Sourcing Today – So How Did What Happened Happen?

Editor’s Note: Should sourcers be engaging candidates? Maureen Sharib weighs in on the debate. Do you agree with her? Let us know in the comments section below.

79% of all sourcers surveyed in 2013 were required to do that first touch piece of recruiting today as part and parcel to their jobs.

In other words – sourcers are required (by their employers) to find the person and THEN call the person to see if they’d be interested in the employer’s job.

This isn’t what sourcing started out as.

Sourcing was meant to be the FIND piece and then the FIND was meant to be developed by the recruiter.

Tell the truth – did you become a sourcer so you could talk to people about jobs???

Sourcers, you’ve been sucked in to doing something you never wanted to do in the first place – how did that happen?

Here’s how it happened.

You were content to do something that became valued less and less because it became automated more and more and offshored more and more until it came to the point where your employers needed someone with a U.S. voice to reach out to talk with the U.S. candidate that all the automated lists and all the off-shored teams were creating at a few dollars a day, to engage the U.S. candidate in the process because the RoboVoice can’t do it and the teams offshore can’t do it effectively.

Get it?

They need YOU and there you sit bearing up under this blunt-force trauma with the unhappy nomer “Sourcing Recruiter” which really equates to “Frustrated Sourcer” or “Junior Recruiter” which is what they wanted all along and sure, there are a handful of you who are going to make the crossover and do well as recruiters and God bless you and Godspeed on your journey but there’s a boatload of people who don’t want it, don’t like it and want to be doing it another way!

I understand many of you reading this are working for companies and won’t be able to comment on this other than to refute what I’m saying here (and that’s okay – I know your jobs are hard to come by) but consider what I’m saying and go talk amongst yourselves.

All of this is contributing to the “Recruiting is broken” cry that’s gaining momentum today and the smart money is going to start paying attention.

Will it be you?

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