Candidate Sourcing – Key Mistakes

Many people look at recruitment agencies as a one-way street with only one possible measurable success: how many people do you hire at the end of the day? What fewer know, is that there are many, many steps before a successful hire, and the first one is the one that may lead you to your perfect candidate, or the complete opposite. This task is well known as sourcing, and even though it represents just a search through a database, it could be led wrong if not prepared thoroughly. Just like Alexander Graham Bell said – Before anything else, preparation is the key to success. When it comes to sourcing, we couldn’t agree more! Once the client is onboarded and all the relevant data about the project and the role are in your hands, a recruiter needs to take a deep dive into their website and available platforms to stand out at the core of their business and vision (and to prepare himself for the sourcing stage).

A recruiter should always do prior research about the position, and not rely only on the title-based search. Finding out if there is a new title or buzzword sometimes can be crucial due to company systematization since they are not using the same titles for the same roles and responsibilities. If a recruiter hasn’t been working on a given role before, it is essential to explore in detail all the key duties, tech stack (if the role is more technical), and all the stakeholders included. Another thing worth mentioning is your database – the best starting point where some good candidates may be hiding. Those are the people you have already been in contact with and a recruiter should always reach out to them to see where they are currently and if they are interested in some new opportunities. If not, you can always ask them for a recommendation! From our experience, a database of existing contacts sometimes really saves you both time and money in the upcoming stages of the recruitment process.

Investing the time in the presentation of the role itself is also one of the most important steps in this first stage – making sure that the job description is appealing and looks interesting to the candidates. There are a lot of companies that are not taking into account the importance of the well-known first impression since they are usually focused on the superpowers an experienced candidate should have. Having it all in one place (including the budget for the role within the job description document) really could be a dealmaker.  

The most valuable advice we could give to all the recruiters out there is: to dedicate your time to the creation of a proper message. Recruiters should always highlight what matters the most –  clear information about the client (what kind of product they are offering, official website, type of engagement, hybrid or remote work, benefits, and information about the expectation from the role). Nothing makes us feel better (besides hiring someone) as receiving positive comments about the messages we thoroughly prepare and create for the candidates. The most significant part of negative comments addressed to recruiters is related to unprofessional messages and rude approaches. Having this in mind, one of the biggest no-no’s is a generic, basic search – basic keyword searches will lead recruiters to the same basic results, which will not help them in finding the best possible talents.

Does Boolean search ring a bell? We hope it does, and we hope that you are not making the same mistakes as we did once we entered the recruitment world back in the day. I am talking about the keywords required for a Boolean search to be your best friend. Using NOT and OR can be crucial when you need to clear out all the profiles that you don’t want to appear any further and block your way. We have also encountered a phenomenon called profiles analysis paralysis; presumably, all recruiters were dealing with this problem: how to figure out how much time you need to dedicate per each profile? Are 10 minutes enough to read every single fact or maybe 2 minutes by checking the most important information? When you sharpen that skill of scanning profiles, you are becoming a great recruiter. Last, but not least, there is one more tip that can turn the recruitment process into a positive experience for all the stakeholders, and it has to do with good, old sales! Keeping in mind the constant promotion of the particular role and the company that stands behind it – a good recruiter is the first person in the row who needs to believe in the fact that they are offering a better opportunity for someone, and if so, the knowledge of how to present the role itself to a possible future employee can drastically improve the total percentage of successful hires.

Selling the company’s vision, culture, project, team, and benefits has to become the key point of every sourcing and first step in the recruitment process. Numerous sales tricks can help out recruiters strategize their sales achievements for optimum outcomes. Sourcing is all about quality, and vast numbers of people should never measure it. By solely making their daily plans for contacting adequate candidates according to the client`s tech stack, recruiters should target only high-quality profiles, and always emphasize their search based on these criteria. Combined with the knowledge and a set of clear-sighted communication soft skills, sourcing becomes an adventure with inevitable success.