What you absolutely must know about sourcing in IT recruitment

Sourcing in IT is an essential part of the IT recruiting process. It helps you get a pool of candidates with the right skills and experience.

Sourcing in IT is a process that allows you to find the right candidates for your open positions.

Sourcing is simply "the act of actively looking" for candidates, and it can be done by both recruiters and hiring managers.

There are two kinds of sourcing: passive and active.

Passive sourcing is when you use tools like LinkedIn or job boards to find people who have already expressed interest in your company or its open positions.

Active sourcing requires you to go out and find candidates by networking at events, creating social media campaigns, and sending messages through platforms like LinkedIn or other professional websites.

Sourcing is often confused with social media recruiting and online advertising, but it's much more than that.

Sourcing involves locating candidates who are already working at other companies, rather than those seeking jobs. Sourcing strategies can include reaching out to employees through LinkedIn, and even cold-calling contacts at other companies.

However, sourcing can also involve using professional networks like alumni associations, professional associations, or trade groups to find potential candidates in your industry who might be interested in changing jobs.

Sourcing software helps recruiters find potential candidates by searching through a database of resumes, social media profiles, job listings, and more.

Some software automatically matches candidates with open positions, while others give recruiters more control over their search criteria and allow them to manually sort through hundreds of potential candidates. 

We use this “All-in-One” Sourcing Platform for Recruiters. It has Sourcing Automation Tool from LinkedIn and X-Ray. In addition, there is a multichannel Drip Messaging Sequence manager, LinkedIn Automation, and a profiles enrichment feature that get emails and phones. All this is embedded into an ATS/CRM system. The best news is that If you need just the ‘Sourcing Automation’ feature, you can use it for FREE. 

Researching for the ideal candidate using search engines.

When you are sourcing candidates for a job opening, the first thing that you need to do is research. This involves getting to know the role and requirements of the position, as well as researching the market and competitors of your business.

Once you have done this, you can start looking at potential candidates who may be interested in the position.

Search engines are a great way to find candidates with specific skills, but they're not always the most effective way to find the right person.

Searching for "Java developers" in Google will return a list of people who use Java, but it won't necessarily be clear if those people have the skill set you're looking for. Boolean search is an excellent way to refine your searches so that you can find exactly what you need.

Boolean logic is the use of words like AND, OR and NOT to refine your search results.

For example, if you want to find a Java developer who has worked on enterprise systems before, but is not senior, you could enter:

("java developer" OR "java engineer") AND (enterprise OR JavaEE) -senior

This would return all results that contain "Java developer", "java engineer", "enterprise" or "JavaEE" — but only those where the word "senior" is not present.

Social media

Social media is a great tool for finding candidates. You can find people who are interested in your company and get them to apply for jobs.

Social media platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter can also be used to find passive candidates that you might otherwise miss.

When using social media for sourcing, make sure you have an active presence on all the networks that matter most to your target audience.

Your company may not have time to maintain a presence on every single network out there, but keep in mind that the more networks you're present on, the more opportunities you'll have to connect with potential new hires and engage with existing ones.

If you find someone on social media who seems like a good fit, don't be afraid to reach out and start a conversation with them. Try asking questions about what they like about their current job and what they'd like to do next.

Direct search

Direct search, sometimes also known as headhunting, is a sourcing strategy that involves identifying and recruiting individuals who are currently employed by another company.

Direct search can be used for a number of roles and functions, including C-level executives, managers, and employees in the engineering, information technology fields, or others.

Direct search can be an effective source of talent for many companies because it allows recruiters to target potential candidates who already have experience within a specific industry.

This means that recruiters can focus on finding candidates who already have experience with the company's products or services.

But the direct search has its limitations — it is time-consuming, it's difficult to scale and it's hard to get in front of passive candidates. This is why you may consider partnering with an IT recruiting agency that can do a direct search for your company.

With the support of social media and direct research, it should not be hard to find what you are looking for.

When it comes to sourcing in IT recruiting, there are a lot of tools and resources available. With the support of social media and direct research, it should not be hard to find what you are looking for.

Conclusion:

Using the internet and social media channels you can find who you are looking for. If you want to save time you may partner with an IT recruiting agency like MindHunt.

Ready to save time and streamline your hiring process? Partner with our IT recruiting agency and let us handle the sourcing for you. Book a call with us today to get started!

About us:

IT recruitment agency MindHunt over 12 years helps software companies with up to 100 employees with small or no in-house recruitment team to source, select and place candidates for IT roles in Ukraine, Europe, and Asia.

Give us 5 days and start interviewing candidates which we sourced and screened according to your requirements.

If you want to use the power of the IT recruiting agency MindHunt, please book a free Recruiting Consultation today.