Category: Sourcing Candidates

Every business starts out as one employee. As the business grows, the business owner will need to hire more staff so he or she can focus on sales and growth. This means hiring more accountants, more operations personnel, a marketing team, and perhaps a finance team. It means candidate sourcing.

We can all agree it’s very difficult to find talented workers to fill open roles. With the unemployment rate at a decades low, an HR manager or a business cannot simply post a job opening on LinkedIn.

It will be a slog to mine LinkedIn or post jobs in every internet job board. For a small business, every minute spent on finding a new employee means less money and time for other things, like marketing and sales.

One of the reasons why we created a tech enabled recruiting service at Vested is to help these small businesses automate their candidate sourcing efforts.

And it all starts with Talent Branding – something we feel is important in today’s job market:

But if you’re a business owner who is keen on doing this yourself, then bookmark this guide on how to source candidates.

This guide will show how to source candidates within your organization and if that’s not enough, it will show you how to use resources that are available out there for sourcing candidates.

Sourcing Candidates Internally

Filling an open role with an existing employee has many benefits.

First, if an employee has been working at a company for an extended period of time, then he or she already has a reputation and a history. You can check his or her past work evaluations. You can ask his or her boss and peers about work performance and long term career goals.

Most of the data points needed to evaluate a potential hire are readily available if you’re hiring within an organization.

Current employees are more likely to be loyal and committed to the company. They have friends and colleagues. They have a vested interest in helping the organization. They also have an existing knowledge of how things work and require less orientation and training.

Finally, internal promotions are great for morale. It shows other employees that one can have a future within the organization. Work hard and your loyalty will be rewarded with a promotion. It’s great for company culture if everyone has an expectation that hard work eventually pays off.

If new perspectives or ideas are needed for an open role, hiring internally may not be the best option. The company culture and processes are already ingrained in most internal candidates. If you need someone to “think outside the box,” then perhaps it’s necessary to hire outside the box.

How to Search Internally for the Perfect Candidate

Communication is key. Existing employees need to know there is an opening so they can apply.

Posting the job will help announce the new role in the organization. This could be as simple as a notice in the break room, an email announcement, word of mouth, a post on the company website, or it could be all of the above.

It’s helpful to include job requirements, skills, experience, and management reporting structure for the new role.

Applicants should be encouraged to talk to the hiring managers and team members so they can explore fit and understand the role better.

Another way to source internally is to encourage referrals. The best incentive is money so offer a cash bonus for any referrals from internal employees. Employees will be incentivized to search their own networks to help fill the role. They’ll do the talent sourcing for you by sending you emails and contact numbers of friends, family, and past co-workers, which will save you time from mining the Internet and the job boards yourself.

Finally, you can try rehiring former employees. Former employees already have a familiarity with the organization and the culture. Hiring former employees who resigned might be better targets than employees who were let go. Terminated employees could still harbor hard feelings and want no part in the future of their former employer. However, it could be a different story for former employees. If they are incentivized by a higher salary, a nice title or both, then they could be swayed to rejoin their former employer.

Sourcing Candidates Externally

If leveraging your existing employees is not possible, then it’s time to find candidates externally.

Using Job Boards to Find Talent

Job boards have been around since the advent of the World Wide Web. It’s still one of the most popular ways to find talent to fill open roles in your organization.

• Popular Job Boards: The list includes Craigslist, Indeed, Monster.com, Glassdoor, and LinkedIn. These boards are very well known so they attract a ton of candidates. The only drawback – job boards attract people who are already actively looking for jobs. Even though this means they are more likely to take the open position, it also means they may not be the top talent in your industry. The best talent are often still working at an organization and climbing the corporate ladder. They are less likely to be surfing job boards for another job. So if you want to attract high quality passive candidates, then job boards are not the best option.
• Niche Job Boards: Niche boards specialize in a particular field and business function. Craigslist and Indeed allow anyone from any industry to post their jobs. Their pool of talent is large but it doesn’t help the hiring manager to narrow down their search. It might be better to focus on a narrower focused board. For example, org specializes in the recruitment of pilots. So an airline might be better off posting a job opening there rather than a generic, jobs supermarket like Indeed.

