Best Candidate Sourcing Guide in 2024

Welcome to candidate sourcing 101, which will help you understand each and everything about it in the most simplest phrases. Our best candidate sourcing guide is equally important for recruiters and business owners as this contains information of the existence of candidate sourcing.

With the job market facing regular struggles in finding strong and skilled candidates, every recruiter and entrepreneur is falling short struggling to upgrade the workforce. Furthermore, factors like the happening probability of World War 3 have affected the market even more.

Finding candidates equipped with the right skills has always been a trouble that most recruiters face as they begin their career. Therefore, we have curated this candidate sourcing guide to help recruiters get started in finding skilled candidates.

Without wasting much time, let’s quickly help you understand the meaning of candidate sourcing.

Understanding Candidate Sourcing

Candidate sourcing or candidate source is a term used to describe finding skilled talent which aligns with the job description. Sourcing is the process of finding the candidate through various mediums such as job posting platforms, social networking, etc. Unlike traditional hiring, sourcing involves active search of potential candidates.

Unlike candidate screening, there are no interview rounds or assessment rounds for candidates. The recruiter or the employer has to find matching candidate profiles for their client or their company. It takes ultimate skill to find candidates that completely align with the job description. We will tell you about the entire process in this blog.

Various Kinds Of Candidate Sourcing Services

While we were discussing about different services of recruitment, here are different types of candidate sourcing services available in the market:

AI Candidate Sourcing

AI has become a convenient tool for every business starting a revolution be it Nvidia, Samsung, etc. Most of these high ranking companies have utilized Generative AI to build amazing features. AI candidate sourcing has been unraveled as job search platforms such as Linkedin, Indeed, and Glassdoor have deployed AI in their job search feature. Which directly helps recruiters to source the candidates much faster and better.

Active Candidate Sourcing

In contrast to passive candidate sourcing, active candidate sourcing is a process where the recruiter finds a candidate who is actively looking for a job. You don’t need to have a strong network for active candidate sourcing - you can find them via various candidate sourcing channels such as job boards, job fairs, and advertisements.

For active candidate sourcing, your company should have a great employer branding set up. So that the candidate gets interested in joining your company just by checking out the job post or job board branding kit!

Passive Candidate Sourcing

The term passive candidate sourcing associates with the sourcing of a candidate who’s not currently looking for a job but also has a back of the head thought of switching their job. It depends on the recruiter to convince the person with their communication skills.

Furthermore, you wouldn’t be able to find passive candidates using the various candidate sourcing channels such as job search platform, or job boards. Rather, it would happen if you are an expert in making and maintaining long-term connections with fellow job doers.

Automated Candidate Sourcing

Automated candidate sourcing is the process of utilizing sourcing software and tools to assist you in finding potential candidates. Such tools have inbuilt filters which help you sort out the unwanted or unqualified candidates. Additionally, you can use automation to send out targeted emails and advertisements along with deploying chatbots to answer simple queries such as company description, job description, etc.

5 Effective Candidate Sourcing Strategies For Recruiters

Here are five effective candidate sourcing strategies to assist recruiters in their sourcing endeavors:

Hiring From Talent Pools

Top RPO (recruitment process outsourcing) companies have a talent pool of skilled candidates, who are actively looking for a job. Such agencies enjoy the benefit of sourcing candidates just by sorting out the pool with an applicant tracking system (ATS).

However, it is important that you are regularly updating your talent pool with new potential candidates so that you have a huge chance to submit quality profiles to your clients.

• Bonus: You can send these candidates periodic messages to keep them engaged with yourself.

Boolean Search

This candidate sourcing guide will not disappoint you. Introducing Boolean Search, the most underrated candidate sourcing strategy which can strengthen your sourcing efforts massively. The Boolean search is the process of filtering out the unwanted candidates at the time of candidate search by using Boolean operators such as AND, OR, and NOT.

All you have to do is combine keywords, job titles, skill sets, location, and etc to create a search string. This trick is really helpful as it will filter out all the potential candidates.

Explanation with an example

If you’re looking for a aerospace engineer with software handling and piloting experience, you can make up a Boolean search string such as:

Use this pattern - (“job position 1” OR “job position 2”) AND (“Skill 1” OR “Skill 2”) AND “LOCATION”

Utilize Social Media Platforms

One of the best candidate sourcing channels are social media platforms such as LinkedIn, Instagram, and Facebook. You can form a connection with the skilled candidates. All you have to do is curate and share engaging content to keep them in touch with you.

