Candidate Sourcing Strategies: An Essential Guide for Hiring

Candidate sourcing is crucial to staffing. Yet it rarely receives the attention it deserves. If you’re a recruiter, talent acquisition leader, or staffing agency, leveling up your candidate sourcing is your key to a competitive edge. This guide will get you there. You’ll learn what candidate sourcing is, why it’s important, and how to use it to add value to your broader recruitment and talent acquisition strategy.

What is Candidate Sourcing?

Candidate sourcing is the process of identifying and attracting potential candidates for open job positions. It forms the foundation of the recruitment funnel, preceding stages such as screening, interviewing, and hiring. Effective candidate sourcing not only fills current vacancies but also builds a pipeline for future needs.

Traditionally, candidate sourcing focuses on passive candidates—those who are not actively seeking new jobs but might be open to opportunities. This long-term strategy involves relationship-building within specific markets or industries, allowing recruiters to tap into this talent pool when needed. In contrast, recruiting typically refers to the immediate task of filling open jobs. While some view candidate sourcing as a subset of recruiting, this guide treats it as a distinct, strategic function that complements the overall recruitment process.

Candidate Sourcing Approaches

The digital age has transformed candidate sourcing, shifting many traditional methods online. However, successful sourcing still requires a mix of digital and offline strategies. Let’s explore some key approaches to ensure a comprehensive strategy.

Networking

Networking remains a cornerstone of effective candidate sourcing. By attending local events, industry-specific conferences, and professional meetups, recruiters can establish valuable connections. Engage in conversations, exchange contact information, and follow up with potential candidates to nurture these relationships and build a robust network.

Online networking is equally important. Participate in webinars, LinkedIn Live events, and Twitter Spaces to connect with professionals virtually. Engage with attendees by sending direct messages or emails, expressing genuine interest in their contributions, and discussing potential opportunities. By combining physical and digital networking efforts, you can ensure a comprehensive approach to building your candidate pool. This dual strategy allows you to tap into a broader range of candidates and stay connected with industry trends and thought leaders.

Social Media

A balanced social media strategy is vital for candidate sourcing. While LinkedIn is great for mid-career professionals, it often misses other valuable talent pools. Diversify your approach by including:

• LinkedIn: Ideal for B2B professionals.
• Job boards: Such as Lensa, Indeed, and Monster.
• X (Twitter): Use local searches and hashtags.
• Reddit: Engage on local boards.
• Instagram: Use local hashtags and monitor comments on professional events.
• Although TikTok isn’t a major sourcing tool yet, it offers insights into younger generations’ views on hiring processes.

Job Boards and Career Websites

Career sites like Lensa, LinkedIn, and Indeed remain significant, but niche job sites can be invaluable. Some niche sites will allow you to reach multiple job boards at once, spanning both niche and mainstream options.

Internal Referral Programs

Previous applicants can be a valuable resource for filling similar roles. For example, if you had a similar position open 12 months ago and received 220 applications, revisit those who were shortlisted. Focus on the 69 qualified candidates who didn’t get the job but were considered strong contenders.

When reaching out, personalize your communication. Explain who you are, how you found them, and why the position is open again. Highlight why you think they’d be a good fit and ask if they’re open to a conversation. This personalized approach can reignite interest and lead to fruitful discussions, potentially filling the role quickly and efficiently.

Employer Branding

Employer branding is often managed at higher organizational levels, but as a recruiter, you have direct control over how you represent your employer. Ensure that you are:

• Timely and Reliable: Always be on time for calls and avoid ghosting candidates.
• Transparent: Clearly communicate salary ranges, company culture, and role expectations.
• Respectful: Treat all candidates with respect, whether they get the job or not.

Most of the complaints that both active and passive job candidates have about sourcers and recruiters involve the things they don’t do, i.e. missing calls, ghosting them, not answering questions.

By maintaining these standards, you help uphold and enhance your company’s employer brand, making it more attractive to potential candidates.

