Attracting the best and brightest talent to your business is critical to growth.  However, many of these candidates might not necessarily have the required experience and qualifications for the role.  In fact, 52% of people that apply for a role are underqualified and 47% of companies report that few or no qualified applicants respond to job advertisements that they place.

The best way to navigate these challenges is to implement a candidate sourcing strategy that meets the needs of your business.  Candidate sourcing is a process of strategically approaching high calibre candidates that might not necessarily be actively searching for a new role.  Additionally, if you are looking to build a pipeline of talent, your business may not even have active roles, yet the process remains the same.  Sourcing allows more control over your pipeline and opens your business up to both active and passive candidates.  Only 36% of the workforce is actively searching for work at any opportunity but up to 90% are willing to talk and learn more.

Niraj Kaushik, VP-Applications, Oracle India discusses the robust 12 step methodology used by Oracle to build strong talent pipelines:

1. Determine Current and Future Needs – The identification and analysis of critical roles is the first step before beginning to build a pool of critical talent.
2. Assess the Talent Inventory – Characterise the necessary skills and competencies for success in those roles.
3. Determine the Mix for Filling Gaps – Factors for determining the mix typically include the state of the labour market, the strength of the internal development infrastructure (programs and resources), and the cultural importance of hiring from within for critical roles.
4. Define the Pool of Internal Candidates – A valuable step in developing internal candidates for critical positions is to assign them to a specific talent pool.
5. Assess and Develop the Pool – Find out what their career goals are and at what stage they are at in their career journey.
6. Track Development Progress – Stay engaged with the candidates both internal and external to the business as they develop their career.
7. Track Promotion and Turnover Rates – Lower-than-expected promotion rates may indicate that development programs need to be revisited and refined. Similarly, higher-than-expected turnover rates should drive changes in how the organisation approaches building pipelines for critical positions.
8. Define the Pool of Existing External Candidates – Bearing in mind needed skills, competencies, and talent profiles, one can search for more information on past candidates in the organisation’s candidate database to identify matches and assess the potential of external hires to fill critical roles.
9. Define and Execute Campaigns to Engage Candidates – Identify conferences, industry associations, and social networks that match the critical role profile. Also work with hiring managers and employees for relationship-building.
10. Assess and Refine Current Sourcing Strategies – Analyse sources that have been successful in the past to develop a targeted sourcing strategy for external candidates based on ideal-candidate profiles, needs, and historical trends
11. Implement and Monitor Sourcing Strategies – Seek out talent that can fill critical roles, and capture information about those people’s knowledge, skills, and experience in addition to contact information for ongoing communications
12. Track the Overall Size and Quality of Internal and External Pools – Use the talent pool database to track internal critical role candidates as well as external candidates.

Chris Murdock, writing for the blog ‘Social Hire’ also recommends initially analysing candidate data from the Applicant Tracking System (a step which is often forgotten):  ‘Even though nearly 99% of companies believe re-engaging candidates will help them build their talent community and protect their employer brand, fewer than half of employers re-engage declined candidates, says Murdock.

Throughout the process of building and maintaining a talent pipeline, maintaining engagement with your candidates is key, says the crew from Workable.com.  Ensuring that you respond to the candidates promptly and are honest and transparent with the process is essential to building trust.

If you require support with your sourcing strategy, why not download our *free* E-Book: 10 Essential Steps to Take Before you Recruit.