It may seem obvious, but proactively sourcing candidates and making your jobs (and your brand) discoverable requires a focused strategy. Especially in today’s candidate shortage, find top talent quickly is critical to filling positions and staying in business.
A recruitment or staffing firm who has a solid proactive sourcing strategy will be able to enjoy a stacked pipeline regardless of the time of year or current candidate economy.
We aren’t saying finding great candidates is ever easy, but, using these strategic practices and recruitment technology integrations will help a ton.
We recommend combining the following candidate sourcing strategies with an integrated recruitment software, such as Tracker, to optimize the sourcing process through a series of integrated sourcing techniques and tools.
When it comes to sourcing candidates out of your own database, the process can often feel tedious and lacking. If your firm utilizes an effective ATS, and uses it effectively (bye bye post-it notes!), then sourcing out of your own data becomes a no brainer. After all, it’s your data.
There are tons of ways that your database can facilitate candidate sourcing. If it’s got the tech.
Here is what our team has found to be the most valuable ATS features for sourcing candidates.
You’ve likely already got some great candidates in your ATS or database; Tracker’s Candidate Search interface allows you to quickly search and match the right candidate with boolean search logic as well as over 80 customizable filter.
The results can be viewed, sorted, saved and shared with others, and displayed in a variety of formats from standard lists or as a geographical map showing the precise location of each Candidate in relation to to Job or Client.
Coupled with our intelligent ranking that compares both resume history alongside Tracker’s own CRM history, our Candidate Search is one of the most complete and sophisticated on the market.
Benefit from the application of AI to combine resume ranking methodology with candidate engagement.
“Artificial Intelligence” and “Machine Learning” are often terms banded around this industry and although much of this is not truly understood by users, we have been applying this across Tracker’s ranking engine for many years.
To put this into context, most job board aggregators rank their results using a methodology adopted by most mainstream systems which focus on the search terms you are seeking, weighted and ranked based on their recency and prevalence within the resumes of the Candidates.
Tracker’s AI Ranking constantly learns from the ongoing engagement with each individual during their life in Tracker and applies this in tandem with resume ranking to ensure the best candidates are presented each and every time.
Skills Profiling in combination with ranked Boolean searching allows for easily attained, highly targeted results with auto-coding.
Skills Profiling is fundamental to the categorization of Candidates, be that industrial knowledge, level of expertise or to identify those skills and attributes not literal within their resumes (such as a willingness to relocate or whether they are a graduate level candidate etc).
With auto skill coding we can also assess resumes as they come into Tracker and automatically apply common skills such as specific technical knowledge or skills we can imply from the presence of specific words, phrases or acronyms found in the resume.
You can also use the power of the Skill Profiling Tool to build Semantic Search dictionaries, allowing for highly targeted, relevant and productive searches, for example “HR” can be auto-coded and associated to all manner of “Human Resource” skills meaning all variants can be reviewed or searched automatically.
You can take candidate search to the next level with Tracker’s Auto Match. This automation is designed to ensure that all Candidates placed in Tracker are checked against your open jobs constantly.
Auto Match is designed to ensure that all Candidates placed in Tracker and checked against your open jobs constantly. Never miss a vacancy again by constantly matching new candidates to your open jobs.
By performing a reverse search, we can compare the resumes of all new Candidates against the search criteria defined on open jobs and alert Consultants that they may be suitable for their role automatically.
Recruiters enjoy the complete control of configuring their auto match rules based on the skills, location, job title, and more. Additionally, depending on the need, recruiters can match candidates to an existing job req OR can match job postings to a particular candidate.
Auto Match takes a tedious and manual task and automates it so recruiters can get on with narrowing down their list of top candidate, and making connections.
These functions are core to our workflow with unrivaled functionality allowing recruiters to take action.
Finding Candidates whether within an active job or just scanning the database needs to be fast, relevant and as comprehensive as required. Make sure the staffing tech you use allows for your team to do more (by doing less).
Long Lists can be built automatically from the Job Specification and with over 80 filters available, even the most detailed Long List searches can be performed.