Offline Recruitment

ffline recruitment strategies are valuable but often overlooked. Building strong local networks can set you apart. Here’s how to do it:

• Local Business Press: Stay updated on who is scaling up or moving into your area.
• Networking Events: Attend happy hours and industry meetups to build connections.
• Direct Outreach: Regularly reach out to local team leaders for coffee or informal chats.

For example, a successful recruiter in Tampa billed over $10 million annually by leveraging her local network. She built relationships with local professionals and businesses, allowing her to match candidates to roles even before they were posted. By knowing the market and the players within it, she efficiently filled positions, saving time and resources.

Better Outreach Campaigns

Personalized outreach campaigns can significantly improve response rates. Instead of sending generic messages, use AI tools to craft tailored communications. For instance:

1. Contextual Messages: Use AI to draft personalized emails based on the candidate’s background and your job description.
2. Tailored Prompts: Provide specific prompts to AI tools, like ChatGPT, to generate engaging and relevant messages.

The Bottom Line On Candidate Sourcing

ecruiting and sourcing can feel overwhelming. Mastering this game requires you to step back and think through the basics:

• How would I want to be contacted?
• What would I want to know about the role?
• Where would I spend time online and in-person if I was a good fit for this role?
• What seems important to me on my resume?
• How do I want to be treated in this process?

By understanding these points and incorporating the strategies shared in this article into your candidate sourcing process, you can enhance your efficiency and effectiveness, ultimately leading to better hiring outcomes.

 

Empathy lays a foundation for trust from employees and has far more value than interviewing and onboarding. Recruiters understand the organization’s culture and are familiar with the candidate’s hiring experience. They can ensure a smooth transition from the interview process to the first day of hire. The amount of available positions has shifted from scarce to plentiful, as a recent Robert Half survey shows a hiring increase in the first half of 2024.

Empathy and Compassion Create a Better Candidate Experience

Today’s job search and interview processes are filled with technology, compliance, and data, lacking a sense of human connection and belonging. The recruiter is often the only human connection for weeks and months after posting the position. Assessments, interview scheduling, and AI-driven interviews are a few tools replacing this person-to-person connection. 

Recruiters are the company’s brand ambassador. They are the window to understanding the company’s culture. A compassionate and empathetic recruiter can help shape the candidate’s perception of the company culture in several ways:

• • Job satisfaction: A recent global survey showed that out of 8,700 employees asked, only 48% agreed their company was empathetic. Of the employees who disagreed, 90% believed empathy would make a difference.

• • Job performance: Leadership that listens and responds to its employees results in higher employee retention, increased productivity, and greater loyalty. Compassion also helps reduce workplace drama and conflict.

• • Positive company culture: Compassionate leadership creates a model for employees to follow and emulate. Compassion is contagious and influences a slow change toward a positive culture.

• Effective leadership: People are attracted to and will follow compassionate leadership. Compassionate leadership reduces burnout, improves employee attendance, and decreases employee turnover.

When Recruiters Lack Compassion and Empathy Toward Candidates

Recruiters interact with many applicants from multiple job postings to find the best fit. Mistreating a candidate may result in missing key talent and delays in filling in-demand positions.

Here are ways recruiters unintentionally discourage a connection with candidates:

• • Lack of communication: Understandably, recruiters desire to automate as much as possible when hundreds of candidates apply for one position. Hiring has evolved to where technology and AI are becoming key to streamlining the many layers of the interview process; however, poor personal communication creates an unfavorable impression of the recruiter and the company.

• • Insensitive feedback: Recruiters will only give feedback if the company allows it. However, when there is an opportunity to offer it, a straightforward and carefully worded response can have a positive effect on a candidate’s professional development. Constructive but tactful feedback can make an impact even on candidates who don’t get the job.

• • Rigid processes: Engaging relationships with candidates can make the interview experience more informative and productive for everyone involved. If a company says it cares about people but doesn’t connect with them, it’s difficult for both candidates and recruiters to fill positions.

• Untimely responses to candidate concerns: There is much anxiety in the job search for candidates waiting for a recruiter’s contact. A lack of recruiter response to a text, voicemail, or call is nerve-racking to a good candidate and may disenchant them. Recruiters who understand this and empathize through experience make meaningful connections with candidates.

