7 recruitment sourcing strategies that will help you find the best talent

Take a look at any recruiting team, and you’ll find that they’re likely spending a lot of time revisiting and refining their processes. Why? It’s simple.

For a lot of industries, the hiring landscape is more competitive than ever. If they want to get access to top talent, companies and organizations need to make sure that they’re doing everything they can to make their process efficient and effective, without impacting the candidate experience.

The first step to finding the right candidates is understanding where to find them, and a recruiting sourcing strategy can help you narrow in on the right channels. Not only can this streamline your processes, it also vastly reduces your time to hire — which is priceless in the current talent market.

For this article we’ve gathered seven recruitment sourcing strategies that will guide you in finding the top talent in your industry. But first, let’s go over some definitions.

What are recruitment sourcing strategies?

Recruitment sourcing strategies — also known as candidate sourcing strategies — are the methods recruiting teams use to identify and engage with qualified candidates for current and future roles. These strategies tend to be proactive in nature, and are key for building a reliable talent pipeline. Ultimately, candidate sourcing strategies are best leveraged by teams that take a forward thinking approach, taking the organization’s broader goals into account.

While recruiting teams will typically use a variety of recruitment sourcing strategies, it’s important to understand which is best for each hiring initiative. This is often determined by the type of candidate the team is trying to hire, as well as the sourcing channels they have available to them.

Why are recruitment sourcing strategies important?

There are a number of benefits to building, adopting, and continuously iterating recruitment sourcing strategies.For starters, these methods can help increase an organization’s access to high-quality candidates, while also allowing them to be more targeted in their recruitment efforts. In fact, 62% of recruiters find more high-quality candidates through sourcing strategies compared to inbound applications.

This means that recruiters can be more effective when attempting to find the right candidate for a given role. On the flip side, relying on just one channel is risky and a post-and-pray strategy doesn't help you figure out what works.

Having a well-defined approach for recruitment sourcing can help increase efficiency, reduce time to fill, promote higher retention rates, and also improve the overall candidate experience. For teams in highly competitive industries, being able to perform well against these metrics can make all the difference when it comes to attracting (and hiring) the best candidates. At the end of the day, hiring top talent can positively impact how an organization performs and delivers on its promises to customers and stakeholders.

At Withe, we're helping recruiting teams add to their recruitment sourcing strategies with our hiring event platform.

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7 effective sourcing strategies for recruiters to find the best talent

The candidate sourcing strategies you choose for your team will depend on a number of factors, including the demographics you’re targeting, the social channels your candidates typically use, and the types of professional networks they engage with. That said, there are some best practices that apply across the board. To build a robust recruiting sourcing strategy, recruiters should:

• Have a deep understanding of role requirements
• Take a diversified approach that covers as many bases as possible
• Be agile and engage with new interested candidates quickly
• Build a strong employer brand
• Use consistent messaging and specific language for candidate sourcing

Keeping these elements in mind, here are seven strategies you should consider for your team.

1. Re-engage with past candidates

The truth of recruiting is that not all candidates that apply for a role are going to get the offer — and that often means that you’ll have a handful of candidates that get far along enough in the process to warrant a second look when a new role opens. Re-engaging with declined candidates should be one of the first resources in your recruiting sourcing strategy as these are individuals that have already expressed an interest in working for your company.

Getting this right requires having a clear process in place for flagging when a candidate is a fit for the company, but not for the specific role they applied for. Asking rejected candidates if they’d be open to being contacted for other roles will also be useful. Taking these steps will give you a bank of potential candidates you can engage with quickly.

Plus, your team should also have a process for identifying why a candidate doesn’t get hired. Were they not a good fit for the role? Did they just fall short against the candidate that did get the offer? Were they lacking development in a certain area? Having this insight will help your recruiters determine whether to check back in with an individual you’ve talked with in the past.

2. Look within your existing workforce

Don’t forget: recruiting doesn’t just happen externally. There may be people within your organization that are looking for a new challenge or have transferable skills that could be applied to an upcoming role. Use these job opportunities to keep your best employees engaged and motivated. Share the roles in internal forums and communication channels, or reach out to managers and team leads that may have intel on high-performing employees that could be a fit. Not only will this help drive performance across teams, it will also put less pressure on your recruiting team when it comes time to fill the role.

3. Build a referral program

Even if your workforce doesn’t have enough candidates for your open roles, they may know other people who are a good fit. You can leverage this knowledge by creating a referral program that incentivizes employees to connect your recruiters with top talent in their network.

With a referral program, you can have current employees refer their friends and peers even when there isn’t a role available. This is especially effective if you include a referral bonus or perk in your program, so the employee benefits if their recommended candidate is ever hired.

4. Leverage your social channels to promote roles and scout talent

When it comes to sourcing top talent, recruiters need to be able reach their candidates where they are. People are spending more time on their mobile devices and social media channels than ever, and recruiters should leverage these trends as much as possible to attract the attention of their prime candidates.

As a sourcing mechanism, social media (primarily LinkedIn, but also the likes of Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok — depending on your industry) can be a great tool for establishing a compelling and attractive employer brand. Plus, recruiters can use these channels to communicate with prospective candidates, answering questions or sharing a recent job posting directly.

5. Partner with a reliable recruiting firm in your industry

Another useful candidate sourcing strategy is to partner with a recruiting firm that caters specifically to your industry. Given that recruiting agencies are entirely focused on hiring for their customers, they’ll have the best sense of how the talent market is performing and how best to attract top talent. Plus, they’ll also likely have their own pool of candidates that are ready to be placed or relocated.

This can be a great supplementary tactic to your existing efforts, or a strategy you can turn to when your own initiatives aren’t generating much interest.

6. Post jobs on popular job board sites

Job boards have long been a useful tool for candidate sourcing, and they continue to be a practical strategy for generating interest and applications. Each job posting is an opportunity to show your employer brand’s personality, share details about the company, and be transparent about what candidates can expect of the role. That said, this is a popular tactic that all organizations use, so it can be hard to be competitive in these spaces if you’re not also investing in other sourcing strategies.

7. Host and attend industry events

Collectively, your company’s leaders and employees have a large network within your industry. Consider working with other departments in your organization to host corporate events that bring in potential candidates. You can also attend industry events where you can speak and engage with top talent. Bonus: if the industry event is a conference and your company is able to send a speaker or panelist, this will increase your brand’s exposure to potential employees.

Hiring events are another great way to invite candidates into the fold and get them actively interested in your roles. Withe makes it simple for hiring teams to host hiring events — virtually, in person, or hybrid. Book a demo to chat with our team on how you can host your first event!

Take a continuous approach to recruiting sourcing

We’ve already talked about how recruiting needs to be proactive — and how recruiting sourcing strategies help with that — but it’s important to note that it should also be continuous. You’re always going to need new talent, especially if your organization is scaling or you’re in an industry that has significant turnover. As such, there’s a lot of value in continually building your talent pool and engaging with candidates that could one day work for your organization.

To be truly successful with your candidate sourcing strategy, you’ll need to review and refine its effectiveness on a regular basis, too. Candidate needs and ways of communicating are always evolving, and your strategy should reflect those shifts as needed.

At Withe, we’re helping recruiting teams add to their recruitment sourcing strategies with our hiring event software. Learn more about it on our homepage.