Sourcing: What It Was, What It Is, What It Could Be (Part 3 of 3)

By Bryan Chaney

We recently looked at what sourcing used to be, and then examined how it‘s evolved. But it could be so much more, and it will.  Let’s peek into the crystal ball of the not-too distant future of sourcing.

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Candidates as Customers

As much as some of us may not like to admit it, we spend most of our cognizant lives as consumers. We buy products and services, and trade money, time and energy in exchange for items of perceived value. This is also true in the world of work. Many of our clients and employees as well as our prospective clients and employees are all connected to each other in a myriad of socio-economic circles. The sooner we realize this, the better the candidate experience will become. Sourcing is becoming more and more a part of that experience.

Tools

In any modern sales organization, we don’t think twice about paying for a Client Relationship Management or CRM platform. But candidate relationship management is generally considered a luxury in talent acquisition today. These tools, or at least the functionality of these tools, I predict will become mandated and mainstream in the next 3-5 years.

Talent Communities/Networks/Pools

Whether branded, unbranded, user-generated/moderated or managed by an organization, our prospective candidate lists are becoming more organic and dynamic, and less of a static spreadsheet or database. This is taking the form of talent communities, or networks like TalentCircles.

Now, this isn’t your 1999 “talent community” which was basically a glorified database. We’re talking about interaction and discussion, knowledge sharing and distribution. A place where people can actually have conversations and learn about the real employee experience, via private and public messages or video chat. More and more, these platforms will offer a way to foster relationships regardless of geographical distance, over the span of a few months or years during a candidate’s career.

Just remember that a micromanaged community will look like a predatory watering hole near the Serengeti. And an unmanaged community or network will fall as flat as a dance club without a DJ to keep the crowd moving. The ideal balance is somewhere in the middle, depending on your audience.

Fit over Function - Soft Skill Sourcing

With the skills gap ever yawning, the emphasis will continue to be on attitude, personality and train-ability over specific skills. But how do you source for someone who thinks like a pirate, without the term “eye-patch aficionado” in your search string?

The answer is technology that interprets the meaning and intent behind text-based content and social behaviors. More companies like eiTalent will develop algorithms for core values and driving motivators. This will help us determine a better fit on the front end of a search, rather than an assessment right before a hire is made. Not to mention the positive implications of getting a recruitment marketing message *just right* for your targeted prospects. You do want the right people responding, don’t you?

Social Validation - fraud prevention

As sourcing becomes more of the forefront to talent acquisition, the teams and leadership are being tasked with intelligent checks and balances. I spoke to an industry colleague recently who was looking for a way to verify employment information in a candidate’s resume and social profiles. The reason? A prominent executive was hired with a completely fabricated employment and education history. I’m sure there were hundreds of thousands of dollars…lost.

This is another example of one bad apple changing a recruiting process. My recommendation? To leverage ZoomInfo, Hoover’s and social aggregators like Klout and Kred, for the double and triple-check.

Teams

Sourcing will grab more of the spotlight as recruiters have to tackle research and lead generation. They have plenty of applicants for open reqs, but the appropriately qualified applicants are harder to reach.

As candidate generation becomes a necessary skill set, I can see corporate Community Managers turning into Talent Advocates. After all, a good brand knows it has to nurture relationships with clients as well as candidates. Which means blended roles for both marketing and recruiting/sourcing professionals. They are all brand ambassadors and soon those that haven’t admitted so yet,  will learn to act accordingly.

Tactics

To truly build a relationship, you have to focus on engagement. Marketers understand this, and build calendars of targeted, relevant content, to start conversations with their prospects. Why?

They know that if your messaging is only about the sale, then it will be one-note and turn off the audience quickly. The same is true for recruiting and sourcing.

Imagine a world where candidates get invitations to join a passionate network of similarly minded professionals. Not to look at a job or push an agenda, but to talk about what makes their creative or analytical engines purr. That’s engagement.

Now imagine that network plugging into their social graph, to determine who they interact with intimately, as well as their professional acquaintances. As a sourcer, you will be able to call out specifically who is connected to the right circles of influence in that niche. You will also see who would make an ideal referral, instead of asking the ubiquitous “who do you know?” question.

The future of sourcing is indeed social, predictive, and growing by popular demand. And as someone who started my recruiting career as a sourcer, I wouldn’t have it any other way.

About Bryan Chaney: Bryan Chaney is a Talent Branding and Attraction Strategist. He most recently led employment branding and social media for corporate recruitment at Aon. Previously, he developed the recruitment marketing arm of a Texas based RPO provider that serves SMB and Fortune clients. He serves on the board of Social Media Breakfast in Austin and founded careerconnects.org, a community event platform, to gather niche recruiting and HR professionals with candidates to share career strategies. The Huffington Post recently named him one of the Top 100 Most Social HR Experts on Twitter. Connect with Bryan for consulting and speaking availability at Bryan Chaney.

Candidates as Customers

By Jessica Miller-Merrell

HR beware! Upsetting your job applicants could cost more then just your time. Sometimes we forget that those who are applying for jobs in our company are sometimes our customers. According to the Candidate Experience Results over 21% of candidates said they were or have been customers to places they applied. As buying power increases in our growing economy it’s becoming more likely that those who are applying for jobs are customers. This number will surely double within the next decade.

Investing in Candidate Relationships

One of the most essential components of any talent acquisition strategy is to engage with talent and manage that relationship. The goal is for organizations to treat candidates with the same attention they give customers. Your candidates are extremely important in industries like professional services, retail, technologies and hospitality, or generally speaking in a area where demand exceeds supply. According to a recent report by Aberdeen’s “Customer Experience Management: Using the Power of Analytics to Optimize Customer Delight,” customer relationship management is a series of multi-channel activities which address employer branding, analytics, and technology.

The only way for employer branding to survive the job search process is to create a candidate-centric approach that prioritizes the candidate experience with the same focus given to the customer relationship in any business. The fact that customers are becoming your workforce should highlight the importance of treating candidates with the same care as you would when a customer walks into your store. The biggest problem with being able to respond to every applicant is maintaining some type of repository that allows you to do it quickly and efficiently. HR departments are understaffed as is and any type of slip could cost the company thousands of dollars in not only bad hiring, but in disgruntled customers who have applied.

Don’t upset your applicants.

There has been a plethora of discussion on the transparency of the Human Resource professional and the black hole of the candidate capture process. Candidates will apply for the job and more often than not, don't even get a simple turndown letter, or they can interview with no follow-up at all. Left wondering if they have any type of chance to get the job for which they applied, candidates are upset at the entire process. Although communication is not required for every applicant, there are some instances where the status of the job cycle should be communicated. The cost of no communication could be lost product sales, lost referrals, and ultimately less money in the bank.

Job applicants know that the job market is competitive and saturated. As a recruiter or HR professional, it’s important that you provide a strong employment brand by treating job applicants with dignity and sympathy during the job process. As someone in the profession you are quite aware that you cannot offer the job to everyone that applies, not even all those qualified candidates. Going the extra step to provide excellent customer service will retain customers past the job search process. Even the dreaded form letter that turns down a candidate goes a long way. No one likes being thrown into the black hole of doom. Think when you as an HR professional you have applied for a position. Think how upset you are when your kids apply and are left in the dark!

Have you ever had a horrible experience when applying for a job that you quit shopping at said company? Let us know.

Photo Credit.

Jessica Miller-Merrell, SPHR is a workplace and technology strategist specializing in social media.  She’s an author who writes at Blogging4Jobs. You can follow her on Twitter @blogging4jobs.