Sourcing for candidates…does that phrase send chills down your spine? It is not that you don’t know how to find good candidates using traditional methods like newspaper ads, job postings, job fairs, etc. Rather, it’s the ever increasing need to use the Internet as a tool to source those hard to find candidates that’s giving recruiters so much trouble. Sourcing from the Internet may be new to many, but not to everyone. Now that the Internet is more accepted as a useful tool for sourcing it now comes down to a matter of time, training, knowledge, and understanding of how to effectively use this great tool to your advantage. As unemployment hovers around 4%, companies are beginning to realize that to get their products out the door or to stay one step ahead of their competitors, they must win the war for talent. The burden of winning that war is usually given to the Human Resource Department or, more specifically, the recruiters. The real question that is arising today is: How can a recruiter be a master of so many critical tasks under such difficult recruiting circumstances? The burden of hiring falls solely on their shoulders. Like it or not, the success of a company may be directly affected by how well a recruiter can source and hire candidates as quickly as possible. Because the recruiter’s job has become more time consuming, companies are now beginning to look at a new model to source candidates. Human Resources/Staffing departments are now hiring employees whose sole job is to source candidates from the Internet. This is definitely a step in the right direction?provided that they are hiring the right type of person for the job. I have run across many companies that say that they have hired an internal Sourcing Specialist. I commend them for taking that bold step, but I do so cautiously. What I find many times is that the person who has been hired to do the sourcing is not a qualified sourcer at all. The following are some of the common mistakes that many Human Resource Departments make when hiring a Sourcing Specialist:
Having a person who is solely dedicated to sourcing can be a very positive undertaking if you are careful to avoid some of the major pitfalls. There is no way of avoiding them all?but if you can steer clear of the major ones addressed here, you should be on your way to having a more effective way to source candidates.