5 Hacks to Succeed in Talent Sourcing

Talent sourcing is crucial to growing your talent pool. It’s very common to source like-minded people, and these can turn into ideal candidates. They are likely to be a cultural fit and are willing to stick with your company through thick and thin. The earlier you start keeping an eye out for them, the better. Here are five hacks to help you along the way.

1—Start where you are

Hit home. Hit home hard. There is a high chance that candidates already discovered you before you discovered them. Show them that they’re welcome. Give them the idea that they want to work with you. Some notable practices we’ve seen around:

Add a “We’re hiring” widget to your homepage.
Highlight “Jobs” or “Careers” as an unread notification. Feel the itch to click right away, right?

In the team section: Add an anonymous profile with the tagline “Could this be you?” Or add a simple sticker “Want to see your photo here?”

Show your company culture in your “About” page or blogs. Then ask “Would you join us?”
When you don’t have any job openings, show that you’re willing to build a talent pool:

2. Tell everyone about the job openings

The message you send out is important. Everybody can see and share it. It can reach the right candidates, or convert a bystander into one. Make it straightforward, everywhere. Use the power of word of mouth.

Put “We’re hiring” message in your company’s email signatures and newsletters.
Add a “We’re hiring” message to your company’s social media profiles, pages, and descriptions. Don’t shy away from Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Medium, or any other platforms. Because, hey, you’ll never know.

Answer relevant questions on Quora with a “We’re hiring” message at the end. Make it less of a pitch and more of a thought leadership. Potential candidates can see your vision and decide to find out more.
Go offline. Go old-school. The message done right will find its way back online and spread like wildfire. Like this classic one:

3—If you don’t knock, they won’t open

Passive candidates are everywhere. Reach out for them. They’ll take your hand as the moment comes. Here is how you do it.

Google x-ray sites for relevant resumes. Willem Wijnans shared this awesome string. Just edit (Location), (Study), and (Keywords) as you want. Then the right resumes come to you in no time.
intitle:resume OR inurl:resume OR inurl:CV -job -jobs -sample -samples -template -”resume service” -“resume writers” -“resume writing” (Location) AND (Study) AND (Keywords)
Build a Google Custom Search Engine to x-ray any sites effortlessly. This comes in handy for sites with a user base, from LinkedIn, to About.me, to even TripAdvisor. Here is how Jennifer Bowen did it.
lf the above is too complicated, you can use Recruitin to x-ray 6 major social sites immediately.
Collect information like emails, phone numbers, and social media pages of sourced candidates with Connectifier.
GitHub’s open API let you find anyone’s email address: https://api.github.com/users/XYZ/events/public. Just replace “XYZ” with the username of the potential candidate. Ctrl + F or Cmd + F for “email” and it’s there.

4—Collaborative talent sourcing

Who knows what your company is doing the most? Who knows the prominent players of a specific field the most? Your employees. They’re the best of both worlds. We can’t stress enough how critical this is. Let them be your ambassadors. Brief them regularly about the opportunities. Then let them run wild with “the search for colleagues” in their own niche groups. Developers scout Github and StackOverflow. Designers scout Dribbble and Behance.

5—Stay sane, stay organized

You and your team have now discovered a handful of potential candidates – opened across 50-ish tabs. Now what? We have a solution. Import your candidates via Recruitee’s Chrome extension or Firefox extension. Once imported, everything is in one place, ready for you to make the next move.

A quick recap

1 – Start from home. Make sure every potential candidate who visits want to stay.

2 – Send clear messages across all channels.

3 – Get your hands dirty. Reach out. Reach often.

4 – Let your employees be the company’s ambassadors.

5 – Put all valuable leads in order. Follow them when the opportunity arises.

Do you still feel stumped by some aspect of sourcing candidates? Comment, email us or send a tweet. One of our experts will get you on track in no time!

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This article originally appeared on Recruitee Blog (newsletter: eepurl.com/bMHiZD)

Hagi Trinh is an avid recruitment writer at Recruitee. The team is working on the greatest hiring platform of all time. You can sign up at recruitee.com to try it out and follow us on Twitter @recruiteeHR.