Sourcing candidates is not an easy task. There are so many different options, and so many avenues to go down. Some of which will be dead ends. With the competition in recruitment, it can be hard to find just the right candidate, the quality one who will rise above the rest and get hired.
Around 80 percent of all job seekers are using social media to boost their search, and this will undoubtedly give you a big pool to choose from. But what if the right candidate is using a different method? What if they’re not on social media at all? You can’t rely on this one, admittedly good sourcing practice, and it’s best to combine it with other techniques. With that in mind, here are some more you can use to find the ideal candidates for the roles you need to fill.
Define The Role
Before the sourcing element of the job even begins, there is some work to do. The more work you can do beforehand, the easier the actual sourcing will be. One of the best bits of prep work that can be done is defining the role you’re hiring for. By doing this, you’ll narrow down the candidate pool, and although that might not seem like a good thing, it means you’ll be providing quality candidates rather than going down the quantity route, and that’s crucial.
Work With The Hiring Manager
You could take your instructions and go off on the hunt for candidates to make your hiring managers happy. Or not happy. That’s the problem; they might not be the candidates they’re looking for. It’s a much better idea to work with the hiring manager rather than going off on your own – meet if you can and discuss the role, getting as much information as you can out of them. In this way, you’ll be much more confident about finding potential candidates because you’ll know exactly what the hiring manager is looking for in a top candidate.
Find The Best Fit
Depending on the sector you’re recruiting for, there might be a vast candidate pool to wade through. Don’t let this fool you; that doesn’t mean you’ve got an easy job on your hands. Even if you have a deadline to adhere to (and you almost certainly will), that doesn’t mean you can select the very first candidates who come your way who look like that might just about fit the criteria. If you do this, you’re more likely to send low-quality candidates who will never get the job. Make sure the candidate fits the requirements exactly.
Look At Former Candidates
If you’ve made sure that every candidate you put forward is, as far as you can tell, precisely right for the role, you’re still going to have some passes. After all, there’s only one position open, and even if you send ten different candidates and one of them was hired, you’ll have nine outstanding workers with exceptional skills who are still searching for a role.
Use them. These are the people to turn to. You already know everything about them; you know where they’re looking to go in their career. If you’ve kept in touch (even a monthly email to check whether they’re still interested in looking at roles is enough), you’ll be able to tell them about the new possibility right away and send them across to be interviewed.
