Sourcing the best talent takes much more than most would expect, especially when it comes to hard-to-fill and high-volume roles.
So recruiters need the absolute best tools they can get their hands on to locate and hire top-quality candidates for job openings.
This is where a candidate sourcing software comes in to save the day!
This tool can be a recruiting game changer, but finding the right one is tricky, with so many options and features out there to confuse you.
Fret not! Here we have an end-to-end guide to help you cut through the market noise and invest in the best sourcing solution for your business. Read on.
What is candidate sourcing?
Candidate sourcing refers to identifying, attracting, and shortlisting potential candidates to fill open positions in a company.
This process involves finding potential applicants through various channels like job boards, professional networks, referrals, etc., pre-screening them by evaluating their resumes, and building relationships for future openings.
These potential hires may or may not be actively seeking new jobs. So, regular interaction with active and passive candidates is crucial while sourcing.
The goal here is to:
- Build and maintain a warm talent pipeline
- Enhance candidate engagement and experience right from the beginning
- Increase the number and quality of applications
- Increase the chance of successful hires
What is a candidate sourcing software?
A candidate sourcing software is a type of recruiting tool designed to help staffing firms find and hire high-caliber candidates across various networks and online communities.
Its basic functionalities include identifying, screening, and interacting with applicants from one centralized platform.
With a robust candidate sourcing software, recruiters can efficiently access and manage a large pool of talent and better understand their skills and qualifications.
Also, this software can help track and analyze the effectiveness of different sourcing strategies, allowing recruiters to make better data-driven decisions and continually improve their recruiting efforts.
Why do you need a candidate sourcing software for your business?
1. Build a better talent pool
A talent sourcing platform helps recruiters discover more candidates by accessing multiple channels simultaneously, including social media platforms.
Using this tool, you’ll get access to talent on platforms you probably couldn’t access manually.
You’ll also be able to assess every candidate much more thoroughly, from their skills and cultural fit to their background, helping you create a better and more efficient talent pool.
2. Target passive candidates
A candidate sourcing software can distill dozens of social media profiles into a customized structure in a matter of seconds.
This allows recruiters to vet even the most passive job seekers and create better communication with them.
3. Expand your outreach
A candidate sourcing software can integrate your applicant tracking system’s database with various hiring platforms, increasing your chances of identifying potential hires and building a diverse team.
By combining social networks, resume databases, job boards, and portfolio sites, a sourcing software helps hiring teams automatically connect and engage with more candidates (active and passive). This helps significantly boost your candidate outreach.
4. Reduce your time-to-hire
A candidate sourcing software can reduce your hiring time in the following ways:
- By automating the job posting process across various channels so that you don’t have to manually write and publish job ads on each platform.
- By automatically extracting relevant information from candidates’ profiles and storing it in your ATS database, saving time on manual data entry.
- By handling the initial screening and shortlisting of candidates based on preset criteria.
- By facilitating communication with applicants through automated emails to constantly keep them in the loop.
5. Quickly recruit for hard-to-fill roles
A sourcing software speeds up the process of finding candidates by a mile and also helps you reach every spot you can find talent.
This lets you locate top applicants for your open roles super fast and also find rare talent to fill tough positions.
It also enables you to evaluate bulk resumes based on specific keywords and search for them using filters and boolean strings.
This way, you can target candidates with desired skill sets without wasting time reviewing all profiles individually. This is especially useful when hiring for hard-to-fill positions.
What does a candidate sourcing software do?
Here are five key tasks a candidate sourcing software helps recruiters perform:
1. Write better job descriptions
A candidate sourcing software helps you outline a job’s requirements in posts, everything from skills to experience, so applicants can quickly look at the details and determine if they are a suitable fit for the role.
It also allows you to highlight essential pointers in the job description through various formatting options. This ensures that only qualified candidates apply for the role, saving recruiters time and effort.
2. Quickly evaluate & shortlist applicants
Sometimes, you may receive so many applications that it gets overwhelming to evaluate each manually. This is where a candidate sourcing software can help.
It matches the job description with relevant profiles to find the best candidate matches for the role in seconds and automatically pushes them to the interview stage.
