Proactive, Strategic Talent Sourcing

Proactive, Strategic Talent Sourcing: Technology-Enabled Proprietary Candidate Databases
By Michelle J. Spellerberg, CareerBuilder.com

Finding qualified talent is a constant problem in the recruiting and staffing industry -- a problem that is about to get bigger. This scarce talent pool combined with a 14.8% growth in employment by 2014, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, means it is important to be proactive in sourcing and retaining talent. Now more than ever you are competing will companies of all sizes and in all industries to build a quality talent pool. Handling open job requisitions as single events or sourcing one-offs will not keep you ahead of your competition. When you source only as new job openings arise, you are competing with many other recruiters from not only staffing and recruiting firms but also corporate America. Because you do not have a solid candidate pool of your own to start with, you are making your job harder and more time-consuming. In fact, your talent acquisition costs, as well as your time-to-fill ratio for jobs sourced as they come in, are always higher than if you can source from a pool of qualified candidates you already know. It is for this reason in this candidate centric market that we spend 50% of our time working with highly qualified and highly motivated candidates in the rubber & plastics industry.
We must be proactive and start sourcing more candidates now to ensure our long-term success. However, this process does not necessarily start with the actual sourcing of candidates. Implementing this new business strategy takes more than good sourcing methods; it takes technology. Technology that lets us easily manage a large pool of qualified candidates, even when those candidates don't match current client needs. MRI Hendersonville maintains a very large database of candidates and partners with the other Recruiters in the MRI Network that maintain similar desk specialties to better serve our client needs.

Our Centralized Processes and Technology give us a good start for implementing our new strategy by centralizing all recruiting and staffing processes. Make your applicant tracking system, human resource information system, or recruiting system the hub for all your recruiting and staffing activities. Store all information about candidates, jobs, and clients in a centralized place. By using one system, it lets you streamline all staffing and recruiting activities so you don't waste time searching through paper resumes or pulling old interviews from other recruiters' folders. You can move quicker than your competitors with a centralized system. It will help you build a talent pool before you need it and one that includes candidates your competition has never even heard of. Second, integrate your one internal system with other technology solutions, such as job boards, screening systems, and background checks. Obviously, one of the most important things to do is to streamline your job-posting process. By using a screen-scraping program provided by your technology vendors, you can automatically pull information off a site and post it to another site. You can also work with job site vendors to cross-post jobs, which means posting one job that posts to multiple sites at the same time. For example, when a new open requisition comes in and you complete the job description, you can have it automatically posted to your company's Web site, a job board, and a local organization. This saves you valuable time. Moreover, once you post a job, many tracking systems will provide you with candidates that match. Your ATS may provide you with some leads and your job board with other leads.

Next MRI Hendersonville creates a centralized place for candidates to enter their information, resume, and even cover letter when they apply for open positions. We direct all potential candidates to our own system on our Web site or use third-party solution that will automatically upload candidate information into your company's network.

Fourth, we have a communication system that lets you keep in constant contact with potential candidates. This will help you build a strong relationship with potential candidates and create strong company brand. Keep candidates abreast of open positions for which they are qualified and even company news that shows you care about the candidates.

The last step, of course, is to decide which jobs you need to proactively source. Working on your most frequently requested requisitions, as well as your hard-to-fill positions, is a good place to start. Make sure you specify solid requirements for the jobs so you grab quality candidates (High Impact Players). And once you speak with one of the quality candidates, make sure to network and find out if they know anyone with similar qualifications that might be interested in openings. Please allow us to demonstrate how we can help you with your critical staffing needs in this very difficult Candidate Centric Market.