Candidate Sourcing

What Is Candidate Sourcing?

Candidate sourcing is the proactive HR process of searching for, identifying, and engaging qualified individuals to fill current or future job vacancies. Unlike traditional recruitment, which relies on waiting for applicants to respond to advertised openings, sourcing actively seeks out top talent across multiple channels, building strong talent pipelines before a position even opens.

How Does the Candidate Sourcing Process Work?

Having a clear process for candidate sourcing will help your talent acquisition team consistently bring in high-quality candidates. The process includes:

• Role requirements – Work with your hiring managers to determine what key attributes/criteria you’re looking for.
• Where to find them – Recruiters will look for the best places to find your target candidates. This could include niche job boards, professional networks or referrals.
• Search – Recruiters will search for candidates using complex search strings to ensure they have found candidates that best match the perfect candidate persona.
• First contact – Sourcing experts will then get in contact with these candidates using personalised messages.
• Build a talent pool – If the candidate shows potential but isn’t ready to make the move, they will go into your talent pool.

Common Candidate Sourcing Methods

Many organisations use various methods to find skilled professionals.

• Social Media – Find candidates on professional sites such as LinkedIn, GitHub and digital communities.
• Referrals – Ask your employees to refer someone they trust.
• Reactivating candidates – Get in touch with silver medal candidates from previous recruitment campaigns as they will already know your brand.
• Trade shows – Interact with potential talent at trade shows, conferences and career fairs.

Internal vs External Candidate Sourcing

Sourcing strategies typically balance two primary talent channels:

Active vs Passive Candidates in Sourcing

There are 2 types of candidates when focusing on candidate sourcing.

• Active candidates – These are professionals looking for work. They will be actively looking at job boards and applying. They can be very available however may be interviewing with multiple employers.
• Passive candidates – These are high performing professionals that are currently working. It can be harder to source these candidates as you will need to build relationships and show them how you can add value.

Candidate Sourcing vs Recruitment

Often these 2 terms are used interchangeably. However they are very different processes.

• Candidate Sourcing – This is the first stage in the process. It focuses on researching and finding candidates. You will also make initial contact.
• Recruitment – This is the whole process. Candidate sourcing is part of this process and will include screening, interviewing, negotiating salaries, making offers and onboarding.

Role of Technology in Candidate Sourcing

Candidate sourcing now uses lots of innovative technology to make the process more efficient.

• Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) – This provides a centralised database of talent. You can easily search through previous candidates.
• Artificial Intelligence (AI) & Machine Learning – This can search for matching profiles, predict if they will be a good fit and improve boolean searches.
• Automated Contact Tools – This can send out personalised emails on a schedule. It will also track engagement.
• Data – This will track key metrics from your candidate sourcing. This could include source of hire, response rate and conversion rate. This will help improve your talent acquisition strategy.

Improve candidate sourcing, build talent pipelines, and identify suitable candidates faster with PeopleStrong Recruitment Software.