Tackling Recruiting Sourcers’ Challenges

Candidate sourcing is the single greatest opportunity to impact the total cost, quality, and performance of recruiting. Sourcers have tremendous challenges facing them, but somewhere tucked away in these challenges we have the potential for a solid sourcing plan.
Sourcers face many obstacles that recruiters don’t have to deal with. For instance, regardless of how strong your sourcing skills are, in some circles you’re still considered junior-level, or even worse, entry level.

So what’s the solution? Are sourcers fighting a losing battle? Not necessarily. Try the following strategies to tackle the unique sourcing challenges.
Strategy #1: Information Gathering
Don’t make assumptions, take the time to research and understand the client’s specific business needs. Don’t consider yourself exempt just because you may have seen that skill set before. Usually sourcers receive their job requisitions, begin to highlight the buzzwords, and within minutes start doing searches.
Save yourself time and money by doing your research first. You need to know more than just keywords. You need to know your prospective candidate’s industry, what they are looking for and what drives them. Once you know what they want, you can tailor what you have to offer them and make it more enticing.
Strategy #2: Technology and market development analysis: identifying and defining targets, approaches, and tactics
Tailor each approach to target specific candidates. Once you learn the specific needs it will be easy to define the appropriate approach and tactics. You can’t and shouldn’t have a cookie-cutter approach to sourcing. When your campaigns are targeted at technical people, speak in technical terms. Capture their interests and look for ways to capitalize on it.
Strategy #3 Short & Long-Term Planning
Once you have knowledge of your candidate’s industry and the tactics that would work best, you’re ready to begin your planning. Preparation and careful planning can effectively improve your chances of delivering on your sourcing goals. To achieve sourcing success, you must rely on a combined set of actions. Planning will ensure that you keep your sourcing on track.
Strategy #4 Implementation
Implementation of a chosen solution has to be effectively managed to deliver the desired effect. Link your activities to each other through your plan; don’t just see them as separate things to do. As you start implementing your well-thought out sourcing plans — whether it is internet sourcing, job posting, job board searches, name generation, e-mail campaigns, or whatever — you will see that your sourcing will take on new life because now it is not a routine but part of a strategic set of tactics to reach your goal.
Strategy #5 Monitoring Sourcing Performance With Regular Strategic Reviews
Usually as sourcer/recruiters we get so involved in our routine that we make assumptions. It is easy to think that being busy is being effective. Monitoring the performance of each sourcing tactic can help you determine whether you need to adjust to a different source or tactic. You may get a high number of responses to an e-mail blast, but the skills may be wrong, the ad may need to be tweaked, or your cold call script may need to be changed. The only way to know and truly measure your effectiveness is through tracking and monitoring each sourcing strategy.
Strategy #6 Trend analysis
Trending your sourcing activities is the best way to truly know the direction your sourcing is headed. It validates your judgments and provides for finding and implementing best practices. You need to distinguish your impressions from reality. Trending results will help differentiate between the two and drive you to deliver on your goals.
Conclusion
Remember that while sourcing goals may not change, the market does and so do sourcing research methods, which continue to evolve. That means sourcers need to stay on guard and up-to-date to stay in the game. Managing and monitoring your candidate sourcing activities is essential to maximizing the value you provide.
— By Moises Lopez, of The Sourcing Corner blog.
This article is courtesy of Recruiting Blogswap, a content exchange service sponsored by CollegeRecruiter.com, a leading site for college students looking for internships and recent graduates searching entry level jobs and other career opportunities