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How the career sourcer is transforming recruitment

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Foreword

Getting the right people with the right skills, at the right time and price ensures your organisation stays at its functional best and guarantees results for your main stakeholders.

But in 2016, sourcing the right talent is about more than just finding someone with the key technical and corporate skills. The right person will need the necessary motivation and desire to be successful in your business.

Sourcing is fast becoming the single most important agent of change in recruitment. In turn, the definition of what a good sourcer looks like is changing too.

As the UK economy grows, HR and resourcing teams across the country are facing the following questions:

Some HR and resourcing teams may have the processes in place to answer a few of these tricky questions, but for many the solutions will be hard to find. So how do we remedy

these issues? Well, to discover the future of sourcing, we’ll first need to take a trip to the past.

Sourcing the best talent is fundamental to any organisation.

Have you adjusted your sourcing approach in line with the changing nature of job seeking?

Are you using the right approach, tools and techniques to ensure you hire the right person for the job?

Do you have the right people sourcing on your behalf?

What does a good sourcer look like?

Arjan Van Heuveln Solutions Director Hudson RPO t: +44 207 187 6083 arjan.vanheuveln@hudson.com

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A brief history of sourcing

1980s

Early 90s

Late 90s

Mid 90s

2000s

There’s no doubt sourcing has evolved immeasurably in the last three decades. Not just in terms of the technology now at the sourcer’s disposal, but also in terms of the mindset they have to bring to the role. Here’s exactly how far the role has come.

Arjan Van Heuveln Solutions Director Hudson RPO t: +44 207 187 6083 arjan.vanheuveln@hudson.com

Sourcing was agency-led. They attracted candidates through advertisements in relevant journals, trade magazines and press.

HR functions became increasingly influential on matters of headcount, but managers still dictated which supplier they would engage.

HR might try and structure the hiring process, but the responsibility of hiring was still manager-led and relationship-driven.

Suppliers now could store CVs in databases, and email attachments could replace faxed hard copies.

The size of the database in particular became key - agency suppliers could now boast about the number of candidates in their system.

Online job boards became a mainstay of agency sourcing, and the use of client-branded advertising was a hotly-discussed topic.

Some organisations started to look at direct sourcing as an alternative to agency-led sourcing, especially through job boards and candidates stored in CTS.

The end of the decade saw the evolution of the Master Vendors, and the rise of the recruitment process outsource (RPO) company.

More advances in technology meant sophisticated pre and post-hire approvals, and increased implementation of candidate tracking systems (CTS).

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A new era of sourcing

Companies now compete for talent in the following ways:

The financial crisis of 2008 coupled with rapidly advancing technology significantly altered the way organisations sourced talent.

Branding has become key to how a company portrays itself in the market place.

Employer Value Proposition has become a key differentiator and is used in many talent attraction campaigns.

Agency use is limited and has become more niche.

The rise of internet job boards and professional social networking sites provided in-house recruiters with previously unavailable routes to market.

They also underwent structural changes, from “Agency/ Vendor and Process Managers” to a hybrid delivery team. These now feature dedicated in-house sourcers (or Direct Recruiters) who try to fill vacancies without using expensive suppliers.

Technologically adept generations entering the workforce are more likely to research an organisation before committing. They’re more likely to use social media to look for work. Above all, they have fundamentally different ideas about their work-life balance.

Most traditional in-house recruitment models, whether they’re in-house or RPO-led, will use a hybrid-model recruitment strategy.

The model will combine process management with both direct sourcing and attraction techniques. Some will also include off-site sourcing support centres. These trail LinkedIn for profiles and reactively engage with potential candidates.

Organisations are also increasingly using Employee Value Proposition (EVP) as a way of attracting talent to the brand, and talent pooling silver medalists for future reference.

But is this enough? Is this traditional set-up suited to engage with a rapidly changing workforce? And more importantly, is your organisation using the right kind of Sourcers to drive your direct recruitment in these rapidly changing times?

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Should sourcing still be seen as an entry level job?