To stand out in job boards, it’s important to have effective job descriptions. It should attract candidates to the role, and it should also set expectations. If 8-10 year experience is required, then that should be in the job description. If Javascript is required, then that should be included. The more focused the job description, the likelier you’ll attract the right candidates.

Promote your brand. In a jobs supermarket like Indeed, you’ll be competing with other employers in your industry. Use videos, infographics, and pictures to stand out. Show how great your brand is so candidates can have the confidence to submit their resumes to your job listings.

Use Social Media to Find Passive Candidates

The problem with job boards is they often attract candidates who use the “shotgun approach.” They barely read the job descriptions and use the law of large numbers to their advantage. They apply to as many job openings as possible and let the rule of percentages work for them. For every 100 submissions, they’ll be happy with 10 interviews regardless of who they are.

These candidates are often the least desirable. They do not care about the role or the company, which means that even if you hired them, they’ll likely leave in 1-2 years for a better paying job.

The best talent are often passive candidates. They display one or more of these traits:

• Currently employed and not actively seeking employment
• Content with role but willing to listen to new opportunities
• Employed or under employed and haven’t applied to your company

These candidates typically don’t spray and pray with their resumes in job boards. They are highly selective of who they talk to, as they know they have the skill and experience that employers want. They can afford to be selective.

One of the best ways to attract these types of candidates is through social media. Everyone in the world is active on at least one social media platform:

• Facebook: With over 2 billion users, Facebook is easily the largest social media network in the world. Whether it’s a teenager or a CEO, that person likely has a Facebook profile. They use it mostly for networking with friends and family, and perhaps one or two sessions of Candy Crush or Farmville. Users tend to stay long periods of time in Facebook, which is a great for someone looking to reach passive candidates. Companies can engage in Facebook ads to showcase their brand or more directly, showcase job openings in their organization. Facebook ads are still the cheapest form of advertising, especially considering their potential reach is enormous. Even a simple brand awareness campaign will do wonders in terms or reaching out to passive candidates on Facebook.
• LinkedIn: LinkedIn is an obvious choice to search for passive candidates. LinkedIn is literally a host for digital resumes in the form of user profiles. If you’re hiring for business, being active on LinkedIn is a must. Although much more expensive than Facebook, LinkedIn ads can help reach a highly targeted niche (business). There are options for brand awareness, such as sponsored posts. There are options for automated InMails. There is a host of options to attract passive candidates on LinkedIn.
• Twitter: Twitter is a great way to target influencers within your industry. Twitter is often a place where leaders in an industry speak (or Tweet) their opinions on anything from the latest business news to what hot new restaurant to check out. It’s easy to compile lists of passive candidates who would be amazing hires for your business. You can use Twitter ads to promote brand awareness, and use direct messages to recruit industry leaders and influencers.
• YouTube: YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world (only its parent Google is larger), so passive candidates are likely to be watching videos on YouTube. Often, people use YouTube to search for how to videos, and this is a great way to reach potential new employees. Establish your company as a leader in its field by creating how to videos about your industry. If you are a web design agency, create how to videos about website development and website marketing. Become a leader in your field and YouTube will promote your channel and videos. This will increase the likelihood that passive candidates (using YouTube to answer a question or looking for a tutorial) will encounter your brand or company. You can then retarget them to keep them in your recruiting funnel.
• Reddit: Reddit has one of the largest user bases on the planet. It’s made up of subreddits, which are highly niche focused. A savvy recruiter can navigate through Reddit’s endless list of subreddits, and focus on highly active subreddits relevant to their industry. Then he or she can identify thought leaders and active users on that subreddit. They can then engage in communication and introduce that Reddit user to their recruiting funnel. Reddit is an under-utilized source for finding talent, but if used effectively, it could be a unique gold mine to find thought leaders in your industry.

These social media platforms are a great start to finding those passive candidates. If you focus on brand awareness and outreach, you can get these passive candidates in your recruiting funnel. They’ll be more likely to be qualified for any open role in your organization.

