Beyond deeper and more meaningful candidate relationships, direct sourcing allows a business to leverage (and manage) its culture and brand to attract recruits that are easily engaged for future projects and initiatives. Hearing long-employed (and loyal) HR and business professionals discuss the traits and culture of their organization is a more significant and credible way to learn about a potential employer than through the words of a recruiter with a commission on the line. The informal testimonials of the internal hiring teams can effectively build engagement and ultimately, worker loyalty.
While the talent curation part of direct sourcing typically takes time to develop, most organizations possess an innate ability to identify strong cultural fits and highly-desirable skillsets. Additionally, the ability of internal recruiters, HR, and hiring managers to collaborate and tailor job searches to a unique team, manager, project, or location is unmatched when dealing with outside recruiters.
The level of nuance can be akin to the difference between a surgeon and a butcher. The ability to increase recruiting precision can be particularly valuable when businesses are managing specific skills-based recruiting initiatives.
Given the current challenges to find and retain top talent, leading HR organizations are investing in ways to improve the “candidate experience” (similar to the “customer experience”), where every aspect is designed to be positive, engaging, and beneficial to the recruit.
In a market where the candidate holds more power than ever before, compensation and benefits, employment perks, AND the employer’s credentials (i.e., brand, culture, vision, values, etc.) can play a major role in attracting a qualified candidates. This will continue to be true as an increasing number of candidates are incorporating their personal views on an organization’s culture and brand into their decision-making.
While the candidate experience is critical, the hiring manager experience should also be considered. Hiring managers are often on the front lines of the war for talent and must account for:
- The specific needs of each role, position, and project.
- The intricate requirements of a multifaceted talent acquisition strategy that balances direct hire, job boards, talent marketplaces, staffing suppliers, etc.
- The necessary data and intelligence to make faster, more educated talent and hiring decisions.
- The proper balance between the human touch, automation, and third-party services, etc. that can be used to find, engage, and source high-quality talent.
Traditional recruitment is not typically seen as scalable due to the manual work often associated with it, while direct sourcing relies heavily on hiring teams to drive activity, scalability, and value. Just as HR leaders are realizing that candidates should be treated like customers, hiring managers also need an experience that is seamless and boundaryless.
Business and HR leaders must also arm their hiring managers with the necessary resources, technologies, and capabilities to effectively tap into different talent pools without the worry of internal barriers or archaic inertia. To achieve this, digitization of key direct sourcing processes is vital.