Our proprietary ranking methodology that combined resume ranking with candidate engagement history with Tracker ensures the best presented directly alongside your Job Board search results allowing a logical flow through the working of your lists.
Candidates can be Shortlisted with a single click and personalized template emails or texts can be bulk sent from either list making the engagement with both prospective and in-process candidates simple to track.
Our desire to ensure that every aspect of the recruitment process can be actioned directly within the Shortlist, be that reformatting resumes, sending interview confirmations to all parties or sending offer/placement confirmations, this is one of the most productive aspects of Tracker.
The trouble is, in many industries, you are dealing with dozens of separate and unique job boards.
You could log into all of your job boards separately, search with each boards unique criteria, attempt to import the good candidates, or add them manually into your database. This does not sound fun to us.
Luckily, there is a better way.
If you’re looking to save time and improve outcomes with your candidate sourcing on job boards, check out these job board sourcing features by Tracker.
Tracker’s fully integrated Job Board Search feature is a great place to begin, with the ability to search all of your job boards alongside your Tracker candidates from one screen and one results list.
This tool allows recruiters to search all subscription and free job boards all at one time. Results are automatically de-duplicated and ranked so you can quickly see the best candidates from everywhere in one single list.
Search hundreds of job boards including the free job boards using the industry leading search from Daxtra and with the license included in our Job Board plan, there are no 3rd party license agreements required to instantly start searching and collating key candidates.
“I don’t search job boards individually anymore as I do this alongside the candidates in the database. It is quick to search and use the system so it’s a real time saver.” – Tracker User
Automate sourcing by letting Tracker automatically crawl and monitor your job boards for new candidates.
Watchdogs allow your consultants to configure a sophisticated search in their Job, watching each of your Job Boards for new candidates that match, on a daily basis. If a candidate updates their profile and now becomes a great fit, Watchdogs will send an on-screen alert for follow-up. How would your recruiters like to wake up to new opportunities with only a few simple clicks to set it up?
Watchdogs can be started Job by Job, or generic Watchdogs can be setup to scan the job boards for any new Candidates within a specific geography and/or with specific skills. Coupled with our Auto Match feature you can ensure that relevant candidates are found and matched to your open jobs with zero touch, filling your recruitment pipeline with the best and most recent Candidates constantly.
On top of this, you can combine Watchdogs with Auto-Parse and Auto-Engage features to further optimize (and automate) your candidate sourcing. Put simply, your Tracker Watchdogs crawl the job boards every night to find new Candidates, process them and automatically send them a personalized email from the recruiter. Complete and automated candidate sourcing.
Leverage your own database for faster placements, and unlock the value of your talent pool.
Auto Match is designed to ensure that all Candidates placed in Tracker and checked against your open jobs constantly. Never miss a vacancy again by constantly matching new candidates to your open jobs.
By performing a reverse search, we can compare the resumes of all new Candidates against the search criteria defined on open jobs and alert Consultants that they may be suitable for their role automatically.
Recruiters enjoy the complete control of configuring their auto match rules based on the skills, location, job title, and more. Additionally, depending on the need, recruiters can match candidates to an existing job req OR can match job postings to a particular candidate.
Auto Match takes a tedious and manual task and automates it so recruiters can get on with narrowing down their list of top candidate, and making connections.
Content Marketing
Creating and promoting content marketing geared toward your audience is an essential way for firms to get awareness and grow. It doesn’t have to be hard. Lean on your subject-matter-experts for quick bites of information that you can use to draw in and engage your candidates.
This could include:
Job Posting Webpages
Now, for sourcing directly to open positions, having your job postings discoverable and online is critical. You may already be manually posting job pages each time you get a new req. But that can be extremely time consuming and leave a lot of room for lags and errors.
You really need an ATS-integrated job engine with search optimized job postings linked directly on your website. Bonus points for hosting it on a subpage or even a subdomain to help build your main site’s authority.
Jobs+ is an automated career microsite we build and host for your firm, enabling the automation of posting jobs to your website. Further, this integration helps further drive website traffic, convert applications and improve overall SEO performance of your website.
