Sourcing: the key is to adapt your existing missions

Adaptation to the market is essential, but you may not have the time to develop new recruitment techniques (sourcing, recruitment marketing, programmatic recruitment, Candidate Relationship Management...). Or even the budget!

Don't worry, all you have to do is adapt the skills you already have by expanding the “capacity” of each of your sourcing channels. For example, you probably already organize job events? Or monitoring interesting profiles on LinkedIn? Then you're ready to make the most of the possibilities offered by these sourcing channels, and much more besides!

Let's go for proactive sourcing 🚀

Optimized, multi-channel job events for better sourcing

Job dating, job fairs... There are many opportunities to attract profiles through event-based recruitment. Most talent acquisition experts use these opportunities to identify potential candidates and, above all, improve their visibility and reputation.

But do you take it to the next level? Here are 2 paths you can explore to make your events even more proactive sourcing-oriented. 

Extend your actions to digital events, new sourcing channels 💻

Logic tells us that physical events take place in a specific location that not everyone can get to for practical reasons. Considering digitalized events such as webinars can therefore be a way of reaching a wider audience in terms of geography or even profile type. A good practice for effective sourcing!

Organizing these online events takes a little time, but much less than preparing, setting up and taking down a stand, for example. That's without counting the time physically spent at the event and the costs of registration, goodies, etc.

The aim is to maximize interest of the target(s) you need. Here are 2 examples that are particularly interesting

• a testimonial from one of your employees on a key topic in his or her profession
• a round-table discussion with members of your company and a partner on a new technique or tool in the sector

Thanks to topics like these, you'll be able to attract a targeted audience who will see you as a motor and invested company. You'll have access to their contact details, secured in RGPD compliance thanks to their registration for your event. These profiles, gained through your new sourcing practices, can therefore be added to your talent pools. Then you can contact them to share personalized content (or even job offers). 

Think of events as a source of candidate data 🧾

If you get candidate data through webinars as a sourcing channel... don't forget that you can do the same with physical events.

These moments are often not fully exploited, and yet they are often expensive in terms of budget and human investment. It's not ONLY what happens on the booth that's important; it's also everything that happens afterwards. But in order to ensure that “after”, you need to organize your event with the data capture of potential candidates in mind. This includes even those who aren't currently looking for a job.

For example, use QR codes to replace paper forms, which require tedious human intervention to process. This makes it easier to fill in a digital live application form for your talent pool. With a CRM (Candidate Relationship Management) tool, you can do all this automatically. You can even create several pools. Your candidates will automatically be added to the pool(s) that match their data!

👉 Discover our CRM tool and its features to speed up recruitment

Then you can start sourcing directly from your own easily filtered talent pool: a phenomenal time-saver. 

Find out more: Candidate relationship management (CRM): when job fairs become profitable

LinkedIn navigation: when this network becomes even more fruitful for your sourcing strategy

The LinkedIn professional network is a must for sourcing. But typing keywords into its search engine and using its messaging system are not the only possibilities offered by this platform. Don't see LinkedIn as an end in itself, and go further in your use of it. 

LinkedIn as a market information & candidates' wishes source 💡

Yes, sourcing allows you to identify potential candidates with the hard and soft skills you need. But what if you also saw the LinkedIn channel as a way to better understand your market? And to help you adapt your sourcing actions. 

Once you've found some interesting profiles, don't rush headfirst into their messaging inboxes to contact them. Take the time to understand what interests them: 

• Which posts do they share, like or comment on? Are there any identifiable interests?
• Which accounts do they follow (professional influencers, media, companies): do you see other interests emerging that you could explore?

You'll need this when you make contact to show that you've understood their profile, to share information that interests them. In general, you'll also be able to approach this profile in the weeks to come, as well as profiles similar to it!

1-click sourcing from LinkedIn: the 1st step towards Candidate Relationship Management ⚙️

Successful LinkedIn contacts require time and effort. The more different profiles you want to contact, the more energy you'll have to spend to achieve your goals. You're probably already doing this, so why don't you change your habits a little on this channel? Once you've identified a profile, you might as well save time when it comes to the rest of the contact process!

For this, there's a very handy tool that allows you to add the details of a profile detected on LinkedIn to your internal talent pool in just 1 click: the well-known CRM (Candidate Relationship Management). After this automatic upload, CRM automatically sends a configurable RGPD consent request to the talent. You can then use your CRM's personalized campaign functionalities to develop a more in-depth relationship with the talent.

👉 Discover our CRM tool and 1-click sourcing feature

Remember, LinkedIn is not the only interesting channel, and it should only be used when the profile you're looking for is registered and open to a new professional opportunity. And that's not always the case! 

Find out more: Finding the passive candidates you need... when LinkedIn isn't enough

Internal communication: are your employees sourcing experts?

Perhaps not experts. But your employees ( graduate students, operational staff, managers, directors...) have a real role to play in your sourcing strategy.

Very often, they are involved in your recruitment activities, but more in the definition of their needs or in the interviewing and selection of a candidate. But are you capitalizing on your employees to find candidates? Probably not enough.

Yet words like “referral” or “ambassador program” are clearly part of the recruitment and proactive sourcing landscape of tomorrow.

