importance of dedicated sourcing for volume hiring.

The current job market is beleaguered by demand that outpaces supply. Yet, many recruiters still work with processes that served an era where supply was more comfortably placed against demand. One process that needs to adapt in today’s scenario of the talent war is in drawing a distinct line between sourcing and recruiting. This is especially true where high volume recruitment is concerned.

Today, a number of passive candidates have instant access to newly posted jobs across multiple channels. They are willing to be influenced to switch jobs over a period of time. It is a slow but deliberate hunting strategy that calls for a different set of skills beyond traditional recruitment.

Active sourcing – a specialist area of operation

Over the past few years, sourcing has come to occupy a role that is quite distinct from recruiting, while being powerfully complementing too. Active sourcing is critical to engage niche talent much before they seek to apply for any opening. Establishing early relationships with candidates of choice and sustaining them is a full-time responsibility that cannot be loosely held by a recruiter. Active sourcing needs a dedicated place in talent acquisition teams if companies need to hold a competitive edge.

When hiring in volumes, a dedicated active sourcing team can build up and maintain talent pools from which the right fit talent can be recruited. Sourcing can ensure that their organisations are well known to promising talent over a period of time. This saves recruiters significant time, effort and cost in wading through and evaluating pools of applications.

The ‘sourcer’ is different from a ‘recruiter’

Dedicated sourcing teams seek out talent that does not apply through the corporate website or job board postings. They create interest and the pull factor to draw talent to the organisation. They research extensively – about the market, social media profiles, search engines and competition. They constantly repeat and tweak their cycle of actions.

Recruiters will never be able to efficiently incorporate the slower pace of sourcing with their hectic and primary responsibilities of managing the hiring processes - screening, interviewing, selection, offers and hiring.

Sourcing – a ‘win all’ situation

For talent acquisition teams and organisations, dedicated sourcing teams build ready pipelines of vetted and quality talent – for current and future positions. Relationships are created with potential candidates and this leads a repository of referrals built on trust. Ultimately employer branding gets a big boost. The resulting redundancy in sourcing time and the possibilities of efficient market and talent saves significant time and money.

For the pool of candidates nurtured by the sourcing team, it is a good opportunity to become familiar with their potential employers over an extended period of time. If well handled by the candidate engagement teams, candidate experience can be enhanced considerably.

Sourcing is a powerful tool for talent acquisition teams to raise their recruitment maturity levels. Dedicated sourcing teams achieve both speed and specialisation in discovering, assessing and building winning relationships with talent, besides providing valuable market insights for top- and bottom-line success.