What is an effective candidate sourcing strategy?

Faced with recruitment difficulties and increasingly connected candidates, HR firms are forced to implement different sourcing strategies to attract and engage candidates and differentiate themselves.

Recruitment has become a real battle. With more and more open positions, the number of qualified and available candidates is dwindling. Choices are becoming scarce. Therefore, it's increasingly important to source candidates effectively in order to recruit the best profiles .

Thanks to new technologies and other applications, it is becoming easier to implement well-established recruitment processes and to effectively track candidate sourcing .

In this article, our experts explain which strategies to adopt to stand out from the crowd. 

The essentials: 

• Sourcing is a process that allows you to search for and identify potential candidates who meet a recruitment need.
• A well-thought-out strategy allows you to gain efficiency, increase your visibility and build a pool of relevant candidates .
• Your sourcing strategy is based on 4 key steps: defining your need , identifying communication channels , creating your approach message and preparing for the qualification interview .

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What is sourcing?

Definition of sourcing 

In many fields, finding candidates is becoming complicated . Indeed, the number of companies recruiting is constantly increasing, leading to an oversaturation of candidates on the market. For example, a developer might receive around ten applications per week in their LinkedIn or email inbox.

In this context, it is more crucial than ever for recruitment agencies to adopt a sourcing strategy . What is sourcing? It's a process that aims to search for and identify potential candidates who meet a recruitment need.

To be more specific, sourcing can be broken down into 4 steps: 

1. Defining the need (to understand the ideal profile for the position)
2. The search for the candidate (mainly on LinkedIn, but not exclusively)
3. Prospecting (sending the most appropriate message to the candidate to maximize their chances of getting a response)
4. The qualification phase (a screening call to delve into the candidate's background, ambitions, and assess their fit with the client's offering)

Why is it important to define a sourcing strategy? 

Be careful not to rush headlong into sourcing! Without a strategy in place, you risk a very low response rate from candidates. You'll then waste a lot of time and energy for very little return. The primary objective is to prioritize quality over quantity. 

More and more sourcing tools, such as Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS), are helping recruitment agencies find candidates more quickly and efficiently. In addition to significant time and cost savings , these solutions provide you with more qualified profiles that better match your needs.

Time is the current constraint for recruitment agencies. By adopting a good sourcing strategy, you'll be sure to save time! 

How to define an effective sourcing strategy?

As you can see, the stakes behind a good sourcing strategy are considerable. Here are the four key steps to properly define your sourcing strategy.

Define the needs

One of the first challenges of sourcing is to fully understand the client's needs. 

The goal is to define the ideal candidate as precisely as possible : what skills are required, what studies are best suited to the position, who are the client's competitors where the ideal candidate could work, etc. Ask yourself as many questions as possible to fully understand the client's needs.

In recruitment, this is called defining a candidate persona . Defining the persona means trying to imagine what the ideal future candidate for your client would be like. Don't hesitate to be as specific as possible by asking yourself what their motivators, personality, and personal and professional goals would be.

Be careful not to over-personalize your ideal candidate . Creating a candidate persona should help you better understand the candidate you're looking for, but it shouldn't limit your search. Above all, avoid focusing on discriminatory criteria such as gender, age, or origin.

The more precisely the need is defined, the easier the search for candidates will be. 

Search for candidates

We're getting to the heart of the sourcing strategy! Once the need is identified, you can start looking for the ideal candidate. 

LinkedIn remains the primary source for finding candidates . It's a very practical tool for finding candidates directly based on their past experiences, education, and skills. Simply enter relevant keywords into the search bar to find candidates for your clients.

Don't hesitate to be creative when prospecting on LinkedIn! Also, look at LinkedIn posts and comments – it's a good way to identify potential candidates interested in your clients' offers.

But LinkedIn isn't the only option! There are a growing number of specialized networks where candidates showcase their work and portfolios . If you're looking for a designer, check out Behance. If your client needs a developer, look at projects on GitHub or posts on Y Combinator. Platforms like Malt are also great ways to quickly find interesting freelance profiles.

