Speaker 1: Hey and welcome back. Today's discussion is about one of the fundamental skills in recruiting, perhaps the most important one of all, sourcing candidates. Recently, we've talked a lot about the effects of the pandemic on the recruiting industry and indeed the greater job economy as a whole. But between the massive job losses at the beginning of 2020 to the so-called great resignation that is still occurring now, we've still seen shakeups across a number of different subsections of the staffing and recruitment sphere. At the moment, jobs are being created, but many companies are struggling to keep employees and fill open roles. It's a great time to be a recruiter actually because we're in significant demand. But the recruiting industry, especially in the technology industry, has also become especially competitive as companies fight for the same qualified candidates. That's why having an effective sourcing strategy and developing a steady pipeline of candidates to interview when hiring for a particular role is especially important. Luckily, technology has made it easier than ever for recruiters to locate and track potential candidates. I've already discussed a few times the various platforms technical recruiters can use to find candidates. If you're interested in where to look, I recommend going back to watch my videos on best places to source tech talent. But in this video, we're going to review some of the sourcing strategies for technical recruiters. How to really engage talent and create a reliable list of candidates you can continue to use and update as necessary. These skills will be especially valuable for technical roles, but certainly all recruiters will find some value here. But before we get started, as always, remember to like, subscribe, click that bell. Completely free means a lot. Sourcing versus recruiting. What's the difference? So you might be wondering, aren't sourcing and recruiting the same thing? Well, yes and no. I've covered this topic in depth before on sourcing versus recruiting, but it bears a brief review before we move into discussing the importance of a talent pipeline and how to source candidates for one. Sourcing and recruiting are often used interchangeably. This isn't necessarily incorrect, but sourcing typically refers to the early stages of the recruitment process when you're locating, identifying, and engaging qualified candidates to interview and present to your client or hiring manager. Recruiting, on the other hand, is usually refers to the later stages of the process, such as interviewing and onboarding, but depending on the size and age of the companies, even founders, many use sourcing and recruiting interchangeably. Individual recruiters and smaller recruiting firms or agencies take on sourcing themselves in addition to assisting with the later recruitment stages. However, bigger recruitment firms or agencies and large organizations may have entire teams dedicated to sourcing candidates to create a talent pipeline with other teams dedicated on just recruiting and coordinating. What is a talent pipeline? You've probably heard me use the term talent pipeline plenty of times before, but it occurs to me that I've actually never properly defined the phrase. This seems like the best time to do that right now. Talent pipeline may seem self-explanatory, but there's an important distinction to make when defining it. A talent pipeline is a list of vetted, qualified candidates that are actively looking for a job and may even have an interest in a specific role itself, who have been submitted for open roles to be considered. This is different from a talent pool, which is a much broader term that refers to unvetted and potentially unqualified candidates that you have located via a variety of sources, be it submitted resumes or online job boards, among others. With those important definitions and distinctions out of the way, we can now move on to exploring some strategies for sourcing candidates. How do you actually locate and engage them? And most importantly, how to see if they're ready to be moved from the talent pool into the talent pipeline. Effective sourcing strategies for technical recruiters. So let's start at the beginning. Before you start reaching out to potential candidates, you need to know exactly who you're looking for. Research. Define what you're looking for. Like with most things in life, not having a plan in place is an ineffective way of beginning the sourcing process. Before you even start to consider any candidates, you have to know who the ideal persona for the ideal candidate would be, and what that would look like. I've talked plenty about the importance of researching an effective client intake call, understanding job requirements and qualifications, and really the best questions to ask. So I won't spend too much time on it here. But remember to work with your client or hiring manager to clearly and explicitly define every aspect of the job. So you can begin to form a picture of what the ideal candidate looks like. In particular, their backgrounds and experience will help you narrow down research as you look for candidates. You want to create a persona. After completing your research, you may find it helpful to create a target persona that represents your ideal candidates for the role. Think about defining characteristics, the skills they bring to the table, the tools that they're utilizing, as well as their educational history, years of experience, past experiences, titles, and even salary expectations. Try to get as specific as necessary in order to cover every aspect of the role. However, it's important to keep in mind that a