Is Your Candidate Sourcing Strategy Failing You in the UK? 5 Questions to Ask Yourself

In the UK, a country with an ever-increasing competitive job landscape, it can be difficult to source the right candidates. Companies invest a fortune in the strategy for candidate sourcing but still find it hard to engage the required talent. If your candidate sourcing strategy isn’t giving the desired results, it’s time to reassess and re-look at your strategy. Below are five essential questions to ask yourself regarding how to tell if your candidate sourcing strategy is failing you and what you can do to rectify the situation with effective candidate sourcing services and solutions.

1. Are You Reaching the Right Talent Pools?

One of the most typical reasons a candidate sourcing strategy fails is the lack of access to the right talent pools. The UK job market is vast, and not all candidates are available online through traditional job boards or career sites. Many talented professionals prefer niche platforms or form part of certain industry groups.

Action Steps

• Leverage Industry-Specific Job Boards: Utilize job boards that cater specifically to your industry. For example, if you are in the tech industry, platforms like Technojobs or CWJobs are excellent places to start.
• Access to Professional Networks: Platforms such as LinkedIn are useful in connecting with professionals who do not necessarily need a job but may be open to new opportunities. According to a report, 70% of the global workforce is comprised of passive talent who aren’t actively job searching.
• Talent Community Engagement: Be part and network with groups in industry-related forums, online communities, and social media groups where potential candidates are present.

This will diversify your approach and tap into these various talent pools, in turn increasing the probability of finding the right candidates that are best suited for your organization.

2. Do You Use Advanced Candidate Sourcing Services?

Relying on traditional ways alone to source your candidates could mean that you are losing out in the digital age. Advanced candidate sourcing services from trusted providers like QX Global come with smart tools like the ReCo360 and technologies that can help streamline and supercharge your sourcing effort.

Action Steps:

• AI-Powered Tools: Most candidate sourcing solutions today incorporate the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning to better identify and engage potential candidates. While screening CVs or assessing candidate success, AI can help, and it might even engage them through the use of chatbots.
• Automate the process of sourcing: Automation tools can perform repetitive tasks such as sending follow-up emails, scheduling interviews, and maintaining a database of candidates, among others, thus ensuring your HR team is focused on more strategic work.
• Invest in CRM (Candidate Relationship Management): An applicant tracking system that would help manage interactions with candidates, track the journey a candidate makes in the hiring pipeline, and be able to keep a talent pool ready for hiring in the future.

Such tools and services in the advanced stage could greatly enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of your candidate sourcing strategy.

3. Are You Providing a Positive Candidate Experience?

The candidate experience, put simply, is a very important part of the sourcing strategy. A poor one can easily turn a potential top talent off from going after an opportunity with your organization that he was interested in at the beginning.

Action Steps:

• Simplify Application Process: Do not make the application a long, drawn-out process. The ease of application is critical in ensuring candidates complete it and don’t abandon it halfway. A CareerBuilder study found that 60% of job seekers quit in the middle of filling out online job applications because of their length or complexity.
• Clearly and consistently communicate: Make the candidates aware of the various stages of the recruitment process. Their queries are answered in time, and they are updated continually on the status of their applications.
• Make interactions personalized: Make the candidates feel valued through personalized interactions. Use their name, refer to their specific skill sets and experiences, and show an interest in what they are looking to achieve with their career.

A positive candidate experience helps attract top talent and will eventually polish your employer brand to make your company more attractive to future candidates.

Read more: Outsmart the Competition: Advanced Hiring Tactics for UK Staffing Leaders 

4. Do you Measure and Analyze your Sourcing Efforts ?

It’s impossible to know what parts of your candidate sourcing strategy are working and which parts might need improvement without accurate measurement and analysis. Data insights can lead you to making smarter decisions in customizing or optimizing your strategy.

Action Steps:

• Key Metrics: Track the number of applicants, quality of hires, time-to-fill, cost-per-hire, and drop-off rates. Key to these metrics is that they give a sign of what’s going on in terms of the effectiveness of the effort you’re putting into sourcing. For instance, according to the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), the average time-to-fill for a position is 42 days.
• Conduct Regular Reviews: Review and analyze the data regularly to identify ongoing trends, patterns, or areas of improvement. This can help you alter your strategy in real time without having to wait too long in case something goes out of kilter. 
• Feedback: Ask the candidates and hiring managers about their experiences to get insights and identify ways to improve your sourcing process. By continuously measuring and analyzing your efforts, you can ensure that your candidate sourcing strategy remains effective and aligned with your organizational goals.

5. Are You Leveraging Employer Branding?

A strong employer brand can go a long way toward boosting your candidate sourcing efforts. In today’s job market, individuals are seeking not just a good job but a great place to work. In this way, your employer brand is potentially the most powerful magnet you have in attracting top talent.

Action Steps 

• Showcase Your Company Culture: Use your website, social media, and job postings to highlight what makes your company a great place to work. Share stories, employee testimonials, and behind-the-scenes content to give candidates a glimpse into your workplace culture. According to Glassdoor, 69% of job seekers are likely to apply to a job if the employer actively manages its brand.
• Values and Mission Promotion: Clearly communicate what you and your company are about. Applicants tend to be more attracted to those organizations and professional values they identify with or aspire to. 
• Engage in Employer Branding: Engage in any kind of employer branding exercise, including job fairs, webinars, and collaboration with institutions. The initiative will allow you to connect with possible candidates, thereby increasing the brand visibility of your company. Create a compelling image that attracts only the best candidates by building and maintaining a robust employer brand. 

Bespoke candidate sourcing services to meet niche & high-volume demands across industries.

Conclusion

Adapting and refining your candidate-sourcing strategy in the UK’s current job market is very important. A few critical questions that you can use to help refine and adapt in your candidate-sourcing service and solutions are provided below. Remember, the crux of success in candidate sourcing lies in identifying the right talent pools, using advanced tools, ensuring positive candidate experiences, measuring your efforts, and having a leveraged employer brand. You can, therefore, develop a good, efficient candidate-sourcing strategy for your company to fulfill your needs and ensure you get the best available talent.

Originally published Aug 02, 2024 10:08:09, updated Aug 01 2024

Topics: Candidate Sourcing, Recruitment Strategy, Talent Acquisition