Old School Networking

Before there was social media, candidate sourcing was done the old fashion way. This meant meeting people in person and using personnel networks. Here are examples:

• Attend Conferences: Every industry often has a conference. For example, data scientists have Tableau conferences, where there are opportunities to network with highly skilled data scientists. Attending an industry conference is a great way to collect business cards, and create lists of highly qualified individuals.
• Alumni Networks: Many schools often have alumni conferences or networking events. It’s not just a time to relive past college glories. It’s also an opportunity to collect business cards, and identify people who could work within your company. They are more likely to be receptive to recruiting overtures because alumni share a common bond – the university.

How much time is needed to source candidates?

Many factors come into play, when estimating the time needed to fill an open role. For executive roles, expect a long drawn out search. It’s important to take time for an executive because he or she will be the face of a large division. There is little room for error when it comes to hiring an executive. On the flip side, finding an executive assistant will not be as time consuming for a company.

As a general rule, expect to spend 30 minutes to an hour sourcing passive candidates. This means going through LinkedIn, fielding questions, reaching out to potential candidates, doing research, and staying active on social media. There is a reason businesses hire whole HR teams to do candidate sourcing. It is a long and grueling task.

Conclusion

Candidate sourcing can be a long drawn out process, especially for a business owner with few employees. Even a medium to large company with a dedicated HR staff will need time to find highly qualified talent to fill roles.

A better solution could be to use technology to automate candidate sourcing. Check out our tech enabled recruiting service here.

Whatever method you use to source candidates, don’t skimp on the process. Employees are the life blood of any successful organization.

Not every high volume pipeline is the quality one, sometimes you get the most potent and active candidates from the most unexpected place.

A few years ago, candidate sourcing was all about posting the job advertisement, visiting job fairs and waiting for the applications on your company careers page, but the overall scenario has changed with the passage of time. The focus lies on identifying the exceptional candidates among the mediocre and average ones.

It becomes a bit easier to identify the more qualified and proactive candidates on the social networking sites and powerful search engines. Twitter is such a place. 250 million current users, growing by 500,000 new users each day followed by 350 million tweets, sound interesting. But is the platform relevant with professional terms?

The third-largest social networking site, Twitter helps you find a variety of candidates based on their locations and topics.

Recruiting by Twitter is identified by one’s marketing and sales target. It is a wealth of data for sure- you just need to know where and how to look.

The huge user base of engaged professionals, hashtag and keyword search-ability, Twitter is quite beneficial as a recruiting tool. The lists help you segregate users into talent pools. Sourcing with the help of Twitter is an art. We have put up this guide that will help you learn how to find the talent. These Twitter sourcing tips and tricks will make you a pro in Twitter sourcing.

Step by Step Approach to Twitter Candidate Sourcing

Start with an exact search: Besides going here and there, it is always advisable to go for your exact demand. Whatever you are trying to search put it in the quotation marks. For example, if you are looking for a software engineer, you can search it as “software engineer”.

Add an alternative search: Alternative search can be done by using OR in between two terms. Quotations marks need to be put on the both terms. For example, “software engineer’ OR “engineer”.

Add an additional search term: The trick can be used for multiple search requirements. Instead of OR you should use AND if you are looking for more than one quality in a person. For example, if you are recruiting for a marketing agent and a social media expert, you can search “Marketing” AND “social media”.

Exclude certain elements: You can even exclude a certain set of search items from your requirement. Simply use the minus sign before adding the required word to your search options. For example, “software developer” –android.

View all tweets addressed to a certain user: Is the username appearing in too many searches or too many people are searching for the user? Well, it is easy to identify this on Twitter. Type it like this to:username (no @ necessary).

View all tweets sent from a certain user: It is easy to identify how many tweets a certain user has send. It can be identified in this way from:username.

Search for tweets near or in a particular location: Twitter makes everything simple. Type in near:location, or near:location withing: 5mi.

Search for tweets between two dates: It is almost impossible to find content between two dates in any other social media networking site. However, Twitter makes it possible. Type in:since 2014/05/02 until: 2015/09/28.

Search for all the tweets that contain a certain link: Twitter gives you access to find the certain links or terms related to the stuff you are looking for. Drive your search by “filter:links”. For example, “social media marketing”  “filter: links”

Find specific content: You can even target the search to a particular source or platform. For example, if you are looking for a social media expert from the source Instagram. For example, “social media marketing”.