Tools and Strategies to Show More Humanity

Automated processes and technology may help the company save money and time, but they can diminish the humanity of the candidate’s experience. Recruiter relationships with candidates that incorporate empathy and compassion make the company feel more human. Suitable candidates with several options will likely find the company more favorable if they feel connected, heard, and valued.

In the competitive race for talent, recruiters can enhance their effectiveness by incorporating empathy and compassion into their strategies. Here are some valuable tools and practices that can help:

• • Ask open-ended questions: Cultural fit is evident from every answer given during an interview. An interview has to feel more like a conversation and less like an interrogation. This better reflects an exchange of ideas, making the candidate feel they can contribute.

• • Active listening: Recruiters are expected to demonstrate the company’s values. Candidates will take nonverbal cues from conversations and respond if they sense the recruiter cares. Most people want to feel heard, and even if they are rejected, they can use the experience to guide their career advancement.

• • Thoughtful communication: The recruiter and company will likely use automation to send candidates emails, texts, and phone messages for scheduling and status updates. Candidates need some human contact to connect and care about the company. If the company’s competitors are more personable during their hiring processes, candidates may make decisions based on the quality and frequency of human interaction.

• • Show appreciation for their time: Today’s job search requires juggling many tasks, yet rejection and ghosting by companies make the work and time spent applying for jobs unpleasant. Candidates invest time in interviewing with several companies. Recruiters can offer appreciation and establish a connection with the candidate even by sending a personalized “thank you” message.

• • Answer direct questions: Based on their research, candidates want to learn more about the company and how they can contribute to it. The recruiter is often the leading resource for helping candidates understand the interviewer, the company, and the culture.

• Use a job fit assessment: A job fit assessment helps candidates understand how well they’ll perform in a specific role before they start. It also helps them identify tasks, work environments, and competencies aligned with their strengths. Most candidates don’t understand how their skills would fit a job, so this assessment can be invaluable for their overall career development and create value beyond the interview experience.

Win the Hearts of Talented Candidates with Humanity and Technology

Technology, specifically artificial intelligence (AI), saturates news headlines, conferences, and podcasts. Comparatively, empathy and compassion appear as afterthoughts or sound bites. The reality for recruiters and the companies they work for is to create processes to make hiring faster, easier, and better. However, candidates will only stay with the company if the changes and adaptation to new technology help recruiters win by creating a better candidate experience. 

There are several signs that show companies and recruiters what works to create the best candidate experience and to best compete for talent:

• • It’s all about the candidate. If the recruiter’s efforts show candidates the hiring process is more about them than how well the automated processes work, it will sell candidates on the company’s value. Assure candidates there are responsive humans involved in the process who are looking forward to their impact on the company. 

• • Build trust. Connections with candidates foster authenticity, honesty, and transparency. Trust is a tangible return on investment that pays well beyond the first 90 days of employment.

• • Make personable connections. Can recruiters convey empathy with candidates to show they understand their challenges? Recruiters set the expectation that everyone a candidate meets will offer a welcoming attitude. 

• Be open to feedback. Offer tactful and respectful feedback regarding the candidate’s questions about the company and culture. Clarity is necessary to avoid unnecessary doubts. 

When companies are looking to hire talent, it’s important to treat candidates with respect and fairness. Candidates often share their experiences with each other both directly and indirectly, and social media is full of complaints about ghosting, poor communication, mistreatment, and misunderstandings during the hiring process. It’s in the best interest of recruiters to regularly seek feedback from candidates and work to create a positive and amicable interaction.

Improving the Candidate Experience with Compassion

Recruiters must collaborate with companies to improve the candidate experience. This is not only to streamline the hiring process but also to ensure multiple human interactions along the way. Surveys and conversations are measurable ways to create a more human-centered hiring process and to gather valuable feedback. 

Empathy and compassion are not displayed simply through emotions, but rather through kindness, courtesy, and thoughtfulness, considering the candidate’s experience first. Everyone has been an active job seeker at some point in their career, so recruiters must use their understanding of what it feels like to sit in the candidate’s chair and do their best to improve the candidate’s experience.