Tracker can already post jobs out to your entire job board network, so combining with Jobs+ further amplifies your postings while driving the authority of your own website.
Job postings are automatically SEO’d or search optimized, giving you the best possible opportunity of ranking high on Google, Google for Jobs, and other search engines.
Additionally, you can further amplify your job postings with automated candidate job alert emails and social media sharing.
Top talent is constantly seeking job openings, so as a talent acquisition team or staffing agency, it’s vital to use technology that can monitor and report on a 24/7 basis so you don’t miss opportunities.
Automation by Tracker enables your entire business to streamline and enhance current processes, allowing you to easily manage more clients, find more qualified candidates, and grow your bottom line. In addition to using technology to build a more effective recruitment process, it also saves you and your hiring managers time.
In fact, recruitment marketing automation tools are becoming so important that 58% of Staffing and Recruiting Firms Surveyed plan to grow with recruitment automation & technology in 2021.
Recruitment automation tools are software that’s specifically designed for the recruitment process. Using recruitment marketing automation can support finding the best talent, streamlining or improving your current process, increasing productivity, improving accuracy, and using data to drive the best match between candidate and job opening.
Using recruitment automation means faster placements, better placements, and more margin for you. It’s combining data with automation to create efficiencies that enhance the overall experience for recruiters, clients, and candidates.
Source and Engage Passive Candidates in Your Database with an Automated Sequence of Emails with Smart Status and Field Updates, Triggered Off a Passive Candidates Lack of Activity, Resume, Data and More.
Using your ATS’s built-in CRM (or Tracker), you should be able to build out a drip campaign or sequence of touch-points to engage with these sourced candidates.
What would this look like? A customized introduction email with the specific job highlights, how your firm works, an automated reminder to followup with a phone call, etc. Maybe even an automated follow-up text to assure they received the email.
In Tracker, you can create a custom sequence of branded and designed email templates and workflow automations. All of these emails and text messages templates in Tracker include dynamic and custom fields, so your communications always feel personal and deliberate.
These sequences are a great tool to engage and build relationships without having to send one-off emails to each candidate, and create reminders for yourself.
No one wants to be working with inaccurate information. Plus, putting together candidate profiles can be one of the most time-consuming tasks. Forget having your team members manually create candidate profiles and let technology work for you.
An ATS, like Tracker, can quickly create accurate candidate profiles pulled directly from sources like LinkedIn, email, and more. And they will also update automatically, ensuring you are never moving forward with inaccurate data.
Never miss a vacancy again by constantly matching new Candidates to your open jobs whenever or wherever they come from. Tracker’s Auto Match is designed to ensure that all Candidates placed in Tracker and checked against your open jobs constantly.
By performing a reverse search, we can compare the resumes of all new Candidates against the search criteria defined on open jobs and alert Consultants that they may be suitable for their role automatically.
How much time is your team taking to create, optimize, and post open jobs across your network? Probably more time than you’d like. Tracker allows you to quickly publish jobs to your website, social media, as well as over 1,000 job boards, with one click.
Save your team hours of time each week by not having to author and post to multiple job boards and process applicants in the inbox
On the flip side of job board posting is sourcing. Using automation like Tracker’s Watchdogs feature can help you automatically source, match, and engage candidates from job boards.
And the best part about using automation is that it works 24/7. So while your team is sleeping, Watchdogs is scouring the job boards for the best matches. Your team gets to start their day with prospects rather than having to search the sites for hours themselves.
On top of this, our Watchdogs offer Auto-Parse and Auto-Engage which are game-changers for recruiters! Put simply, your open Jobs can crawl the job boards every night to find new Candidates, process them and automatically send them a personalized email from the Consultant requesting a call back first thing in the morning. Again with zero touch!
Wouldn’t it be amazing if you could have a list of all the best potential candidates based on their skills, qualifications, and other requirements of the job? Sure, you can shuffle through resumes and papers to create this, but why do that if technology can?
Being able to quickly rank candidates is a small, but incredibly supportive task that is easily automated using a robust ATS.