You can also browse online CV databases , such as APEC, Pôle emploi, Monster, Indeed, Kickbox Open, Keljob, or Cadremploi. To search for candidates effectively, don't forget Boolean search . This technique allows you to search databases for candidates who exactly match your recruitment needs. You can also use it on LinkedIn to save time!

Finally, don't forget physical events such as conferences, meet-ups, or career fairs at schools and universities. These are great ways to easily recruit candidates interested in your clients' offers.

In short, be creative and adapt to the sector in which you are recruiting. 

Maintaining a pool of candidates is also essential; it's the best way to capitalize on past interactions and searches. This strategy will cost you the least in time and energy while delivering the best results! Marvin Recruiter allows you to effectively manage your candidate database and create customized lists to implement this strategy.

We recommend implementing employee referral programs. This can be a good way to attract new candidates. 

Posting job ads on multiple job boards isn't exactly a sourcing strategy, since it's the candidate who comes to you, not the other way around. But be warned: this strategy might bring in a few interesting applications, but it's very expensive, with no guarantee of hiring or placing the candidate. In a "war for talent," the visibility of job postings is reduced, and you risk quickly finding yourself having to pay extra to appear at the top of search results.

For more sourcing technique ideas, you can read our article on how to source candidates when you have little or no budget .

Time to start prospecting!

So, you've found some profiles that interest you! Now it's a matter of approaching them to make them want to learn more about your offer and to talk with you.

Candidates receive far more requests than you might think. To connect with your candidate, it's therefore essential to personalize your message . Otherwise, it will be forgotten.

Without personalization, your message risks lacking relevance and not getting a response .

One way to grab their attention and hopefully secure an initial qualification meeting is to start your message by talking about them . You can mention what interests you about their profile, a specific experience, or a unique characteristic.

Only then should you explain your approach , who you are, and why you're contacting him and not someone else. This allows you to give him information about the client and the position, giving him something to think about.

If you want to send messages easily and on a large scale, feel free to use automation tools like Walaxy or any LinkedIn scraping tool (Phantombuster, Captain Data, etc.). Simply export your candidate list from your database (or from an ATS like Marvin Recruiter) and import it into Walaxy for prospecting. You'll save a lot of time! 

Preparing for the qualification interview

At this final stage, communication is also crucial. This interview is likely the first round of the recruitment process, so you will need to share your discussion and analysis with the other team members involved.

At this stage, we advise you to keep all candidate data and information.

During the qualification interview, prepare a list of questions you want to ask in advance to ensure you have enough information to decide whether or not to present them to your clients . This could include:

• His current missions and accomplishments have had a positive impact on the company.
• His ambitions for the rest of his career, what he aims for professionally
• His hard skills : his skills, his training.

It's also up to you to identify the factors that will sway the candidate! Are they looking for a position with remote work options? What are their location criteria? Their salary expectations? What type of company and sectors attract them?

At the end of this interview, you should be able to determine if the candidate matches your requirements and whether it is worthwhile to continue the interview process , or to add them to your shortlist for future opportunities. If so, you should then summarize the situation:

• How did you find it?
• The information communicated and received
• Detail the candidate's skills

This initial interview will allow you to fully understand your candidate's background and ambitions.

Organized monitoring is highly recommended at this stage. Many integrated recruitment tracking solutions to help you keep your processes as up-to-date as possible, such as Applicant ATS

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As you will have understood, adopting a sourcing strategy offers many advantages.

In addition to enabling you to find qualified profiles , a meticulous strategy allows you to gain efficiency , increase your reputation and build a pool of relevant candidates that can be used for future recruitment.

Finally, remember that creating a recruitment sourcing strategy is an experimental and iterative process . Closely monitoring the results of your sourcing strategy will allow you to continuously improve it.

Want to make better use of your candidate database? Discover Marvin Recruiter software, designed to cut your sourcing time in half!

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