The right hashtags play the key role in sourcing through Twitter. Drive your every search with the help of targeted keywords. Prefer to use skill based hashtags like #sales #marketing #Jobs #hiring etc.

Use the most popular and relevant hashtags to gain maximum search results. Even, there are a few hashtag generators that can help you find and visualize relevant hashtags based on trends and analytics.

Engaging people on Twitter can be initiated by striking up a conversation with the potential candidates you may find. Being a social media platform it engages people in two-way conversations.

To learn more about best practices on candidate sourcing, check out our ultimate guide on sourcing candidates.

(Photo by Mohammad Danish from pexels.com)

Started with the Mark Zuckerbug’s attempt to create a private network channel for his friends and colleagues, Facebook has a come a long way since then.

Currently, it is the biggest social media network in the world with more than 1 billion users. With our ultimate guide to candidate sourcing, you can definitely find talent on Facebook to fill open roles.

Your next hire might have been sharing a post or picture on the Facebook right now.

Too many users on a single platform make it ideal for the purpose of recruiting. It has become an easily available space to attract and convert talent into hires. The latest features, the newest trends and best practices, recruitment through Facebook is an interesting concept.

How to recruit employees on Facebook?

Facebook recruiting is not limited to posing jobs online only but there can be a pattern of searching the candidates online proactively and building relations with them.

It develops a mutual trust and you can encourage them to apply for the vacant job positions.

Be direct

Posting the job vacancies directly on your company’s Facebook page can be the simplest option. The ad post will route candidates directly to your Facebook page and, they will take interest in further information  and visit your company careers page.

Interestingly, Facebook provides different customization options for your Company profile. The choices of ‘Early careers’ and ‘Professional careers’ makes it easy for the newcomers to find jobs of their choice.

Indirect methods

It is not only the direct job openings but Facebook can be a great platform to promote your employer’s brand and improve your Company’s image. Recruiters post potent information regarding the culture and mission of the organization.

Sponsored ads and buzz words help recruiters to target their audience. It helps them to reach the potent areas that are left behind their approach.

Your current employees are your other potent source for Facebook recruitment. They can be your best advocates in the front of your target candidates. Let them use their Facebook page to express their achievements and their experience at your Company.

Post videos of your office get-together, office day sneak peek, after-work Friday meet up or training sessions.

The pictures will represent your happy office culture and teamwork spirit. The applicants will get an idea about your vibrant work culture. They will have a clear idea what working with them will feel like.

Socialize

This is what Facebook is meant for. The platform gives you space for building relations candidates and networking with potential hires. Recruiters must assign a manager to respond to people’s questions and answer them as soon as you create your Company’s page.

The conversations can be later stepped up to ‘Career chats’. The real time session will motivate candidates to apply for jobs. Also, there are special groups for recruiters which you should join.

Source candidates

Facebook can be a great platform to source for passive candidates as well. You can search for these candidates based on their special ideas and special criteria.

• Job title – who live near you
• Job title – who speak a particular language
• People who work with (competitor)

Increase employee referral activity

Facebook recruitment makes a great way for referral activities. It becomes quite easy for employees for to share jobs and attract candidates on a social media platform. Moreover, they know your work culture, and they already what kind of employees will be the best match to it. They will search the best potential coworkers for them and this will help in building the human infrastructure of your company.

A step-by-step guide

The following strategic step-by-step guide will help you to start with the recruitment process.

1. Find the potential candidates.
2. Create a Facebook page.
3. Share your Company culture in pictures and posts.
4. Create the job post ad.
5. Promote your job post ads for free on your page, Company profile and with the help of your current employees.
6. Take up a small budget and promote your jobs.
7. Use Facebook live
8. Create job tabs.
9. Communicate with the potential employees.
10. Share specialized content that will help in recruitment.

The Facebook recruitment will help you to take the candidate sourcing process to a complete new level.

Facebook can be the ultimate guiding force to source, attract and hire new employees.

(Photo by Bruce Mars on pexels.com)

Ever wondered what candidate sourcing is like at a job fair?

