4 Strategies to Improve Your Candidate Sourcing

Learn How to Carve Out More Time for Sourcing

The most common item on a recruiter’s wish list — more time for sourcing. Your team is already maxed, so finding the time to track down new sources of candidates can feel impossible. To even begin exploring new sourcing opportunities, first you need to see where you could win back a few hours each week. 

Start by thinking through your time-to-hire. 

The average position in the United States takes 36 to 42 days to fill. During that month and change, companies are losing valuable productivity. A slow time-to-hire is expensive and reduces your chance of finding the perfect hire. One of the biggest culprits to a slow time-to-hire is phone screening. Phone screening takes the most time throughout the hiring cycle, even more than background checks. Companies can immediately shorten their time-to-hire by using automated phone interviews.

Automated phone interviews, or virtual phone interviews, can cut down your time-to-hire by a week. To determine if they are right for your organization, start by assessing the amount of time it takes for your team to schedule and complete phone interviews. Track the hours your recruiters spend on communication, scheduling, and the interviews themselves. These mundane tasks often fill a recruiter's day, when they could be spending more time sourcing. Hiring tools can help you track this data. Once you know which tasks take the longest, you can brainstorm how to speed up the tasks and better allocate time to sourcing. 

Your company can join the 73% of companies that already use talent acquisition software. With automated hiring software, these companies can screen candidates faster, and recruiters spend less time on the phone. This will save valuable sourcing time, and can even allow you to dedicate specific days to brainstorming your sourcing ideas. Your team can then dedicate other days to implementing the different strategies. 

With automation, you have time to try out different sourcing strategies. You can also track the data, and find out what works best for you! 

Mine Your Existing Sources 

Sometimes the best sourcing technique is right under your nose! Previous candidates are one of your most valuable talent pools. These previous candidates have already shown interest in your company, they are familiar with your brand, and your company already has data on their qualifications. Oftentimes, these previous candidates found a different opportunity or weren’t a perfect fit at the time. The road does not have to end there. As time passes, return to these candidates to see if they are open to a different position.

Use your applicant tracking system to look back at previous candidates. When you use an on-demand interview tool, like Qualifi, you can look back at previous candidates to review their interviews. This will save you sourcing time, and the candidate doesn’t have to start the hiring process from the beginning. 

If the previous candidate does not enter the talent pool, you can still use networking to your advantage. They may know somebody who is a good fit for the position, so don’t be afraid to ask!

You also have existing sources through your current employees. Implementing a referral program will entice employees to attract candidates. Your employees already know your company culture and know of candidates who are a good fit with your organization. In fact, a recent survey showed that 90% of companies said they find new candidates through their current employees!

Leverage Posting Sites 

Your job posting is the first impression a candidate will have on your company, so make sure it’s  well-written. To tap into the best candidate pool, your job posting should include three key points: 

1. Quality keywords — Include keywords that are relevant to your position and likely on the radar for quality candidates. 
2. Clear instructions — Candidates should clearly see how to apply and know the next step in the hiring process after they do. 
3. Clear expectations — Be clear about the job expectations and what the position entails. 
   

LinkedIn can be a great place to source candidates. When you are actively recruiting candidates on LinkedIn, try these key tricks to find the best ones: 

• Start from the bottom — As you search for candidates, the top qualified and relevant profiles will show up. While it is tempting to reach out to these candidates first, you may find a better candidate with soft skills at the bottom of the search results page. Start lower on the search results page and work your way up. This way, you won’t miss that perfect candidate. 
• Use the Similar Profiles list — As you look at profiles on LinkedIn Recruiter, you will see a Similar Profiles list. Use this function to your advantage to find like-minded candidates. 
• Boolean searches are not the be-all, end-all — Boolean Searches show you results based on “true/false” statements. Expand on how your boolean searches are set up. By not only focusing on the AND and OR, you may also find candidates you wouldn’t have before. 
  

Utilize Pre-Sourcing 

Pre-sourcing is the process of narrowing down the specific qualities, skills, and experience you want your perfect candidate to have, before ever reaching out to potential candidates. With pre-sourcing, a recruiter can use these specific aspects to weed out unqualified candidates, while highlighting candidates that are a better fit. Some key tips to start pre-sourcing are: 

• Use 2-3 relevant deal-breakers — Most job postings have a long list of relevant skills. Instead, narrow the list down to two to three must-have skills. The recruiter can immediately know if they are qualified for the position or not.  
• Define your Key Performance Objectives (KPOs) —  If the position requires someone to create a budget, does the candidate need budget experience, or do they just need the ability to handle a large project? Rather than looking at the end goal, consider the performance skills needed to complete the task. 
• Look a step lower — Don’t just look for candidates with similar job titles, look for ones that have a job title one step below the open position. When recruiters reach out to these candidates, they will view the position as a smarter career move. 
• Include the hiring manager — These first few tips will help the recruiter know if they should reach out to the candidate. Once recruiters reach out, and a few candidates show interest, the hiring manager can evaluate the candidates. The hiring manager can evaluate which candidates are worth pursuing, and invite the candidate to a phone screening. 
  

As soon as you pre-source a potential candidate, you can use Qualifi to invite them to an automated phone interview. 

As you upgrade your candidate sourcing strategies, Qualifi can invite hundreds of candidates to an on-demand interview. Qualifi will save your recruiters time on interview scheduling so they can spend more time sourcing the best candidates. 

To find the perfect hire, you first have to source the right candidates. A fruitful candidate sourcing strategy requires ample time, using of sources you already have, and utilizing pre-sourcing to your advantage!  By following these strategies and using the right hiring tools for on-demand interviews, recruiters can optimize their candidate selection.