3. Publish job posts across multiple channels
Posting your job advertisements on the right platforms is essential to find the best person for the role and to enhance your outreach.
A sourcing software can easily give you this exposure. It helps you post your job ads across hundreds of the best job portals out there with the click of a button so you can quickly find competent job seekers without compromising your requirements.
4. Find the best matches from your ATS database
You don’t need to constantly rely on job boards and social media platforms to attract applicants. The best candidates might already be sitting in your database, waiting for you to knock on their door.
Thankfully, an AI sourcing software can efficiently handle this task by scanning through your ATS database to find the best matches.
5. Effectively track & manage candidate applications
With a solid candidate sourcing software at your disposal, you can configure your recruitment workflow and track and manage candidates in each stage, like pre-screening, negotiation, interview, etc., efficiently through a single platform.
7 major features of a candidate sourcing software
Most modern-day candidate sourcing software include the following features:
1. Resume database
A talent sourcing software offers a database for you to store resumes and candidate profiles that can be searched and filtered based on specific criteria, such as skills, experience, and location, making it easier to find and review relevant applicants for a particular role.
2. Job board posting
The ability to post job listings on various job boards and social media platforms is one of the most sought-after features of a sourcing software.
It saves you so much time and effort since you no longer have to individually type in and post job ads on each platform. Instead, it can be done in a single click!
3. Automated communications
A good sourcing software provides customizable and easy-to-use email and message templates that can automate communication with candidates at various stages of the hiring process.
You can quickly and easily send interview invitations, follow-up messages, and more using these templates.
4. Interview scheduling
A solid sourcing solution also comes with the feature to coordinate and schedule interviews with candidates, including sending appointment reminders and tracking confirmations.
This is a super handy capability and should definitely come under your list of “must-have” software features.
5. Collaboration tools
A candidate sourcing software must include features like shared notes, candidate ratings, interview feedback, etc., that enable recruiters to work together and make informed hiring decisions.
6. Reporting & analytics
This one goes without saying! A robust talent sourcing platform offers detailed reports and insights into the performance of different sourcing platforms and the overall hiring process, helping recruiters channel their efforts in the right direction.
7. Applicant tracking system integration
As a standalone software, a candidate sourcing solution works great. But when integrated with an ATS, it ensures that all information is consistently updated and easily accessible, enhancing the productivity of hiring teams.
Top 5 reasons to invest in a candidate sourcing software
1. Increased efficiency
A candidate sourcing software can automate time-consuming manual, repetitive tasks, such as searching and filtering resumes, sending messages to candidates, scheduling interviews, data entry, etc.
This saves recruiters significant time and effort, allowing them to focus on more value-added work.
2. Improved candidate quality
With sophisticated search and filtering tools, a candidate sourcing software makes it easier for recruiters to find the most qualified candidates for a particular role, leading to better hiring decisions and improving the overall quality of hires.
3. Enhanced collaboration
A sourcing tool often includes collaboration tools that allow recruiters to work together more effectively.
For example, they can share candidate profiles, notes, and interview feedback with their team members within the software, which can improve communication efficiency as well as speed and help ensure a consistent and streamlined hiring process.
4. Increased control & coordination
Most modern-day talent sourcing software provide recruiters with a centralized database of all the candidates they have sourced, making it easier to track their progress and ensure no potential candidates are missed.
It can also generate reports and analytics that provide insights into the performance of different sourcing channels, allowing recruiters to determine where to focus their efforts on priority.
5. Better candidate experience
This solution allows you to automate so much of your workflow, including applicant communication, tracking, interview scheduling, and much more, creating a more streamlined hiring process and a memorable recruiting experience for your candidates.
Does your business need a candidate sourcing software?
Here are four major signs that your business might need to invest in a candidate sourcing software right away:
1. If you struggle to source qualified candidates
Is your recruitment agency struggling to find quality talent to fill open positions, despite regular attempts to improve your hiring practices and trying to reach candidates in various spots?
Then this might be the right time to consider investing in a talent sourcing tool to help you broaden your search, automate your workflow, and enhance candidate attraction strategies.