For recruiters: you can start by developing a content strategy which includes various steps such as creating engaging job postings, posting company culture highlights, posting quality industry insights, and posting employee testimonials & feedbacks. Moreover, regularly interact with the potential candidates to keep them engaged.

Make Use Of Employee Referral Programs

You can count on our “best candidate sourcing guide” for finding exclusive candidate sourcing strategies such as encouraging existing employees to refer skilled candidates. For business owners: you can create an effective employee referral program which allows your existing employees to refer a potential employee to the company. It may increase your chances of successful hiring.

Host Recruitment Events Or Attend Job Fairs

For business owners: you can host recruitment events for specific job roles such as hackathons for finding developers. Additionally, coding competition to find skilled coders. People who are looking for a job will definitely want to be a part of your event.

For recruiters/employers: you can attend various job fairs and events to connect with passive as well as active candidates. Which can help you with filling job positions someday!

Deep Diving Into The Process of Candidate Sourcing

Here is a 4 step process guide for the entire candidate sourcing service as a whole:

1. Understand hiring needs and craft a sourcing strategy: Begin by identifying the needed skills, qualifications, and experience for the role. Then, start building a sitemap to start sourcing using different candidate sourcing strategies such as Boolean search, etc.
2. Post job openings and start your search: The next step is to craft compelling job descriptions and distribute them via various candidate sourcing channels such as job boards, social media platforms, etc. While you’re at it, put your sourcing plan in action and start looking out for potential passive and active candidates.

Assess and engage with potential candidates: Communicate with candidates who’s profile matches with the job role requirements. Also, evaluate the shortlisted profile one last time before you reach onto the last step of candidate sourcing.

1. Making submissions: The last step in the candidate sourcing process is submitting the candidate profiles for arranging interviews. Now as a recruiter you will push out the shortlisted profiles for an interview with your client or company.

What Are The Benefits Of Candidate Sourcing Services?

While candidate sourcing is the primary step of full-cycle or end-to-end recruitment, there are a few benefits of getting the best candidate sourcing services. Here are 4 benefits of effective candidate sourcing:

Improves Quality Of Hiring

Effective sourcing can immensely improve the quality of candidates hired because of its unique nature of pre-screening. Unlike candidate screening, sourcing does not go into detailed profile screening, interviews, and assessments. A good sourcing recruiter is known for their skill to study and analyze resumes for sorting out the potential candidates.

Saves Cost

Candidate sourcing is a cheaper practice compared to other kinds of recruitment. Sourcing doesn’t ask you to interview candidates, but it demands you to check their resumes and evaluate their qualifications based on that. To sum it up, there are no major costs in candidate sourcing, so it is cost effective for hiring managers with a minimal budget.

Building Unique Bonds With Potential Candidates

While the recruiters source candidates they form a unique bond with the skilled candidates. Think of it, even the passive candidates know about your company (even if they’re not looking for a job currently). They would become aware of your company. For recruiters: It helps in creating an effective ready-to-hire talent pool which can be used for any job type candidate sourcing!

Speeds Up The Hiring Process

Candidate sourcing makes the entire hiring process smoother and faster. It boosts the efficiency while maintaining the hiring speed. Which is why recruiters love to source candidates. It is an art in which you have to make plans and use various channels to source candidates. Sourcing is like having a clearance before approaching the candidate, so it gives more than one reason for recruiters to love it. Now, for organizations candidate sourcing can bring in hiring options for immediate requirements.

How Vanator RPO’s Candidate Screening Services Make The Difference?

Vanator RPO is on a different playing field than other RPO’s. We have mastered the art of candidate sourcing. This candidate sourcing guide was the fruitful result of dedicated hard work put in by our recruiters and writers.

Our approach towards candidate sourcing makes us stand out in a crowd of good recruiters. We’re not just good, we love to help our client’s business grow! Moreover, Vanator RPO is a dedicated offshore recruitment agency which has dedicated all these years in finding skilled candidates for top companies around the world.

Wrapping Up Words

With that we end up with our “best candidate sourcing guide in 2024” blog. We hope that this blog will help you in your recruiting endeavors. We produce content to showcase that we take up recruitment as a creative field and not as a sales project! Happy sourcing, do let us know if any of these tips helped you!