Talent Sourcing Strategy

Organizations wanting to stay ahead of their competitors need to think about strategizing their talent sourcing methods. In an ever-evolving business culture, successful companies implement recruiting plans that are proactive, forward thinking, and leverage HR solutions to their advantage.

What a Talent Sourcing Strategy Is, and Why it Matters

Strategic sourcing differs from passive recruiting in that it aims to stockpile promising and best-fit candidates in an expansive talent pool, rather than only reaching out to active job seekers for specific open roles. Strategy in this case not only means having a well-defined procedure for talent sourcing, but also keeping an eye on the future, and aligning talent acquisitions with the company’s broader business plan to facilitate the holistic achievement of an organization’s goals.

Strategic sourcing:

• Builds relationships with quality candidates early-on by leveraging marketing and deliberate outreach.
• Targets identified quality candidates, rather than relying on high-volume, passive recruiting strategies.
• Anticipates hiring needs well in advance, and continually improves sourcing speed and efficiency.

Implementing formulaic and strategic sourcing methods increases predictability and quality of the hiring process, and reduces risk and time used. This ultimately results in elevated productivity for any organization.

Strategies for Talent Sourcing

In this section, find tips, practices, and products designed to improve talent sourcing strategies for any business.

• Align your strategy with your overall business goals. Of course you want to hire the right people to meet the requirements of your organization as a whole. Your initial strategy should involve identifying goals, then analyzing your hiring requirements which would enable you to meet those goals. You should determine what talent you need, at what level, and exactly when in your business plan you will need them.

• Isolate your talent acquisition team’s sourcing function. Think of your sourcers as scouts. Proactive talent acquisition teams which plan for the future should be constantly funneling candidates into the talent pipeline, whether or not a business is actively hiring. A separate source function also means that sourcers can collaborate effectively with different aspects of the business to address the need for specialized or ultra-specific talent in varying departments.

• Determine your target talent. In general, you should have an idea of what qualifications talent should have to meet the needs of your company. Creating an ideal candidate persona detailing skill sets, academic background, internal vs. external hire, and so on will set the parameters for your talent search, and simplify the process. Loxo Name Generation can then help you find best-fit candidates to meet the requirements of your open positions. You can input your ideal candidate details into this automated AI talent matching platform and receive a comprehensive list of target candidates who match your specific needs.  

• Watch time spent on passive candidates. While potentially a great resource, talent which are not actively seeking work pose a risk to productivity if sourcers dedicate too much time and energy to these cold contacts. If a passive candidate is consistently responsive, enthusiastic, and interested then they’re worth a little effort. If not, funnel this contact into the talent pool for a later date.

• But keep them happy. Passive leads make up the base of a healthy talent pool and pipeline. It is vital to maintain an active relationship with these quality candidates. Every six months or so, your recruiting team should reach out to passive talent with updates, interview offers, or friendly holiday greetings, to let them know that they’re still on your radar as a potential hire.

• Identify source location. Talent is everywhere. The current digital age has delivered a smorgasbord of sourcing sites and platforms to choose from, and there are high-quality candidates available on each one. But not all platforms are created equal, and you may have to filter through less-than-ideal targets and cold contacts if using boots on the ground sourcing strategies. Loxo Source is the ideal solution for finding top talent with minimal effort. This proprietary directory contains 510+ million people across 95 data sources with verified phone and emails. Loxo AI technology continuously refreshes billions of data attributes, creating the world's most valuable talent map.

• Use sourcing solutions to your advantage. Talent sourcing no longer requires recruiters to have side jobs as private detectives. Relying on old-school methods to find contacts for top candidates only slows things down, meaning you lose productivity as well as quality hires. Loxo Profiles allows users to find verified emails, phone numbers, and social profiles for anyone. Loxo's search engine combines over 95 data sources including the entire social web, publicly available data sets and premium data we've acquired via commercial partnerships.

• Don’t let your strategy stagnate. Business models, technology, and the world at large are constantly changing. This means that the role and needs of a talent sourcing team will evolve just as quickly. Analyze and review data frequently, experiment with different methods and resources, and update your strategy to meet the requirements of the future.

A strong talent sourcing strategy will improve productivity, help build the future of your business, and keep you relevant and competitive in the modern field. By leveraging our list of top strategy tips, you can begin to fine tune your own high-performance recruiting team. Loxo is a comprehensive hiring solution that helps businesses streamline their talent sourcing strategies. To find out how Loxo can work for you, sign up for a free account here.