Speaker 1: Indeed, ZipRecruiter, and even Dice. We're going to move on to the next step and review some general strategies on how to effectively utilize those platforms, how to engage talent, and create a reliable list of candidates you can continue to use and update as necessary. Hey, and welcome back. My name is Preston. I'm a professional recruiter in the technology industry. In some of my most recent videos, I've covered and broken down some of the top platforms for sourcing talent and connecting with candidates, including sites like Indeed, ZipRecruiter, and even Dice. In those videos, I gave a broad technical overview of each platform, their features, pricing, and the process of posting a job on each one. But if you'd like to know more about the different online hiring platforms out there and what they have to offer, I recommend you go back and check those videos out as well. In this video, we're going to move on to the next step and review some general strategies on how to effectively utilize those platforms, how to engage talent, and create a reliable list of candidates you can continue to use and update as necessary. But before we get started, as always, please consider supporting a fellow recruiter. Give us a like, subscribe, click that bell. It really means a lot. Sourcing vs. Recruiting. Before we actually dive into the list of best recruitment strategies, we should take a moment to define the difference between recruiting and sourcing. While these two phrases are often used interchangeably, there is technically a difference between them. I've discussed the differences between sourcing and recruiting in some of my past videos, but it's been a little while since we've covered the subject, and it bears repeating for today's video. You see, recruiting is a term for the entire hiring process as a whole, while sourcing refers to one of the early stages of the recruiting process, locating, collecting, and contacting potential candidates that are experienced and qualified for the job you're hiring for. Once you're done sourcing, you still have the rest of the hiring process to go through, including interviewing, onboarding, etc. Sourcing is one of the most important parts of the hiring process. Obviously, without any candidates, there's nobody to hire. While independent recruiters and agencies will help with the entire recruitment process, including sourcing, some larger organizations will have entire teams of people dedicated to sourcing candidates and creating a talent pipeline. Individual recruiters and smaller firms take on sourcing themselves, in addition to assisting with the later recruitment stages. However, bigger firms and large organizations may have entire teams dedicated to sourcing candidates to create a talent pipeline as well. Many of the tips we'll discuss today concern sourcing because it's one of the most complex and potentially difficult parts of recruiting process. However, some tips also involve the later stages of the process after you've narrowed down your talent pool into a talent pipeline. With that in mind, let's explore what those are before we go any further. Talent pool versus pipeline. As a recruiter, talent pool and pipeline are such familiar phrases to me at this point that using them is honestly second nature. To many, the phrases may seem self-explanatory, but there's an important distinction to make when comparing these two terms. You can think of a talent pool and talent pipeline as two different stages of the sourcing process. The early stages of the recruitment process are a numbers game. The more raw talent you have to draw from, the easier it will be to narrow down a short list of diverse qualified candidates. You shouldn't spend too much time researching candidates initially, just find as many as possible that fit the criteria. But with this in mind, talent pool is a broad term that refers to unvetted and potentially unqualified candidates that you have located via a variety of sources. When you locate a potential candidate, you should immediately move them to your talent pool, regardless of their experiences or qualifications. On the other hand, 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. A talent pipeline is created by doing research on the candidates in your talent pool and moving the truly qualified ones over for further interview process engagements. Talent pipelines can be temporarily created to fill a specific job, but companies with constant hiring needs will need to maintain their pipeline via candidate engagements in order to draw from it when necessary. Some organizations will require multiple talent pipelines to fill different types of roles when necessary as well. Recruiting strategies. So with those important definitions and distinctions out of the way, we can now move on to exploring some effective recruitment strategies. Keep in mind that as a tech recruiter myself, these tips will be from that perspective. If you're hiring directly without the help of an independent recruiter, you may still find some of these tips useful, but obviously I urge you to reach out to a recruiter like me if you want to be a hundred percent effective during the hiring process. Communicate and align with the hiring manager. If you're an independent third party recruiter who has been hired by a company to help with the hiring process, it may be tempting, especially for new recruiters to jump right into the sourcing process and start locating or identifying candidates. But veteran recruiters know that it's really important to open and maintain an active line of communication with the hiring manager directly or whoever you're working with from within the company in order to really make sure that you align your visions. It's a really good idea to plan an extensive preliminary call to clarify hiring goals and come to an agreement on what the ideal candidate will look like. What experience and qualifications are essential? What would be nice to have but aren't necessary? This information will help prepare you for research necessary when running an effective talent search. Research, job, keywords, title, and description. Now it's time to do some research on the position itself, keeping in mind the ideal candidate profile you've created. We've already talked a lot about how to do research before making a