Title Tag: 5 Candidate Sourcing Best Practices To Help Your Organization Thrive
Meta Description: Candidate sourcing can be a challenge for organizations. From the basics of tracking metrics to using automation, here’s how to improve recruiter efficiency.
Hiring employees at scale can be a logistical nightmare. Hiring for 20 positions can lead to looking through thousands of job applications and hundreds of interviews. Organizations want to source the best candidates, but there is so much information to wade through. While searching for diamonds in the rough, you have to make sure that the diamonds stay engaged. This is where improving efficiency and curving dropoffs matters most for employers.
What Are Dropoffs in Candidate Sourcing?
If you are new to recruiting, you may be wondering what a dropoff is. Let’s use an analogy to understand this concept:
Think about the job search as a funnel. As candidates look at job listings, fill out applications and chat with recruiters, fewer people participate. Each exit from your candidate sourcing process is considered a dropoff.
You might start the candidate sourcing process with 1,000 views on a job listing, but you have 500 job applications and 100 first interviews scheduled by the end. Some dropoff is normal, but organizations want to limit this so you have a better chance of finding amazing candidates to fill your roster.
Why Candidate Sourcing Efficiency Matters to Companies
Candidate sourcing is not cheap. A great recruiter can cost a company thousands of dollars per month, and they are well worth their price tag.
As a company, you should be doing all that you can to maximize recruiter effectiveness. When you have a stellar recruiting process in place, you can grow your team without having to settle for less than stellar candidates or wasting hours of recruiter time.
Candidate sourcing efficiency should be a top priority for all managers in your organization. Lower talent acquisition costs can help your company’s bottom line and team roster.
5 Candidate Sourcing Best Practices
Now that we have a clearer picture of dropoffs and efficiency let’s talk about some candidate sourcing best practices that will help your organization grow.
1) Track All Your Candidate Sourcing Metrics
First and foremost, you’ll want to track all candidate sourcing metrics, so you know where your baselines are and where you want them to be. Data analytics is an essential part of candidate sourcing best practices. You’ll need someone on your team who understands these numbers and how to improve them.
Here are a few metrics you might want to track:
- Time to fill/hire
- Turnover rates (especially early turnover rates)
- Cost per hire
- Offer acceptance rates
- Dropoff rates between each step of your hiring process
Once you begin tracking these key metrics, it will be easier to see where you can improve efficiency and lower the amount of dropoff you see between each step of your hiring process.
2) Set Clear Expectations in Job Descriptions
Writing a stellar job description is one of the most important steps to curving dropoffs. For many companies, a job description is the first impression you will make with a candidate. Potential employees might not know much about your organization, but the job description gives them a brief understanding of what you do and what you are looking for.
If companies aren’t clear, job descriptions can come off as biased, or you might make your company look unappealing.
Take your time when crafting a job description (or consult a professional) and set clear expectations with candidates. All of your hard work will create candidates who are better prepared and excited to go through the hiring process with you.
3) Provide Timely Feedback to All Candidates
If candidates are actively looking for employment, there is a chance that the best candidates have other offers on the table. As an interview process drags out, it’s typical for organizations to have to negotiate a bit to find stellar employees. One way you can mitigate these risks is by being clear and communicative with candidates.
It can be challenging to juggle all the conversations you are having across multiple platforms. Set up time in your calendar daily to respond to potential employees (or hire this process out to a recruiting agency.) Candidates need to feel seen and heard to stay engaged with the recruiting process.
4) Maintain Transparency When Talking About Pay, Benefits, Etc.
Let’s be real: Pay and benefits matter to employees. Employees want to feel appreciated. One of the best ways for employers to show that is through pay and benefits packages.
First, you need to get clear on the kind of benefits you offer to employees and the pay for the job. There has been a lot of movement around pay transparency, with Colorado’s Equal Pay Of Equal Work Act recently taking effect.
After you get clear on the payment details and benefits, communicate everything with the candidates you are talking with. Being clear about what you can offer will help you connect with the right candidates and have bad candidates drop off earlier in the search process.
5) Use Automation to Move the Hiring Process Along
Last, we have to discuss ways to automate and save time. Whether you hire a recruiting agency or handle candidates full-time, you can only do so much by yourself. Automation can come in handy for busy recruiters. There has been a ton of advancement in automation for recruiters. You shouldn’t automate everything, but some tasks could use a computerized touch.
Here are some examples of ways you can automate the candidate sourcing process:
- Use a calendar tool to let employees self-schedule convenient interview times.
- Take advantage of Applicant Tracking Systems to keep up with where candidates are in the pipeline.
- Utilize video screening software to pre-screen candidates without wasting recruiting resources.
Invest in Sourcing Best Practices to Improve the Hiring Process
Hiring a candidate can take a lot of time for a recruiter. There is so much to consider when taking candidates from applicants to a new employee. If you are struggling with how to improve the efficiency of your process, hopefully, this article gave you some food for thought. As your organization grows, using best practices like the ones we highlighted today becomes even more important. Take this process one step at a time and watch how far your recruiting dollars can go.