Speed-dating I think. The employers meet their tentative employees, at the set time and place, looking for a correct match.

The successful sourcing initiatives are the key to a successful recruitment plan of a company.

Entering into the job fairs with this approach will help you search the right talent in the pool of talent and potential candidates. Job fairs are the right place to entice top-tier candidates.

These few tips will help you to stand out and gain maximum experience at a job fair.

Host a contest: It is quite significant to attract the best talent in a career fair. But, how to do so? The super-strict environment of a job fair can be stuffing and anyone would love to get rid of it. Introducing a talent hunt or a completion will lighten the professionalism and inspire everyone to participate in it. You can ask them to submit their copy of resume in exchange of participating into your contest.

Advertise your presence: A running organization already has a large pool of employees to engage with. Your broader community includes top-tier candidates. Announce your presence in the job fairs via social media and email marketing lists. Provide the specific list of information including location of your booth. Also, provide hints about your special display. Try to show up with a special swag item to create hype in the fair.

Digitize your booth: No one wants to mess with the trail of papers in this time. Try to use digital things for collecting resumes and filling out applications. The digitization of hiring process is quite beneficial to modern recruitment process. Use laptops or tablets to display your recruitment videos, demonstrations and presentations to paint a positive picture of your brand.

Know your roles: Defining the roles clearly is the first step towards the recruitment. It will help you to fill the roles efficiently. Make a sheet that includes the position with all its key responsibilities and daily tasks.

Try to post all these details online so that it can be totally transparent. It will help you set up a mutual beneficial relationship between you and your employee.

Pick the best reps: It is not that simple that your HR team go to the job fair and promote your brand. It is better to send people that will work with the new hires on daily basis. Make sure the most positive, energetic and enthusiastic employees of your organization join the fair and meet new people.

It will help you in two ways. Firstly, your departments will come in direct contact with potential talent, and they will narrow it down as per your own requirement. Secondly, potential candidates will have a direct conversation with your employees and know about your reputation. It gives a first-hand experience to both.

Provide sustenance: Not only creative freebies, you will also want enticing passer-by to munch on your booth in job fair. Keeping candies, coffee, pizza or snacks at your counter will help you to catch their gaze. Being creative can be fun, but sealed and labeled items should be preferred. Something branded will create a good reputation of your brand.

Leverage your wins: Has it ever happened that your company has names as the best places to work in your area? Or has your organization won any nomination in last few years. Do you have a referral from an employee that makes your organization shine? Put all the information on a banner, literature or your backdrop?

Emphasizing your props will help the potential candidates to make a biased reputation of your brand.

Don’t sit: Sitting behind your counter on a job fair is a big no. Stand in front or on to the side of the table. It will intimidate the job seekers especially younger ones. It helps to invite people. Moreover, either sitting behind the table or standing at all, keep smiling. It is first thing the potential candidates will notice about you. It creates a positive aura.

Arrive in plenty of time to set up: One can easily spot a difference between a quick and relaxed work. A neat and maintained counter will simply enhance your impression.

Pick unique swag: Job fairs are about free promotional items. Therefore, it is important to maintain a realistic attitude.

Student recruitment is one of the most crucial aspects of candidate sourcing.

It’s the best way to tap into the next generation of talent and keep your company’s workforce up-to-date with technology and innovation.

The complex and fast-paced college students become potential sources because of their updates skills and full energetic mode.

Build, develop, manage and maintain campus relations

The successful university recruitment program can be planned over a long haul only. It needs to be built on long-term relationships because no one wants short-term results. Most of the university recruitment programs act as a base of their career centre. Career fairs, job posting services and on-campus recruiting helps you connect with students.

Try to strike a conversation with career centre staff because they can provide you an insight related to the campus. They can tell you about the culture, traditions, specifics of students and their attitude and behaviors. This insight will help you to tailor your strategy.

Career centre staff can further help you to make relations with the faculty and administrators of the college. However, no program can guarantee a career just after the college but the organizations that are into this recruitment never abandon the campus even if they are not hiring.

Set realistic recruitment goals

Before entering any university or college, you need to set up realistic recruitment goals. Your goals should be based upon the demand, supply and all the other related factors. Set your goals based on facts.