Should that be the case?

Or should sourcing now be seen as a new career? A different path that uses unique skills underpinned by technological knowledge? And will this new kind of Sourcer have an impact on the golden rule of “quality vs cost vs time”?

A new era of sourcing - The Career sourcer

Reactive sourcing is fast becoming a thing of the past. Candidates have a choice, and the way to ensure they choose you over your competitor is by engaging with the candidate over time.

Crucially, you need to start from a point where the candidate didn’t even know they wanted to work for you.

An expert Sourcer is increasingly web-savvy. They understand more than just LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. They use a number of extra tools to mine for candidates. They use software like Crystal and Prophet to build up a picture of someone’s online personality and engage with them.

Tools like Email Hunter and Mail Tester help them find contact details, and GitHub or Stack Overflow help them engage with targeted IT communities.

These sourcers are constantly up-to-date with the latest software tools to help engage prospective talent.

But they also need to understand the client’s culture and sourcing objectives. And they need to talk knowledgeably with the client’s marketing and branding departments to create the right message.

Most organisations underpin their recruitment solution models with some form of sourcing support. But typically, these sourcers are entry level individuals keen to move into recruitment. For them, it’s a first step on the ladder.

An expert sourcer is increasingly web-savvy. They understand more than just LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.

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Web savvy

Sourcers will now use a variety of online tools to help them source candidates. Apps and software help them find the right contact details and methodically profile personalities.

Social skills

Modern sourcing is a marketing strategy aimed at one. The sourcer needs to infiltrate the potential candidate’s everyday life, and engage on a personal level.

Client culture and sourcing objectives

A sourcer needs to be fully in-tune with an organisation’s sourcing objectives and they need to understand the organisation’s culture.

Marketing and branding

Sourcers need to talk knowledgeably with the client’s marketing and branding departments to create the right message across all channels.

Analytical

Sourcers spend hours building online communities. Online tools and software are put to good use, allowing

them to analyse data quickly and efficiently.

Inside the mindset of the career Sourcer

Reactive sourcing is becoming a thing of the past. The modern career Sourcer needs not just the right technical skillset, but also the mindset to tackle the increasingly complex hurdles they face on a day-to-day basis. Here’s a glimpse in to what the modern sourcer needs to bring to the table.

Web savvy Social skills

Client culture Marketing and branding

Analytical

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Challenging the traditional resourcing model

On-site teams with dedicated sector or divisionally-aligned on-site recruiters will make way for teams of relationship and process managers.

These people will work closely with an organisation on talent mapping, skills identification, workforce management and headcount planning.

These relationship managers will be supported by a state of the art, knowledgeable and motivated off-site sourcing centre of excellence. It will be staffed with expert career sourcers, fully dedicated to supporting the client with ready-made talent pools and candidate engagement techniques.

The benefits are many:

This new breed of career sourcer has changed the way on-site teams function, and will ultimately drive a change in their entire make-up.

On-site relationship managers will get closer to the business, and will work with the business to predict and plan upcoming resourcing needs.

Supported by off-site sourcers, ready-made talent pools of top quality candidates will be available for hire. This reduces cost-of-hire and time-to-hire metrics

A real partnership between the resourcing function and the hiring business will be formed.

An expert sourcer is increasingly web-savvy. They understand more than just LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.

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How Hudson can help

Hudson RPO is a thought leader when it comes to using the right sourcing solutions for your business.

Our solutions focus on understanding our clients’ needs, incorporating on-site relationship managers and off-site sourcing experts.

Our Sourcing Centre of Excellence in Edinburgh is staffed with multilingual sourcing experts. They work on behalf of our clients to design, implement and execute the most advanced, proactive sourcing strategies. Our teams are constantly reviewing the latest tools to optimise delivery.

Contact Us

For more information on how Hudson can help you with your career sourcer contact:

HUDSON EUROPE

Darren Lancaster RPO Leader +44 20 7187 6041 darren.lancaster@hudson.com

uk.hudson.com

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