Being adept at sourcing top tier talent requires very specific knowledge, a lot of experience and accomplished sourcing skills - which is often different than what would be required for a more traditional, or straight up 'recruiting.'

Historically, the main focus of a recruiter included following a well definied process when searching for candidates. Recruiters consult internally with the line managers, define job descriptions, select candidates, lead interviews, manage offers and finally on-board new hires. This means recruiters should be highly skilled in communications, consulting and selection.

In today's online world, especially if you're an HR Professional in a small to medium sized enterprise, your skill set needs to extend beyond those required to 'recruit' candidates even only 5 years ago. To be successful, you need to have a detailed understanding of social networks, web 2.0, newsgroups, blogs and HR software, in addition to also having knowledge about how to successfully navigate and search these channels. To be successful at sourcing top tier talent, today's marketplace requires you to be highly adaptive, flexible and to know how to effectively communicate with each unique target group across multiple channels.

When looking at potential candidates from the viewpoint of actively sourcing, as opposed to just vanilla recruitment, HR Professionals will also need to have the following distinctive qualities:

  • You will need to be persistent and patient.
  • You need to be precise and consistently apply effective methodologies in a highly organised manner.
  • The ability to work within a team is also crucial for the sharing of information.
  • It is also very important that you stay informed on the newest sourcing techniques and technologies.

The winning formulae for sourcing talent is a combination of using three main channels in a combination that uniquely matches your organisational fingerprint. No two organisations are the same, therefore it makes sense to tailor your sourcing strategy to match your requirements. With such a wide variety of potential sources available, it is wise for HR Professionals to create a mix of using Jobs Boards, agencies and passive candidate pools (like those available through social media), to create a formulae that is tailored to work for you and your organisation.

Discover the benefits of creating your own formulae for sourcing talent in this week's InfoGraphic, which you can download below.

Source: Click Here to Access the infoGraphic

Request a Demo