You need to calculate the size of the potential pool and gather a good knowledge about the candidates. Also, you need to know about your competitors and their offers. Researching on this upfront will help you to reach your goals easily.

Choose your target schools carefully

Most of the university recruitment program professionals admit that they finalize their targets based upon following factors.

• List of the major universities available.
• Quality of their programs.
• Their experience of recruiting at the particular university.
• Location of the school.

The planning of all these things requires research and careful tracking. This way you will know that which university suits your organization the best.

Never take a shortcut while deciding on the best university or school. It is necessary for the university to match the technical and cultural standards of your organization.

Send the right people to campus

Have you got the right people to deal with the university students. Would the students like to deal with someone who roams around with a bored face? Will they like to interact with a person who answers everything with the suggestion of checking the website? Will you feel comfortable if the recruiter ask you about a date? All these things will ruin the impression of your organization. Unfortunately, many company representatives have behaved like this with the students.

Choose the best person from your organization to suit this process. Choosing the right person is critical because the representative will represent your company and the potential employees will make a negative image about your brand. Send well-trained staff to represent your organization and sell your brand.

Communicate with students about the process

Students have all the right to know about the steps included into the process of selection and hiring. Keep them appraised what you are planning to do and what they can expect from you. If you have met some students at a career fair, keep follow up with them. Keep in contact with the interns when they return to their universities after finishing work with your organization. It will help you in the future recruitment as you will have a pool of potential candidates to look into.

Measure and analyze your results to adjust accordingly

Keep a track of hires you make but along with this also keep track of the offers you make, acceptance and retention rates. Track your recruiting efforts ROI.

It will help you to identify you strong and lacking points. You will know where exactly you are in trouble and how you can adjust it.

Feed your full-time hiring with internship programs

It is the one of the most effective recruiting techniques of building a relation with the potential hires in the early age of their careers. Internship programs help you achieve better retention and gauge their fit on the organization. Researches prove that the once interns often turn into full-time employees.

Candidate sourcing is a recent concept.

The concept originated with the availability of internet and more precisely with the existence of social media websites.

Technology is a great tool for recruiters and hiring managers. Initially, recruiters believed that the popularity of social media websites will turn the process of recruitment into a cakewalk. However, it is not that easy.

You definitely need a strategy to make things work out positively.

Defining Candidate Sourcing

The proactive search of talented and potential hires to fill up all the vacant job openings. Recruiters do following tasks for the purpose of sourcing:

• They collect all the valuable candidate information related to resumes and work samples.
• They can pre-screen the skills they are looking in the candidates.
• They inform candidates about job openings and build a relation with them.
• They build long term relation with potential recruits and recruiters.

All these tasks are what we do as recruiters in Vested.

Difference between sourcing and recruiting

Sourcing and recruiting are two different but interconnected processes. One kicks in after other. Sourcing is associated with searching, identifying and contacting recruits that have potential to fill in your positions.

It is the first process. Sourcing is followed by recruiting. Recruiting includes HR processes like screening, interviewing and evaluating the candidates.

In MNCs, recruiters handle the first steps and the second process is handled by professional sourcers. However, both sourcing and recruiting fall under the same roof that is HR.

How does sourcing affect recruiting?

Sourcing is a vital part of recruiting strategy of any company. Recruiters specialize in:

• They basically reduce the fill-in time of candidates because the process of initial screening of candidates has been already done by them.
• They keep a database of clients engaged in your vacancies so that they can use these pipelines to cover the present and future recruitment.
• They position themselves in such a way that they can meet the long-term goals of sourcing.

Who are sourcing specialists?

Sourcing specialists, popularly known as sourcers are those HR professionals who excel in identifying and engaging potential candidates for current and future potential needs of the company.

Jobs they perform:

• They identify the future hiring needs of the company.
• They participate in establishing the effective sourcing techniques for the company.
• They reach out to potential candidates through different channels and media.
• They develop talent pipelines for every position in the company.
• They keep researching and experimenting on new sourcing technologies and tools.
• They analyse all the sourcing tools they have used.

