Are you planning on building a dedicated sourcing team and want to know where to start? This blog will undoubtedly give you a direction for building an effective sourcing team.
Some questions that would have already crossed your mind.
1. What type of candidates’ aka Sourcers, do I need, rookies, semi-experienced, highly experienced?
2. What will the Sourcer do, i.e., the scope of work?
3. What are the best practices of pairing Sourcer with Recruiters, 1 Sourcer dedicated to a Recruiter, 1 Sourcer dedicated to a team of recruiters?
4. Should I get the Sourcers to work on random roles as and when they come, or should I dedicate them to focus on functional areas?
5. How do I implement each model to get the best productivity?
6. How do I evaluate the Sourcer?
7. How do I compensate and incentivize the Sourcer?
8. What is the roadmap for Sourcer? Are you considering them to work as a Recruiter, Delivery Consultant 12-18 months down the line and back-fill their positions?
Let’s first define the type of Sourcer you need to achieve your objective.
1. Do you need someone with the industry background you recruit for, or
2. Do you have enough time to train someone in your industry if they know the trade tricks, i.e., sourcing candidates using various tools of the trade such as LinkedIn Recruiters, Job Portals/Boards, Phone Screening, etc.?
3. Do you need someone to work from your offices, or are you happy recruiting the Sourcer to work remotely?
4. What hours would you want the Sourcers to work? This is a crucial question because you want to maximize the candidate contact by having the Sourcer start early or cover late depending on the number of hours they’re supposed to dedicate each day.
Once you’ve defined the requirement in line with your objective, it’s time to limit the scope of work the Sourcer will cover. Some pointers are below.
1. Understand the requirements/jobs
2. Post jobs across job portals, LinkedIn, indeed, etc.
3. Manage advert responses
4. Source candidates using the tools of trade subscribed by your business and any other tools they have access to
5. Contact candidates via emails, text messages, phone calls, etc.
6. Cleanse and regenerate the internal database.
7. Phone screen and pre-qualify candidates as per your requirement using your phone screen template (if you use one) as a guidance
8. Candidate follow-ups
9. Updating information on the ATS
10. Providing feedback to the Recruiters about candidate response for specific jobs if they are looking for more money, flexible working, etc.
11. Market intelligence with regards to who is recruiting, etc.
12. Submit the qualified candidate with a detailed write up to the Recruiter(s) they are working for
So, you’ve defined the scope of work for the Sourcer, and now it’s time to decide which operating model will best suit your business. Some options below that you can review depending on your volume of requirements/jobs, industry sector, etc.
1. Sourcer aligned to work with each Recruiter
2. Source dedicated to a team of two to three recruiters
3. Sourcers dedicated to working on functional areas instead of them aligned to the Recruiters
4. What process should you have in place to get the best out of your Sourcers?
5. Giving the Sourcers 100% clarity on the job role is a good starting point.
6. Ensuring they have utmost clarity on who they will be working with and how their Recruiters want them to work. A value-adding process for both parties
7. Clarity on the job roles with as much information as possible is a great enabler for the Sourcers to identify relevant candidates in a short turnaround time. You want to keep them posted on the changes on the requirement on a real-time basis.
8. One of the best practices to follow is having the Sourcers listen to the recruiters’ phone screens. It gives them a good amount of guidance on interacting with the candidates, finding information, etc.
9. You can have the Sourcers participate in weekly standing meets, and intake meets to better transparency and avoid Chinese walls.
What dependencies does Sourcer have?
1. New and fresh jobs to work. If your Recruiters are giving your Sourcer a job that they’ve been working on for weeks/months and haven’t found any relevant candidates, you are setting your Sourcer to fail.
2. Clearly defined job specification/requirement outlining the non-negotiables, salary/pay rate, location, etc.
3. Real-time update in case there is a change in the job role/requirement/vacancy.
4. Timely feedback on the candidates sourced and phone screened
5. Feedback on the candidates’ particular stage in the recruitment process
Setting expectations and defining priorities
Whichever operating model you proceed with, setting expectations from day one, especially with the recruiters, is critical for getting the best results from your Sourcer.
Hence, it is imperative to define the process of how many roles/requirements the Sourcer works on an average day, which Recruiter they will work for, etc. Why?
Because every role for a Recruiter on your team will be an urgent role, they will need Sourcers help to find them, candidates, urgently. An unstructured process like this puts pressure on the Sourcer and creates a chaotic environment for the Sourcer. At the same time, the absolute priority requirements are left out, impacting your bottom line, i.e., revenue and margins.
One of the better ways to deal with assigning roles is to have priority or urgency levels. You can define the basis of the levels one of the following factors.
1. Key account/client
2. Commercials, i.e., Fee / Rates
3. The volume of requirements/jobs
4. New account/sector you are trying to develop
Lastly…
What you must also have in place is an effective feedback process in place for the Sourcer. The Sourcer will understand the number of resumes/candidates they sourced have been through a particular stage in the recruiting lifecycle, i.e., 1st interview, 2nd interview, offers, placements, etc.
However, the feedback should enable the Sourcer to improve its output. They should also get an opportunity to be heard.
There are times when a Sourcer will have concerns with the Recruiter. Ideally, you would want to cover the following factors in your weekly/bi-weekly feedback meetings with the Sourcer.
1. Transactional, i.e., KPIs / Deliverables
2. Any feedback on the Recruiters they are aligned with
3. Feedback on the functional areas they work on and if they need any support
4. Any additional tools, training they need that can help them do their job better
5. Any feedback on the process and how they’d want to see that improve.
Build your sourcing team to help you save your Recruiter’s time, fill more jobs, bill more, and generate a higher operating profit.
