Are you interested in recruiting? In the past, people used to look at job advertisements in daily newspapers in order to find applicants, but today the possibilities are much greater. The active search for suitable candidates can be summarized under the term active sourcing.
Active sourcing encompasses all measures for identifying promising candidates on the external labor market. The aim is not only to fill acute vacancies, but also to cultivate contacts and relationships and to build up a talent or candidate pool from which the company can draw when it has a need. It is thus the opposite of all passive methods of employee recruitment.
Go to Active sourcing includes in particular the analysis of social media networks, but it goes far beyond that and also includes further web research. Building personal networks, a company's own talent pool, and scouring external resume databases are also part of the process. Internet forums and blogs offer further opportunities. This route 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 them, and approach knowledgeable discussants directly.
Basically, Active Sourcing is the point where Big Data and HR meet, because it is HR Data Analytics that can help fill vacancies in the short term, as well as in the 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, as practiced in the USA or Great Britain, can be adopted one-to-one in Germany. The reasons for this are data protection guidelines as well as personal rights and competition laws, which must be observed.
Talent and candidate pool
The labor market is very dynamic and often characterized by a lack or abundance of suitable or specific candidates. Not every intrinsically highly interesting candidate fits the requirement profile being sought, and the position suitable for the candidate is already occupied in the company. Often, the optimal candidate is hired and all other applicants are rejected. However, this also returns interesting candidates to the anonymous job market until they apply to the next company. The costs spent on this are irretrievably used up and the time spent on recruiting 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 from whom you only have the application documents in paper form to provide you with the CV in electronic form. This eases the effort of filing and you can access the documents much faster 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 if any changes (address, job, etc.) have occurred and if the candidate is generally still 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. The creation of a pool is an effective personnel recruitment variant.
Our recommendation
Don't forget about Talent Relationship Management if you have a candidate pool in the company, as it is not enough to just store the profiles in a database. Regular information to candidates via e-mail about e.g. new business development promotes loyalty to your company and strengthens your professionalism. Even if the candidate you are addressing is not currently interested in changing employers, they may know someone through their private network who would be a good fit for the profile they are looking for.
indivHR will be happy to help you with customized tips and tricks to make you even more successful in recruiting.
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