Social sourcing:

The process includes using the social media platforms to search for the right talent. The social networks (like Facebook, twitter and Linked In) can be a great help in identifying, attracting and contacting potential candidates.

Sourcers use social media for following purposes: 

• They use the platform to collect the contact details, resumes and work samples of the applicants.
• To create their own talent pipelines to fulfill the hiring needs of the company in the future.
• To reach out to potential qualified candidates and giving them information regarding your job openings.
• They establish the employer as a brand and advertise the openings.

A few most effective sourcing tools:

Sourcing specialists and recruiters use social media tools to narrow down their search. Tools help recruiters to find candidates quickly. These few tools will help you streamline the process:

• LinkedIn: This is a social media platform for recruiters. Professionals share their career history and accomplishments on the platform and take it as an opportunity to interact with professional recruiters. Sourcers need a LinkedIn recruiters license to search through profiles and send personal messages to candidates.
• Glassdoor:  Glassdoor is a platform that gathers user-generated reviews about different companies and company-life. Glassdoor has hugely changed our prospective towards recruitment marketing and company culture. The Google backing makes the platform more authentic and reliable. It has become one of the ultimate job sites for candidate sourcing.
• Indeed: Indeed is the world’s largest job board that hosts more than 90 million resumes. The advanced search options of the board allow recruiters to search on the basis of job location and title.
• Facebook: It is the world’s most popular social networking website and an ocean of potential candidates. The paid job ads feature of Facebook candidate sourcing helps you find recruits with ease.
• Twitter: The different recruiting tools of Twitter like chat, search and lists to ease the process of recruit sourcing. Engaging on twitter conversations advertising conferences and following hash tags can help sourcers build a talent pipeline through twitter.

There are also more traditional, “old-school” ways to source for candidates. Here are a few ideas:

• Recruiting a a job fair
• Hiring newly minted college graduates through college recruiting

Finally, the best way to save money and time for candidate sourcing is use a professional.

This is where Vested comes in.

We can help improve your time-to-hire metrics and get you the right candidates via our on demand platform.

Learn about it today  HERE and save thousands of dollars on recruiter fees and still get the best talent for your company.

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Resumes and cover letters are passé. Sourcing for candidates has become challenging like never before. It is not all about your degrees and education at today’s time but about your skills, wit and talent along with your qualification.

Recruiters have moved their focus from physical recruiting methods to social media platforms like Twitter, Linked In or Facebook. Or they use in demand recruiters like our Vested platform.

It has become one of the major norms of recruiting nowadays.

A recruiter is in a constant search of most qualified and talented pool of applicants. At present, three of above mentioned social media websites have over 1.2 million of combined users. That sounds like a potential.

As more and more people are joining social media websites, recruiters do need to maintain leverage upon their social media accounts for recruiting purposes. This is an imperative formula to attract talent.

What are the benefits of social recruiting? How to get started?

• Build your employment brand: Social media is a showcase that showcases the culture of your company to the recruits. Brand your social media platforms by posting content, photos and videos. Try to engage job seekers in conversations and motivate to participate them in discussions. Give them space to prompt some questions and answers. This is a wonderful way to know about your recruit and giving him a chance to understand your company culture.
• Reach passive candidates: Almost everyone is using social media platform, either they are looking for a job or not. They are passive candidates who might not be interested in changing their jobs but building a relationship with them can give you the opportunity to hire them. This is how social media helps you to enhance your talent pool.
• Employee referral program: It is considered one of the top most and high;y-effective recruiting tool. It allows you to involve your current employers in the hiring process. You can post recruitment requisitions on their social media platform and it increases your approach base.
• Learn about the background of the employee: Evaluating the Linked In or Facebook profile of a person helps you access major information about them. A linked In profile includes their resume and, past and present jobs. It includes their recommendations, peers, managers and colleagues. It can help you determine some second or third degree connections allowing you a personal referral. Similarly, facebook and twitter contain information about their interests, hobbies and other personal information.
• Lower recruitment costs: All this set up is free and that is how you save a lot upon the cost of recruitment.

How to use?

There are different social media platforms and there are different techniques to use them. The first step includes deciding your target audience and tailoring your strategy accordingly. Start from being familiar to one platform and then move to other.