Sharing open offers with your employees encourages internal sourcing 🙋

Who said sourcing could only be done through external sources? Don't forget the  database of potential candidates who already know your company because they are working here.

Yes, internal mobility is an essential form of sourcing. You don't need to plan any new tasks, but just have a new target group to share job openings with on a regular basis. 

Find out more: Detecting transferable skills to optimize internal mobility

By opening up more internal opportunities and making it part of your overall recruitment strategy, you give yourself the best chance of finding a relevant profile. Make sure that members of your HR team and managers encourage internal mobility, especially when it comes to annual interviews or HR and training reviews. 

Collaboration between all HR teams will help you broaden your sourcing channels and clearly encourage employee retention. 

Referral & ambassador program: your employees are your “easy” sourcing asset 🤝

If we say “easy”, it's because you're making things really easier by capitalizing on your employees' networks. There you'll find many potential candidates to whom you don't have “direct access” via conventional channels. Either because they aren't there, or because they aren't available. 

It's also logical that your search criteria will inevitably be a little influenced by the way you see things. Your colleagues may turn into recruiters from time to time, because they often know someone who has already managed this or that job, or someone else who is in a transitional phase... You have everything to gain by trusting them.

Find out more: Employee referral | A complete guide for recruiting experts

Perhaps you already have a referral program, but are you making full use of it? Don't think so! The best way to avoid changing everything, but to drastically improve employee commitment and results, is to digitize your referral program. You'll gain time and decision-making power, especially with a gamification-based program.

👉 Discover our tool to digitize your referral program

You can also use a digital referral platform to improve your brand awareness, thanks to its ambassador development features. For example, our customer, the transport operator for the city of Zurich, obtains more visits to its career site thanks to content shared by its employees on their networks. 

More visits to your career site? It's an opportunity to increase your internal pool of “hot” new profiles, ready to be contacted and apply the day an offer opens up that suits them. Proactive sourcing is back in the game. Want to make sure your career site is 100% effective? Take a look at our guide.

Find out more: Diagnosing your career site: 10 points to check

Sourcing goes hand in hand with candidate communication: think personalization & automation

You already exchange information with your potential candidates on a regular basis. But are you doing it in a way that's relevant enough to attract the most relevant talent for your needs? And do you keep a record of your discussions, so that you don't repeat yourself or give contradictory information?

So much can be done to create a high-quality relationship with the talent you've come into contact with. Sourcing today is no longer just about finding interesting profiles, it's also about building relationships with them, to be as convincing as possible when they're ready to apply. You have to learn to integrate this into your skills and those of your team! Take the next step. 

Find out more: Guide: turn your recruitment team into sourcing superheroes

Let's take a look at some tips for mastering Candidate Relationship Management to complete your candidate sourcing skills.

Multiply contact points and quality of content shared with talent: the art of candidate relationship ✒️

When you contact a talent via one of your sourcing channels, it's often with a very specific goal: to fill a position. However, the job in question is probably not what the potential candidate wants. But why not?

• He doesn't know you
• He may not be looking for a job
• He hasn't yet told you about himself and his wishes

There are other reasons, of course... but these are already very clear: because you need this profile doesn't mean it needs you.

Sourcing is an art. It involves not only the way you search (channel, technique...) but also the way you approach the talent you're targeting.

Contact stages can be seen as a chance to prove to potential candidates that they're not just a number. This concerns the initial contact as well as all future contact, whatever the communication channel.

So, to be sure your potential candidates are interested, you need to have something to offer: industry news, practical information on a new trend, testimonials from their peers…

Our study with YouGov about the candidate / recruiter relationship shows that many candidates would like to hear from you on a monthly or, at most, quarterly basis. So don't hesitate to increase the frequency of your communications, as long as the content you send out is personalized. Sounds like a lot of hard work? Yes, but it's easy to do it quickly and effortlessly with a CRM tool, which often offers options for automated communication campaigns based on the data in your pools. 

👉 Discover our multi-channel campaign tool to improve your candidate communication

Test new candidate communication channels 📱

Email is a candidate communication channel that should not be underestimated, especially when it follows the personalization principles we've seen. 

By the way, do you know what types of content interest your potential candidates?

Sourcing & SEO: job offers written for talent... and search engines

Why not also consider adapting one of your main missions a little - writing job offers!

Obviously, the more you improve your skills in this area, the better your chances of convincing potential candidates to join you.

But have you considered the fact that, by working a little differently on your job offers, you could give yourself the opportunity to be found more easily by talented job seekers? That's why you need to write your job offers with SEO (Search Engine Optimization) in mind.

Here are a few tips to complete by talking to your marketing & communications team: 

• Choose a simple job title that gets straight to the point and really addresses search intentions. Forget “cool” job titles, put the keywords you're really looking for
• Use useful titles that highlight relevant keywords, and use those same keywords in the paragraphs that follow those titles. This applies tosome text
  • Missions
  • Skills
  • Benefits
  • Selection criteria
  • Etc.
• Don't forget geographical keywords, such as city, country or even neighborhood. Geographical criteria are extremely important not only for candidates, but also for search engines.

And don't forget to write job offers that meet candidates' needs. 

Now you're ready to transform your day-to-day work from recruiter to recruiter-sourcer!