10 Talent Sourcing Strategies to Streamline the Process

As with all other elements of your small business recruitment process, regularly analyzing and improving your talent sourcing strategy — that is, your process for sourcing talent — is a must.

By reviewing specific facets of your recruitment strategy, like your job descriptions and employer brand, as well as your overall sourcing and recruiting approach, you can ensure your HR team and hiring managers add lots of top job applicants and other ideal candidates to your talent pool.

How to improve your talent sourcing strategy

Your SMB may not have an expansive talent acquisition strategy like enterprises. But, a common thread between your recruiting approach and those of bigger brands is the need to constantly evaluate and enhance their talent sourcing strategies to better identify qualified candidates.

Here are 10 tips to help you strengthen your talent sourcing strategy from hiring experts.

1) Upgrade your HR/TA tech stack

Improving your HR tech stack is the best way to streamline your talent sourcing process.

One of the simplest solutions is to implement an AI chatbot on your recruitment page. This will help you to filter out some applicants that require certain benefits or schedules that you don’t support.

If you can get these active job seekers to answer pre-screening questions via these chatbots before they actually submit an application, you can save time for everyone involved.

The next step is to implement a recruiting database. This will help you convert resumes and applications to actionable data and learn which candidate sources yield the best-quality talent.

• Phil Strazzulla, Select Software Reviews

2) Create the right promotional landing pages

Create one landing page with the applicant tracking system (ATS) input form or any other type of data collection tool and promote that across job portals, social media, and internal references.

This will ensure that all sources of applicants eventually reach that single point of entry and their data is collected in a standardized and consistent manner within your recruitment software of choice.

• Joe Flanagan, VelvetJobs

3) Address sourcing flaws to speed up the process

Measure the time it takes to hire someone and make changes accordingly if it takes too long. A lengthy hiring process can result in HR teams losing out on qualified candidates to other companies. 

You need to know who and what you are looking for in a candidate with your talent sourcing efforts, and then tailor your procedures to fit those parameters. Implementing pre-screening through online surveys is a great way to shorten the process and ensure a smaller, more qualified pool of candidates.

• Jon Schneider, Recruiterie

4) Attract talent with mentorship opportunities

Mentoring helps attract the best and the brightest talent. Social networking sites like Student Doctors Network and Doctors Hangout enable student doctors and nurses to receive advice and assistance through all phases of their studies. 

And for healthcare professionals in private practice, these sites provide opportunities to mentor future workers. And it also allows you to identify top talent you may want to recruit in the future.

• Zachary Okhah, PH-1 Miami

5) Build quality relationships with top candidates

You’ll want to keep in touch with top candidates for potential opportunities, especially as a small business. For qualified talent you don’t want to lose, consider meeting with them informally every so often. Then, once you do have open positions for these prospective applicants, they’ll remember the effort you put into building the relationship and be more interested in applying. 

• Connor MacDonald, The Ridge Wallet

6) Ask potential hires questions ahead of time

Take a look at the way potential candidates are pre-screened. Offering them an online questionnaire or survey ahead of time can help you weed out candidates who might not be a good fit.

This will also save time because you’ll narrow down the list of applicants before you take the time to interview them. You can also automate the online Qs to save your talent team even more time.

• Sheila Chaiban, One Ocean Beauty

7) Publish your postings on multiple job boards

One of my personal favorites when it comes to candidate sourcing is the ability to post the same ad across multiple job boards in one click. I love this feature, which in my opinion, should always be part of any HR software platform worth its salt.

The ability to cherry-pick the sites where the job posting appears is a tremendous time-saver. And, if done wisely, it can also be used as an excellent way to boost the quality of the applicant pool.

• Peter Bryla, ResumeLab

8) Limit your talent sourcing touchpoints

Not only will simplifying the talent sourcing process help you, but it’ll also engage the candidate. Look at the number of touchpoints in your typical outreach approach and requests for information, then try to streamline and, as needed, reduce them. It’ll make your life easier and the candidate happier.

• Nicole Fernandes, Blu Ivy Group

9) Invest in an applicant tracking system (ATS)

Just like any trade, you have specialized tools to do the job at hand. A carpenter does not rely on his hammer to do his job but uses it to create something great. The ATS should be used in the same way. Do not rely on your ATS to source, screen, and hire candidates. Use it to create a human connection — the greatest tool any recruiter can use.

• Andrew Aziz, The Breeze Performance Model

10) Be highly proactive with candidate outreach

You must be proactive. Any companies that post jobs and wait to be reactive will be left behind in today’s market. Instead of waiting for active candidates to come to you, reach out directly to passive candidates and do your best to engage them with an appealing value proposition for their careers.

• Chad Bean, Ignite Recruitment

Learn how JazzHR can enhance your talent sourcing strategy and help you add more qualified candidates to your pipeline. Book a demo with our team to get more info about our ATS.