job post, so I won't spend too much time on it here. It's worth reviewing briefly, especially in the context of the greater recruiting process. This is another important step to involve the hiring manager in, if possible. You want to make sure you have them determine the specifics of a particular role so you can honestly compare it to the same or similar roles in competing companies. Search for similar job ads and note the title, description, and keywords within. Decide which ones are relevant to your position and be sure to keep those in mind for effective search engine optimization SEO. Start with your ATS. If you've been a recruiter for a decent amount of time, there's a good chance you already have a talent pool or even a pipeline created already that you can draw from. You want to go back to your previous clients and your searches to see if there are any relevant candidates you can reach out to in order to start your search. Re-engaging past candidates is one of the most effective ways of filling a talent pipeline, but it is rarely done. If you don't continue to engage with candidates even after you fill the job, they will likely be uninterested in working with you in the future. Don't let candidate relationships fall by the wayside, because getting them back will be hard enough as is. You want to make sure to communicate with potential candidates throughout the entire process to show them you're dedicated to keeping them engaged. You want to provide them with feedback and follow up with them even if they don't get the job. If you're a recruiter just starting out, you're in a great position to start building strong, long-lasting relationships with every candidate you reach out to. Be sure to track them and their feedback in your ATS of choice for future hiring needs. Treat candidates like customers. One misconception that ineffective recruiters have is that they're in a higher position than the candidate. On the contrary, the candidate is the reason you have a job. Without them, you couldn't be an independent recruiter or a recruiter at all. So it's important to treat them with the utmost respect that they deserve. It's similar to how a good retail store treats their customers or any businesses treat their customers or users. The customers have the power to choose what store business they want to go to or work with, so you have to make sure the experience is as nice as possible to them so they come back. You want a member to maintain a friendly disposition with all of your candidates and show excitement for each individual and the unique talents that they can bring to your client. Respond quickly and provide them with feedback and updates so they can keep track of where they are in the hiring process. Expand and diversify your sources. The most common places to source talent online such as Indeed or LinkedIn are certainly great. They cater to virtually every industry manageable and provide time-saving solutions for both general and specialized job postings. That said, you should also consider casting a wider net and including some niche sources in your search, especially if you're hiring for a highly specialized job. It might seem like a waste of time to search on low traffic websites, but the truth is candidates are often more responsive on them because they're less spam. They'll know you took the time to search them out on a specialized platform, which certainly says something. You also want to do some research on where your ideal candidates spend their time. You don't want to search for engineers on a website about ice cream, for example. Consider asking existing team members about where they spend their time online. They may have input on where you can search for candidates effectively. Source for future roles. The best candidates aren't available for very long and you never know when a job vacancy might appear. Most candidate sourcing is reactive, meaning the search for a new employee begins after the position has been vacated. This is okay and fine for some roles, but the best recruiters and hiring managers are always thinking a few steps ahead. You don't want to find yourself in a position where you're desperate to fill an important role, but you have to start from scratch. By keeping your business growth plans in mind and developing a talent pipeline long before you'll need to fill roles, you can quickly do so without having an effect on your bottom line. Build a brand. Brand outreach is one of the most important parts of establishing yourself in any industry. Hiring companies and recruiting agencies must do the same thing as well, but such a niche role or service isn't always easy to publicize to a mass audience. So many organizations don't bother with promoting a strong internal brand. This makes it so much harder to entice potential employees to become interested in working for you. Conversely, companies with a strong brand can draw candidates from a wide variety of sources thanks to their reputation. Here are some simple ways that you can improve your brand as a hiring organization or even a recruiting firm. Respond to reviews on websites like Indeed or Glassdoor. Utilize storytelling in all aspects of promotion. Utilize marketing department to spruce up your brand. Trial and error. Attracting candidates and creating and nurturing talent pipelines is never easy, and the process is different for every company, no matter how similar. It's important to experiment to see what works for you. Keep in mind performance indicators and your overall goal in order to not stray too far, but don't be afraid to go out of your comfort zone and try different ways of improving your recruitment strategies. As long as you can keep the previous tips in mind, it's hard to go wrong by trying something new. I know this only just scratches the surface and everyone has their own tips, tricks, and techniques when it comes to sourcing and recruiting candidates. I'd love to hear about yours. Make sure you leave a comment down below. If you liked this video and want to see more like it, feel free to give us a like, subscribe, click that bell. It really helps out a fellow recruiter. Feel free to also follow me at Preston in the Square Park, as I try my best to also post behind the scenes content daily. Thank you so much again, and we'll see you on the next one.