2. If you are stuck with time-consuming manual processes
If your hiring team spends too much time manually searching candidate profiles on social media or job boards, it might be best to shift the load to a recruiting software designed to source talent for you.
With its automation and customization features, such a tool can free up much of your team’s workload.
3. If you spend too much on recruitment
If you are spending all of your budget on recruitment activities or even exceeding it at times, investing in a candidate sourcing software might be an incredibly wise decision. It can give a solid ROI!
Using this tool, you’ll be able to automate administrative tasks and reduce your dependency on other third-party services, significantly cutting recruitment costs and saving you loads of time.
4. If you struggle with tracking & reporting
If your staffing firm needs help tracking the progress of its recruitment efforts and generating meaningful reports, it might be a good idea to invest in a candidate sourcing software.
This tool offers solid analytics to help you track applicants at various stages and provides valuable insights and data on the progress or failure of your recruitment strategies.
5 steps to easily implement a candidate sourcing software
Depending on the size and workflow of your business, the following five steps can help you successfully implement a candidate sourcing software:
Step 1: Define your requirements
The first step is to clearly understand and state your staffing agency’s requirements and reasons for investing in the software. This may include specific features, integration requirements, budget, etc.
Here are four questions to consider:
- What specific sourcing challenges is your team facing? Do you struggle to hire more remote candidates, or are you not receiving enough job applications? Jot down all such roadblocks on paper.
- Are there any particular features you are looking for in your sourcing software? For instance, the ability to put hyper-personalized candidate engagement on autopilot or Kanban boards for better tracking. Ensure that you segregate the “must-have” and “nice-to-have” features to better understand what you need.
- What is your budget? Most recruiting tools offer multiple tiers and subscription options. Ensure whatever software you choose fits within your budget.
- How easy is it to learn the particular software? Rather than spending weeks training your team on using the software, it is better to choose the user-friendly options.
Step 2: Evaluate available options
Research and compare different solutions available in the market to find the one that truly meets your needs.
Read reviews, ask for recommendations from other recruiters and HR professionals, and request demos to better understand the working and features of different software.
Step 3: Set up & configure
After you have chosen an ideal candidate sourcing software for your agency, sign a contract with the vendor and ask for their assistance in its setup and configuration.
This includes integrating the new software with your existing ATS + CRM system, setting up user accounts, and customizing the interface and reporting features.
Also, ask for adequate training and demo sessions to familiarize your team members with the software’s features and capabilities.
Step 4: Launch & monitor
Launch the software and monitor its performance regularly. Track key metrics, such as time to hire and cost per hire to evaluate the software’s effectiveness and identify any areas that need improvement.
Step 5: Evaluate & improve
Continuously evaluate and improve your sourcing processes, incorporating feedback from your recruiters and making changes to the software configuration as needed.
Mind that choosing the right candidate sourcing software for your staffing agency can be tricky if you don’t understand exactly what you need to achieve with the tool.
So, your priority should always be to sit down with your hiring managers and team to discuss the same before you start browsing online.
Once you get that right, you are good to go. We hope this article helps you make a sound choice!
P.S. If you’re looking for an AI-powered ATS + CRM solution, then check out Recruit CRM. Book a demo now to see it in action!
Frequently asked questions
1. Can a candidate sourcing software help with job descriptions?
Yes, a candidate sourcing software can assist in outlining a job’s requirements in posts, highlighting essential pointers in the job description through various formatting options. This ensures that only qualified candidates apply for the role, saving recruiters time and effort.
2. How does a candidate sourcing software help with evaluating and shortlisting applicants?
A candidate sourcing software can match the job description with relevant profiles to find the best candidate matches for the role in seconds and automatically pushes them to the interview stage.
3. Can a candidate sourcing software help find candidates from my existing ATS database?
Yes, an AI sourcing software can efficiently scan through your ATS database to find the best matches.
4. How does a candidate sourcing software help in tracking and managing candidate applications?
With a solid candidate sourcing software at your disposal, you can configure your recruitment workflow and track and manage candidates in each stage, like pre-screening, negotiation, interview, etc., efficiently through a single platform.
