A question so simple, but one which has so many answers to. The evolution of management theory generated many definitions, like this from the person who probably holds the Guinness record for appearing in most university subjects, Michael Porter:. But since there are contradictory sourcing definitions, let me define it with a sentence how I typically introduce it to a layman. Sourcing is the opening act of the recruitment process, where the candidate and the representative of the company find each other and decide whether there is mutual interest in moving forward.
It is no coincidence that we use terms like passive sourcing, active sourcing, direct sourcing, phone sourcing or internet sourcing: there are many ways how you can find the candidates or you can encourage the candidates to find you.
Creating a sourcing strategy is a good way to prepare to source a new type of talent or for a new challenge with the known talent. Unfortunately many lose the above goal and try to create a sourcing strategy to simply impress a client, a stakeholder or a manager.
While a good strategy certainly has the ability to help you with this, if impressing is your primary goal, instead of bringing value to the process you just waste time on summarizing your current actions. Beware: this limits your thinking so may be even more dangerous than doing nothing. Only create a strategy if there is real need for one! The desire to impress recruitment managers or clients is not enough to start creating a sourcing strategy Click To Tweet.
On the other hand, when you have finished the strategy, be sure to share it with the appropriate audience — a little visibility in the eyes of your management, hiring community or client never hurt anyone. Just as sourcing is part of the recruitment process, the sourcing strategy is part of the recruitment strategy.
For practical reasons time, effort, value-add and because of sourcing being perhaps the most crucial part of the recruitment process it may make more sense to narrow your focus to a sourcing strategy. Also, do not forget that typically the stakeholders and the decision makers on the proposed steps differ in other words you need higher involvement for a recruitment strategy.
Classically strategies are written documents with pages. I believe we already passed the era were we ever there? Except if you want to impress someone with the sheer amount of printed papers you throw at their desk — after my explanations above hopefully that is not your goal.
Better visualisation of your analysis will help you come up with better conclusions. Using a slide format is much more visual, and chunks the information into more digestible and understandable pieces.
Plus in most cases you work together in a team, you have a manager, a hiring manager or if you are on the agency side various client representatives. Now that you know all this it is time to prepare a process redefining, stakeholder charming and world saving piece of strategy. Generally speaking strategies consist of a short introduction to the situation, an analysis of the factors, conclusions drawn from the diagnosis and — if they are not fake materials existing just on paper — end with an action plan.
The below 9-step guide shows how this looks in the case of a sourcing strategy click here to open a bigger version. The sourcing strategy derives from the business plans coming from company strategy and HR strategy. If you diagnose there will only be a spike in required workforce, not a constant need, then hiring may be a bad decision in the first place.
This leads to a very practical thumb rule: if the business can not predict the employment needs with at least some degree of certainty, there is not much sense in trying to think in a strategical way. Alignment with HR strategy is equally important.
Are you a company with relatively low average salary level hiring and developing young talent or are you the company with high average salary who routinely picks off these companies?
On a related note, what is your training and development strategy? Do you invest in your employees growth? Internally or externally? How does your career management system work? Is there one in the first place? Your strategy starts with summarizing the employment need based on the inputs above. This is a very brief introduction of the situation and the timeframe.
Essentially you have to explain why you have created a sourcing strategy. Sum these up here! While sharing the strategy with the team or presenting to stakeholders, this is the part which should grab the attention and set the scene.
There are many ways how you can do this. Depending on how strictly you target you might go for something really concrete like personas or just a broad description. Any way you do this, be sure to go beyond job descriptions.
By now you explained what you seek — this is the part where you start looking where you might find this. Suiting profiles change, habits change and generations change. Analyze the economical, industrial and social trends and think about the same questions as in point 4 — but now in 2, 3 or 5 years depending on the timeframe of your strategy and the speed of change.
Again, think broadly! Find reports, analysis and prediction. Talk with industry experts in and outside of recruitment. Talk with some of the current candidates you have in the process or employees you have already hired. Competition in this context means both the direct competitors of your business and everyone else who is on the hunt or will be on the hunt for the same talent. By now you have a good understanding where your talent is and what your competitors are doing.
So think about:. A future article is coming on this topic — if you do not want to miss it, subscribe here with just an Email address. If your talent pool, or the way how you can reach the candidates in it are prone to change over time, it is natural that your methods should change as well.
Revise your Sourcing Mix keeping in mind what you discovered about your future talent. Add new elements and plan to eliminate old ones. It might be worth to add tools to your mix which are not work the best now, but you expect to rely on them more and more — better be early than late.
Being an early adopter means a competitive advantage, but that is not the only way to differentiate yourself. Think out of the box and try not to limit yourself to what you are used to do. Thinking out of the box can help you out with formulating or changing your message as well, but do not lose your identity while trying to be different and creative.
Not everyone is Google or Coca-Cola, and not everyone should be. You worked out your sourcing mix for now and for the future so now you just have to execute it, right? Well, not so fast. You certainly used all the data you could gather to predict which methods are the best for you, but there is no guarantee everything will work out the same way in reality as it looks on paper. The solution is to make sure you will be able to measure and compare the elements of your Sourcing Mix I wrote here on this topic earlier.
Depending on your decisions earlier and the talent scope of your sourcing strategy this may range from a source and conversation ratio tracking to complete revisions of your employer brand. Plan what are the most likely causes why you could get off track, and be prepared to intervene in time. Strategical thinking is fun and brings great value to your organisation, but ultimately your goal is not have a good strategy but to hire the most suiting people to run your business.
Working out a coherent sourcing strategy can be a very challenging task. Generally speaking involve everyone who might have a valuable point of view on the subject of your talent or your recruitment process. This frees up the recruiter to focus on what they do best, which is to work on employer branding, build employee referral programs, use applicant tracking systems to organize recruiting processes, and conduct interviews. Essentially, that means being precise about what you type into Google to get better results.
You can narrow down your searches by:. Consider learning how to do advanced searches on Google. You can start by getting to know the operators on this list. Through LinkedIn, you have potential access to millions of professionals around the world. You can connect with them through groups, an intro from a shared connection or by directly reaching out. In most social media sites, you can participate in discussions, comment on posts, share job postings and tag people.
Use the possibilities available in each platform to kickstart conversations with potential candidates. When deciding which social website or app to use, consider their size, demographics, profile depth and accessibility.
Twitter can be a source of great candidates, too. You might discover other potential leads this way. You might also want to try searching hashtags — uxdesign, for example, will lead you to discussions around this topic.
A meetup can be an excellent source of passive candidates with a specific skill set in a specific location. Copy them so you can search for their LinkedIn profiles. When you join an online community, make sure you read the rules and spend some time observing how people interact before you start participating. Free resources such as Google are amazing, but they only take you so far. Consider exploring the possibility of purchasing software to help with your sourcing. There are infinite options out there, so you can — and should — be picky.
Before making a decision, ask for a free trial so you can get hands-on experience. Consider trying more than one product or service so you can compare the results. Get Insights from Big Data… Big data is a new resource for sourcers who want to go from reactively filling openings to proactively anticipating needs and pipelining talent in advance.
Recruiters and hiring managers are already using it for recruitment analytics. The coolest thing about big data, though, is predictive analyses.
Big data can predict how difficult it will be to fill a specific position in a specific city; how many employees a company will need in the future; critical talent areas recruiting should focus on and more.
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