persona represents an ideal version of the candidate. You're not actually looking for exact match unless you find them. That'd be amazing. Consider other job titles and utilize Boolean strings. It's an unfortunately frustrating truth that many organizations have wildly different names for identical roles. It's important to keep this in mind. There might be plenty of potential candidates you're missing because you aren't considering alternative job titles. One way to remedy this issue is to utilize Boolean strings. These are special modifiers you can incorporate into your searches to get more specific results. The wild card or asterisk modifier tells a search engine to include variants and synonyms of a keyword or phrase, which can be helpful in locating alternate job titles. For more about Boolean strings, I suggest checking out my previous video on how to use Boolean strings for sourcing candidates. Start your search internally. When beginning your talent search, it's important to remember that both you and your client company likely already have a database of potential candidates already built up from previous searches. Instead of going right to the internet and other platforms to find new candidates, remember to check your applicant tracking system, otherwise known as ATS. Or any candidate relationship management platform or CRM is honestly a great initial source of candidates who may still be actively searching or interested in a role. Remember, profiles can be outdated. For recruiters, one of the most beneficial aspects of technology and internet is the ability to look up candidates on various social media platforms and job boards in order to analyze their profiles and check their history and qualifications. However, once a candidate has found a role, they are less likely to update their job with later profiles, and they can quickly become outdated. Similarly, some social media users don't keep their profiles up to date and may even stop actively using the platform. It's really important to keep this in mind and not take this information at face value. Consider as many candidates as possible. So if you have the luxury of time, it's important to use it to your advantage. While you may be tempted to rush through the first 10 to 20 candidates you source, and unfortunately this may be necessary in some cases, remember that the perfect candidate could be just around the corner. Take your time to analyze as many candidates as possible and match them up to as many relevant qualifications as you can. In most cases though, quality is always better than quantity, and you can only bring quality by taking your time and considering all of your options. Look in the right place. Indeed, Dice, GitHub, LinkedIn, etc. are wonderful resources for recruiters and job hunters alike, but they also cater to a more general audience. When looking for qualified candidates for specialized roles, such as I do as a technical recruiter, you need to narrow your search to places you'll find the best talent. You aren't likely to find a good software engineer on a forum about choosemaking, so consider where you're looking and it's actual relevance to the actual skills you're looking for. Keep candidates engaged. While like many sales-oriented roles, much of the recruiting is a numbers game, you won't get many great results by simply reaching out only once to a large number of candidates. By developing an engagement and outreach strategy and keeping candidates in the loop, you build and strengthen relationships and develop a stronger overall pool of talent. Keep in constant communication with your candidates and be sure to reach out with follow-ups and feedback in case you decide to reach out to them again, even if they don't get the job you're feeling now. Don't forget offline methods. I talk mostly about the use of technology and the internet for recruiting. Especially with the pandemic, this has become one of the most effective ways of sourcing candidates. However, remember that there are plenty of offline methods of sourcing candidates as well. Consider attending conferences and conventions, such as job fairs or even career meetups, and even consider hosting your own events. Not only is it a great way of sourcing candidates, but you'll make and foster some great connections too. Consider your client's image. This strategy can be difficult to implement unless you have a bit of time and a close relationship with your client, but it's also one of the most effective ways of attracting qualified talent, so it's absolutely worth mentioning. Put simply, candidates don't want to work for companies with a poor reputation or weak public image. Work with your client to refresh their engagement strategies and ensure they have a great reputation. This can be done effectively with outreach and publicity campaigns and rebranding. Consider implementing plans that make your company look desirable to work for. You can use these strategies at any point during the sourcing process. Implement them strategically to ensure that you're locating only the best talent for the role. Once you have a slightly more curated talent pool, you can then begin to review them in in-depth to form a talent pipeline that you can then eventually send and submit to your client. Do you have any effective sourcing strategies that I didn't cover in this video? I'd love to hear from you. Comment down below. If you liked this video and want to see more like it, please consider like, subscribe, click that bell. It's completely free and means a lot. Please feel free to also follow me at as I try my best to also post daily. Thanks again and we'll see you on the next one.