Twitter

Twitter is a popular micro blogging social networking website. There is a limit of 140 characters to messages or tweets. The platform has more than 300 million users yielding more than 300 million tweets per day along with 1.6 million search queries.

The most significant thing about twitter is that it connects business and customer in real time. Businesses use twitter to promote their brand, products, services, share information, gathering feedback from market and connecting to influential people.

Twitter updates what is happening in the current moment. In includes various broadcasts about the vacant positions that need to be filled.

LinkedIn

It is the leading professional networking site. It has more than 155 million users around 200 countries and territories. This site is quite popular among professional recruiters.

The professional recruiters foster networking through LinkedIn and can have access to ready-made resumes.

Facebook

Facebook is the largest pool of talent. Millions of people log in and log out on daily basis and share pictures, videos and posts to become popular among their friends. Although it started as a social utility but, it expanded as a popular network to make connections.

Facebook ads are a great option to target the exact audience. For example, if you are based in California and relocation is not a part of your budget then you can target the audience of the city only.

The overall result will be:

• The traffic to your career site will be increased.
• There will be increased Facebook fans engagement.
• Your twitter follower count will be increased.
• The traffic to job postings will increase.

LinkedIn is a gold mine of candidates if you know the right method of recruiting. The platform allows you to connect with more than 330 million professional, all of them prominently exhibiting their professional skills, job experience, education, recommendations, expertise and talent.

The most interesting fact about Linked In is that is does not connect you with unemployed professionals or recent force of graduates only but also with the active professionals that are in a constant search of new opportunities.

A recent survey in 2011 concluded that 68% of current employers are open for new listings and job offers. Growth is a continuous and desirable process and 83% of working force will be at their ears if you have something interesting to tell them.

Sounds great! Now, when you know that 83% of currently working force can pursue your offer, how can you reach them? How can you find these candidates? And, what suitable methods you will use to narrow down your search and approach the right candidate?

It is not a strenuous process; you just need a right strategy to approach the right person. This example will help you understand my words easily.

Let’s suppose, you are running a surgical business and you need a marketing person who can do his job perfectly. Your requirements are:

• A person with an experience of minimum 3-4 years.
• He should have been working in same field in the past years.
• He should be aware of the local dialect and areas.
• Substantial knowledge of your products, the material and their usage.
• He should be an excellent communicator who can address the people, acknowledge the presence of your brand in the market and can resolve all kind of issues.

You can start with the advanced search options of Linked In with all these required qualifications. We tell you how: There is a tool bar or menu on the right side of the page where you can set to search people. There is a picture of magnifying glass and Advance search option along with it. Modify following parameters to initiate your search.

• In the title field, enter the designation under which you want to do the recruitment.
• Change the industry to “surgical”.
• Change the seniority. You should have access to the premium facilities of Linked In if you want to do an efficient search. Upgrade your account.
• Leave all other options to their default settings.

The preliminary search will come up with hundreds of results. Obviously, all of these people are not looking for a job but many of them may be interested. You can further narrow down your search for better results and making your work easier. You can add the experience required or the location preference. It will definitely help you.

The next step involves looking at these profiles and check how many of them are actively looking for work. After short listing a few names, you can contact them through different ways. Take a look:

• Send them an email to introduce yourself: Never start a conversation asking if a person is interested in your job opening, even if his profile shows his desperation of finding a job. It will scare them away. Simply tell them their profile caught your attention. Mention something unique about them like any achievement, award or certification. Congratulate them for same, establish a relation and check if they will be apt for your job opening. Tell them about the opening once you are sure.
• Find groups they belong to, join that group and try to strike a conversation: This way you can state that both of you belong to same group and you thought if they may like working with you. Looking at your name regularly will help in further correspondence. This particular method is quite effective to recruit new employees.
• If this is a second-degree connection, try to look for a mutual first-degree connection: The mutual first-degree connection will help you form an opinion about the employee and check if they fit your criteria or not.
• Send them a local message using an In Mail if they are part of a Linked In Open Link network: These tools of Linked In will help you gain more visibility.

Linked In is the best platform to look for professional connections and recruitments.

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