Over my 8 years in Talent Acquisition, I’ve definitely learned a lot about the new age of recruiting and sourcing. The new norm in most companies is to separate the sourcing career path from recruiting all together. The reason for this is that it takes a completely different personality and mindset to be successful within each of these functions. Companies today seem to realize they are playing to each person’s strengths by separating the functions. It’s refreshing to hear if you ask me!
Sourcing seems to be best for those who love the thrill of the hunt and love solving complex problems. Each position can be viewed as a math problem that you need to solve with the best possible candidate. Sourcers enjoy finding that answer to the equation!
Recruiting, on the other hand, is reserved for those who enjoy the administrative and closing aspects of the process. They get satisfaction out of offering a position to a candidate and seeing them through the backend of the process, focusing a great deal on candidate experience.
I myself, am the hunter – the Sourcer, and I always share the keys to success of the modern sourcing world to my colleagues so I figured I’d share some basic ones with the online community:
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Computer skills
Unfortunately, in the modern world, computer skills are necessary for anyone in an office environment to be most successful in a role. As a Sourcer, you need to multi-task. I always like having two screens in front of me to get the most amount of desktop space for online profiles, databases, messaging, and resumes. For any given candidate, I could be looking at 2-3 social profiles, a resume, and also be sending them a message all at once. It is an absolute must to be able to handle all of this at once.
Boolean Basics
X-Ray Searching on Google or Bing helps; however, at the very least, every Sourcer needs to know the basics of Boolean especially when searching social sites or when browsing LinkedIn. Boolean, although it can leave out some results, saves a great deal of time especially when trying to sift through hundreds or even thousands of candidates when putting something general into a search bar.
The right places to look in conjunction with level of candidate
You aren’t going to find an executive placement on one of the job boards. Make sure that you’re targeting the right sources for the right level of candidate. With 450 million users on LinkedIn, I think it’s safe to say that you can start there either way!
Ability to think outside the box
If you have LinkedIn Recruiter, it’s great for finding candidates; however, not every user on LinkedIn is an active user. Sometimes, in order to get someone’s attention, you need to think outside of the box. What I use the most in this case is Google Chrome extensions that focus on social profile contact information. There are some great ones out there that I would highly recommend that are free or very cheap.
Network, Network, Network!
Like I had mentioned, there are 450 million users on LinkedIn. As you connect with people, you’re opening up a whole world of 2nd and 3rd connections that will be at your disposal. It’s proven that connecting with a candidate first builds a level of trust with them and ends up being a much more effective option than blindly “inMailing” them. I personally accept everyone’s request to connect and it’s made my life much easier when it’s time for a transition into another vertical or focus!
Every Sourcer has their own tricks to finding and attracting passive talent. As a Sourcer myself, I’ve realized that you really need to have creative and open mindset in order to be successful, and these are the things that I’ve done in order to do so.
