Are you interested in recruitment? In the past, people used to look at job adverts in daily newspapers to find applicants, but today the options are much greater. The active search for suitable candidates can be summarised under the term active sourcing.
Active sourcing encompasses all measures for identifying promising candidates on the external labour market. The aim is not only to fill acute vacancies, but also to maintain contacts and relationships and build up a talent or candidate pool from which the company can draw when it has a need. It is therefore the opposite of all passive methods of employee recruitment.
To the Active Sourcing includes analysing social media networks in particular, but it goes far beyond this and also includes further web research. It also includes building personal networks, a company's own talent pool and searching through external CV databases. Internet forums and blogs offer further opportunities. This approach is particularly recommended for complex jobs for which suitable candidates are difficult to find: Resourceful recruiters go to forums where people with the skills they are looking for are discussing and approach knowledgeable panellists directly.
In essence, active sourcing is where big data and HR meet, as it is HR data analytics that can help to fill vacancies in the short, medium and long term and bring the best talent into contact with the company, maintain this contact and intensify it if necessary. There is a close connection between active sourcing and employer branding.
Observe data protection
Not all recruitment techniques practised in the USA or the UK can be adopted one-to-one in Germany. This is due to data protection guidelines as well as personal and competition laws that must be observed.
Talent and candidate pool
The labour market is very dynamic and often characterised by a shortage or surplus of suitable or specific candidates. Not every highly interesting candidate matches the requirements profile sought and the position suitable for the candidate is already filled in the company. The ideal candidate is often hired and all other applicants are rejected. However, this also means that interesting candidates are returned to the anonymous labour market until they apply to the next company. The costs incurred are irretrievably wasted and the time spent on recruitment is lost. For this reason, it is worth the effort to build up and maintain your own candidate pool. The candidates in the pool can be contacted again at any time and included in the recruitment process.
How to proceed
Ask candidates whose application documents you only have in paper form to provide you with their CV in electronic form. This simplifies the filing process and you can access the documents much more quickly than if they are filed in paper form. Also keep in touch at irregular intervals to keep the candidate pool up to date (e.g. with a letter asking whether there have been any changes (address, job, etc.) and whether the candidate is still generally interested).
A candidate pool in the company can consist of former applicants and employees who have already applied for a position but were not ideal for it or would be suitable for a position in the future. Creating a pool is an effective recruitment option.
Our recommendation
Don't forget about talent relationship management if you have a candidate pool in the company, as it is not enough to simply store the profiles in a database. Regular information to candidates by e-mail about new business developments, for example, promotes loyalty to your company and reinforces your professionalism. Even if the candidate in question is not currently interested in changing employer, they may know someone through their private network who would be a good fit for the profile you are looking for.
indivHR will be happy to help you with customised tips and tricks to make your recruiting even more successful.
