Developmental Challenge
With the phenomenon of globalization, sourcing strategy is at the forefront of talent acquisition issues. Promoting hiring in different countries and languages is a challenge for any human resources team.
Even if they are professionals, flushing out talent in a foreign market remains difficult.
In many cases, the sourcing team could be local. They could then send a list of qualified candidates to a centralized corporate recruiting team. In reality, modern sourcing efforts are an incredibly complex aspect of the global talent supply chain.
As a result, the most effective methods don’t just leverage employer brands. They also take into account local economic, educational, and labor market specialization factors.
In Conclusion
In the recruitment industry, sourcing, therefore, refers to the practice of finding specialized candidates.
As a strategy, it can result in:
- hiring initiatives.
- specific approaches to the labor market.
With the increasing complexity of recruitment, the specialization of the HR profession continues unabated. As a result, sourcing is likely to grow further, and the need for it will become even more important.
