Effective recruitment is one of the top priorities of any organization today. It has become imperative to hire candidates of quality faster to avoid losing out on the global talent pool. At a time when the global talent pool is thriving with fresh talent, one of the key aspects of recruitment comes into play; sourcing.

Sourcing remains a crucial talent acquisition channel since sourced candidates account for 24-33% of all hires, the second most common origin of hire after direct applicants.

In a nutshell, candidate sourcing is the process of discovering, identifying, and connecting with potential candidates for the roles of today or the future.

Sourcing is essential to today’s recruiting strategy as hiring success ultimately boils down to a great hire, with minimal time and money spent in the process.

Common Challenges Encountered in Sourcing

Recruiters sourcing candidates can face a number of hurdles along the way, including:

• Candidates unaware of the job profile
• A low number of applicants, or a higher number but lower in quality.
• Difficulty reaching out to candidate leads.
• Increasing competition for talent from other enterprises.
• Not knowing the right sourcing platforms to generate leads.
• Managing a complex recruitment pipeline.
• Lack of understanding about essential recruitment metrics and measurements.

So how do you handle these struggles? How do you continue the winning streak in this talent war? To help your business attract more candidates, we have curated 10 effective candidate sourcing innovations to craft a strong sourcing strategy.

From leveraging AI to diversifying your sources, these innovations are simple yet effective enough to turn the tables for you.

Job Descriptions Need to be Optimized Regularly

It is crucial to make your job descriptions inclusive and exciting to keep attracting a wide variety of candidates. By understanding the diversity of data, including age, gender, race, experience, and more, we can optimize the job descriptions to suit our target group. Such efforts can include anywhere from optimizing the years of experience required to inviting the aging working population at large.

Leveraging AI to Connect on a Personal Level

Most AI-powered recruitment tools allow you to focus on human interaction by taking care of all documentation behind the scenes. These tools take care of pre-interview steps by initiating a conversation with the candidate that includes deciding on a suitable time and more. This enables hiring managers to focus on the human part and connect on a personal level with the candidate.

Internships For Fresh Talent

Having a robust internship program is one of the finest ways to keep the company fresh and innovative. Each new cohort brings ideas and approaches to the table that help a company grow. If you can leave interns with an experience that is fulfilling, you can keep them on board after graduation as well. Since they know the company from their internship program, they will be able to perform better as full-time employees.

Extracting Talent Out of Existing Talent

Employee referral programs may seem like a thing of the past, but they are still a powerful way to hire quality talent. If your employees have effective connections in their industry, incentivizing them to you these individuals on board would be a strength. The incentives of successful referrals can be anything from bonuses, paid leaves, or discount coupons to their favorite store.

Follow-Up Emails

It is a possibility that your email was sent to spam or got pushed down in their inbox. If you reach out again, it shows the candidate that you are interested in considering them for the job, and they may get back to you. The significance of follow-up emails is that they cost practically nothing but can get you a great hire without wasting your efforts elsewhere.

The Elevator Pitch

In 2022, sourcing a candidate is more like an elevator pitch. You have to get them to read past the first few sentences, and the way to do this is by leading with benefits. It is important to inform the candidate how your opportunity will benefit them. This particular statement, if worked upon, can be a great hook to catch the attention of candidates.

Diversify your Sourcing Channels

While online channels such as job boards, professional networks, online communities, and databases may work, it is crucial to look beyond the traditional channels. Sourcing channels, including in-person events such as meetups and conferences, as well as referrals, act as great secondary sources to hiring quality talent.

Nurture Candidates for Future

Although 99% of companies believe re-engaging candidates will help them build their talent community, fewer than 50% of employers re-engage declined candidates. It is imperative to nurture declined candidates with a quarterly outreach. Staying in contact with declined candidates and tracking how they’re doing at their respective companies tells a lot about their plans.

Sourcing using AI

There are countless AI-backed sourcing tools in the market right now. AI offers extreme automation and accuracy. Automated sourcing uses evolving databases to find candidates that fit the requirement. These tools crawl a variety of databases and compare candidates with metrics to pick the best from the crowd. The significance of AI actually lies in its accuracy; from candidate matching to planning career progressions, these tools perform exceptionally.

Build a Strong Employer Brand

Over 92% of candidates agreed to leaving their current jobs if a company with an excellent corporate reputation offered them another role. Your employer brand could be the difference between a candidate responding to your outreach or ignoring it. Hence, it is of utmost importance to keep optimizing your image in the market and stand out, not as an organization, but as a brand that attracts.

Talent intelligence platforms like Draup analyze and evaluate the underlying talent attributes across firms, industries, individuals, and regions to make talent acquisition decisions. Draup provides accurate data sets, and expertly analyzed data points with tailor-made reports and insights to make talent acquisition a seamless experience.