Tracker takes ranking a step further using AI Ranking, which accounts not only for a candidate’s skills and certifications, but also their history within the system, giving you a more rounded applicant picture.
From clients to candidates, one of the most important (and often overlooked) tasks is consistent communication. Through automation, you can ensure you’re never forgetting to send that email or update on the status of an applicant or job.
These days, the last thing you want is a poor candidate experience due to lack of communication. Using automation and workflows, Tracker allows you to build customized templates and sequences of communications, then determine the type and timing of communication pieces based on actions taken (or triggers).
Automation allows you not only to communicate the necessary, but also take it one step further and build better relationships through more consistent communications.
The more positions you can fill effectively, the more you can take on, allowing for growth.
But how do you find the best candidates in less time? We recommend using an integrated recruitment software, like Tracker, to optimize the candidate sourcing process through a series of integrated sourcing techniques and tools.
Tracker offers intuitive and time-saving features to support your recruitment team in sourcing the most qualified candidates efficiently. Our multitude of candidate sourcing features allow you and your team to work smarter, not harder for all around success.
Social Media Sourcing
Candidate sourcing is taking place more than you may think on social media platforms.
These channels also play a big role in candidate decision making based on brand, culture, and reviews. Not to mention helping candidates discover your job postings.
To broaden your candidate attraction and job posting footprint, social media needs to be in your mix. And, it doesn’t have to be every social platform known to man. Do some research and testing, then pick the one (or ones) that engage your audience best.
It’s important to find your sweet spot when it comes to the various platforms available, and your particular audience. From Facebook to LinkedIn to Doximity to Snapchat, depending on your market, you will want to have a unique approach to sourcing on social channels.
Stats on Social Media for Sourcing from G2:
Key Social Media Sourcing Features in Tracker:
1. Jobs+ Website Integration
With Tracker’s Jobs+ Website integration, your firm can automatically optimize and distribute your Job postings with our Jobs+ service which sits seamlessly alongside your existing website.
Job postings are automatically SEO’d with Google’s recommended structured data and formatting, giving you the best possible opportunity of ranking high on Google and other search engines. All of your jobs in the Jobs+ environment are Google for Jobs optimized.
Additionally, you can alert candidates automatically by email when new job opportunities appear on your career site, as well as, Jobs+ can be configured with your existing social media systems such as Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and more.
Jobs+ remains at the cutting edge of emerging technology and trends, and with Tracker, your career site will remain up to date with the latest software changes and update.
2. LinkedIn X-Ray Search
Search LinkedIn for Candidates within Tracker; Supports LinkedIn Recruiter and Lite.
Tracker’s X-Ray Search gives recruiters unlimited access to the entire LinkedIn database, regardless of network. When using this feature, recruiters can quickly and easily find and create candidate contacts instantly into Tracker from LinkedIn.
3. One-Click Post to Social Media
Configure Tracker with your existing social media properties for 1-click job postings to your profiles from Tracker.
With our fully integrated partnerships with the leading multi-posters such as Broadbean and LogicMelon, your core posting service is included in our Job Board plan meaning no 3rd party contracts required.
On top of this, new applicants can be auto-mated to other open Jobs ensuring you maximize their potential the second they arrive in Tracker.
4. LinkedIn Extension
Our LinkedIn Extension provides you with a browser sidebar tool to capture individual candidates and contacts and import them directly into your Tracker system.
People can be imported directly into Tracker as either Contacts or Candidates and assigned directly to your Job Shortlist or Long List. All without leaving LinkedIn or even having to login to Tracker.
Features include the ability to view comprehensive “resume” level data for anyone on the current page where you can collapsible sections to make the record readable and reviewable.
Created Candidates have full job history loaded alongside any of the fields on the page which can be reviewed and updated as required before importing, enabling an even more powerful search for candidates.
5. Paiger Integration
At Tracker, we are lucky to partner with one of the premier social enabling platforms on the market, Paiger. With Tracker + Paiger, your jobs and other relevant content get pushed out to all of your channels at once, as well as to your employees profiles as desired. It doesn’t only save your entire team time, but it amplifies your reach incredibly.
Want to learn more about recruiting on social media?