Talent Sourcing | The Best Strategy for Sourcing Candidates

What is Talent Sourcing | Process, Strategy & Services

Talent sourcing is the process of identifying and attracting potential talent or qualified candidates to apply for open positions at the hiring organization. Talent sourcers are responsible for establishing the initial contact with potential candidates and encouraging them to convert into job applicants.

A talent sourcing specialist will not only source candidates actively looking for jobs across various job boards or other digital platforms but also reach out to a talent pool of passive candidates who may not be looking for a job change. Connecting with passive candidates is a highly effective talent sourcing strategy that helps build a talent pipeline for sourcing candidates in the long run.

Talent sourcing services have become highly specialized, streamlined, and well-defined as the entire talent acquisition process has undergone a massive change. Increased competition, labor shortage, and skills shortage have made sourcing candidates extremely challenging for a recruiter. Hence, specialist talent sourcers need to optimize the recruitment process, identify the best talent, build a talent pipeline, and convert potential candidates into actual job applicants.

Stages of Talent Sourcing

The talent sourcing process varies between organizations to suit their recruitment requirements. However, the basic steps involved in any talent sourcing process include

Planning – Identifying the areas where they are most likely to find suitable candidates according to the client’s role and qualification requirements.

Sourcing– Approaching potential candidates and effectively communicating with active and passive candidates is essential in the candidate sourcing process.

Evaluation – After identifying a potential talent pool, sourcing specialists evaluate and assess them to identify those who are most suited for the role having the desired qualifications and skills.

Hiring– The next step in the candidate sourcing process is screening, interviewing, and hiring the best-fit candidates. This is often carried out by a separate team of recruiters who are responsible for managing the relationship with job applicants going forth and guiding them through the negotiation, offer acceptance, compliance, and onboarding stages of the recruitment process.

Role and Responsibility of a Talent Sourcer

1. The primary responsibility of a talent sourcing specialist is to engage with potentially qualified job applicants.
2. They also perform the critical function of building a talent pipeline of passive candidates.
3. They must assess an organization’s talent requirement and identify the qualifications and skills to look for while hiring.
4. A significant component of the talent acquisition strategy is to create an employer brand awareness amongst potential candidates and drive talent towards the organization.
5. A talent sourcer is supposed to make the initial contact and communicate with a prospective candidate.
6. Candidate sourcing specialists are responsible for removing bias from the selection process and searching job boards and industry-related networks.

Difference between Talent Sourcing and Recruiting

Candidate sourcing and recruiting are overlapping terms often used interchangeably. But wait, there is a difference!

Sourcing is the proactive approach to searching for qualified candidates, whereas recruiting is the reactive process of screening and reviewing interested job applicants to help them come on board. Candidate sourcing specialists mine a large pool of data to identify qualified talent, engaging and encouraging them to convert into job applicants. On the other hand, recruiters review and screen applications of interested job applicants to further initiate the hiring process. Candidate recruiting services typically begin after strategic talent sourcing.

Learn more: Sourcing v/s Recruitment- There is a Difference!

Talent Sourcing Methods

Some of the most popular talent sourcing methods used by sourcing specialists are:

• Job Fairs
• Social Media
• Referrals
• Job Boards
• ATS Networking Sites
• AI Technology
• Digital Channels
• Passive Candidate Database

Top Talent Sourcing Tools

Plenty of candidate sourcing tools are available for recruiters, broadly classified into four distinct categories –

1. CRM and Software – Beamery, Avature
2. Browser Extensions – Archively, Connectifier
3. Search Engines – Gild, Entelo, Sourcing.io, Talentbin
4. Communities and Marketplaces -Recruitify, Hired, LinkedIn, Gild

Best Talent Sourcing Companies

QX Global Group is a leading talent sourcing company that offers specialist offshore candidate sourcing services to staffing and recruitment agencies. Our talent sourcing services help you build a talent pipeline for current job openings or future references making your recruitment process more effective.

Recruiters at QX also provide end-to-end full-cycle recruitment services for your clients. We provide customized talent sourcing solutions for challenging industries such as healthcare, IT, engineering, manufacturing, light industries, and MSP-VMS agencies.

Aanchal Jain

Originally published Apr 08, 2022 02:04:46, updated Feb 05 2024

Topics: Candidate Sourcing, Recruiting, Talent Management, Talent Sourcing