For a leader setting goals for members of a sourcing team, the largest challenge is often the lack of having a historical benchmark. Sourcing metrics are often quite different from recruitment metrics but recruitment metrics can offer a good place to begin. If you have several recruiters who recruit for a specialized skill set, it can be good practice to address their performance benchmarks when setting goals for a sourcer.
Here is a scenario to explain how you can go about setting expectations for sourcers.
There are 4 recruiters who recruit for BA position currently in the company.
| Recruiter | BA Hires | Total Hires |
| A | 37 | 179 |
| B | 55 | 132 |
| C | 12 | 277 |
| D | 60 | 105 |
Using this data, it’s possible to approximate average time spend on both on each position as well as specifically on each BA role. In order to solve this, it requires setting up several equations and averaging the results.
Let x= average hours to fill a BA position
Let y=average hours to fill the other positions
Then, using the example:
Recruiter 1: 37x+142y=2000
Recruiter 2: 55x+77y=2000
Recruiter 3: 12x+265y=2000
Recruiter 4: 60x+45y=2000
Solving:
| Equations | x | y |
| 1&2 | 26.2 | 7.3 |
| 3&4 | 28.6 | 6.3 |
| 1&3 | 30.4 | 6.2 |
| 2&4 | 29.8 | 4.7 |
| 1&4 | 28.3 | 6.7 |
| 2&3 | 27.5 | 6.3 |
| Average | 28.4 | 6.3 |
Using this average working time per hire, you can calculate a realistic number of hires goal based on a full time head count working on this type of role. In this case it should be an annual goal of 70 hires (2000/28.4 = 70). Sourcers can typically fill more reqs than recruiters based on the similarity of the role and the ability to repurpose candidates so it would be fair to use this as a baseline. There are a number of other considerations that should be accounted for including business climate, needs, labour market, reputation and many more. These mitigating and aggravating factors will be addressed in more detail in part 2 of this article (coming soon).