Reflik

Recruiting & Talent Acquisition Blog

4 Sourcing Tips for Recruiters

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Here at Reflik we get a lot of questions about sourcing the best candidates for any given job requirement. While there is no one absolute method to go about it nor is there one place to find all of your quality candidates, we thought we would give you a few of our sourcing tips to find great candidates.

Sourcing Tip 1) Plan Your Search

It’s best to know what you are looking for in a candidate before you actually start sourcing. Recruiters often overlook what the client is asking of them. Understanding the exact requirements of the job opening/position is critical to finding the right person for the job: his or her title, skill, expertise. After conducting initial searches, make sure to break out the trusty internal thesaurus and begin searching for alternative titles, skills, technologies and etc.

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Internal Thesaurus

Sourcing Tip 2) Figure out who to search for

It is a good idea to know what type of person is perfect for your role. An important rule of thumb is not to judge a candidate’s worth solely on his/her resume. Even professional resumes cannot detail every bit of a person’s experience and expertise.
A resume is a candidate’s attempt to remember his or her accomplishments, duties, and work experiences. So make sure to have a conversation with a candidate before writing them off. In addition, even if a particular candidate is not qualified for a job now he or she can be qualified for another job down the line, so always keep your candidates in the back of your mind!

Sourcing Tip 3) Search in the right places

Qualified candidates tend to receive hundreds of InMails from recruiters on LinkedIn in a week. Why take such a crowded path? Consider taking the road less traveled. Use other forms of social media, such as: Pinterest and Twitter. They may prove to be helpful tools in the talent search.
Pinterest is great for looking for creative talent. You can see a graphic designer’s and a web designer’s chops through their profiles or, at the very least, what inspires them. On the other hand, Twitter has a huge user base and an advanced search capability. With it, a perceptive recruiter can network and grow her candidate pool without breaking the bank.

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Pinterest Portfolio

Why not also take things offline? Attending in-person recruiting events or attending industry-specific conferences can prove to be resourceful. Expand your network breadth. Do not leave any hidden talent pools untouched. Use all possible means and resources!

Sourcing Tip 4) Rinse, Switch-up, Improve

The last bit of advice we would like to leave you with is not to let your searches bog you down and to not allow your searches to get stagnant. Create dynamic searches for each type of role, person, and company. If certain combinations of role, person, and company indicate that Linkedin is the place to go, then go there. If another combination points to Pinterest then look there. Sourcing needs to remain proactive and not passive. Most importantly, you have to understand what kind of candidates you are looking for and where those candidates are. Find what works best for you and always strive to make it better.
Happy Hunting!

 

 

Do Firms Focus Too Much On College Rank?

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College is increasingly seen as the primary gateway to a successful life in the United States as more bright-eyed students are entering four year universities. Unfortunately, many of these students attending state universities or lesser known colleges will discover after four years that firms give priority to students from “brand name” universities over those from less prestigious institutions regardless of experience, grades, or activities. In Lauren Rivera’s article, Firms Are Wasting Millions Recruiting on Only a Few Campuses, ironically published in Harvard Business Review, she outlines how top firms are actually losing hefty sums by recruiting exclusively from select institutions. According to many firms, they seek candidates from particular schools because they believe students at these institutions have the traits desired by the firm.  Apparently clients of firms also feel more at ease with a consultant or associate with an impressive alma mater on their resume. Clearly hiring managers at top firms have strong feelings about recruiting from top universities but are they right to be prejudiced against lower ranked colleges?

Rivera certainly doesn’t think so as she lays out clear reasons for why top firms should consider recruiting from lesser known schools.

  • Limiting recruitment to top schools can limit your ability to attract highly motivated and skilled students.

    Many top-performing students, especially those from limited means may attend schools that better match their budget, turning down universities with better recognition. By limiting hiring exclusively to the top ten schools in the nation, hiring managers are not exposing themselves to students from diverse backgrounds and means who would provide value to a firm.

  • The current recruiting strategy is broken.

    Top firms attract talent by sending ambassadors to universities to host receptions, info sessions, luncheons, and dinners to find great candidates for future employment. Quotas are allocated for certain schools and before applications are received, jobs are set aside for certain prestigious universities. The whole process is costly and inefficient, qualified candidates are ignored if they’re from the wrong school and the cost of ambassadors/events can quickly add up.

  • “Top Tier” is left to the imagination and isn’t data-based.

    Hiring managers often have an idea of top schools in mind without actually knowing whether these schools produce better employees. For example, a state university’s engineering department could produce better engineers than a lower-ranked Ivy League department but a hiring manager will still pick the Ivy-League student over the better prepared state university student. Researchers even found that students from top-tier schools are significantly less satisfied at large law firms than those with a less prestigious institution on their resume. A portion will even leave the job within two years after being hired from dissatisfaction, not allowing firms to recoup the amount they spent on recruitment or training.

  • Training fees just aren’t worth it.

    Rivera found that many of the top universities, regardless of focus, are less likely to offer adequate instruction of the skills necessary to work at positions provided by firms. Companies are forced to provide training that can last up to a year for graduates, a huge cost added to recruiting fees. For example, students from higher-ranked universities are not usually the best performers on skill exams like the Bloomberg Aptitude Test.

Rivera ends her article by encouraging firms to look beyond status-quo recruiting strategies to find un-tapped talent from lower-ranked universities, who likely have better skills and will cost less in the long term. Change is certainly necessary if top firms wish to remain competitive and acquire the most qualified candidates. A vital tool that employers can utilize to acquire the best talent possible is the Reflik platform. Rather than spending large sums on college ambassador programs, where thousands are spent on travel, lodging, and lavish food spreads, firms could post open positions on the Reflik platform, where independent recruiters and individuals refer highly qualified candidates directly at no cost unless a candidate is hired. Referrals are analyzed and the most qualified candidates from the list are passed along to the employer to ensure maximum efficiency. Sometimes traditions have to be broken and Reflik is leading the charge in radically transforming the recruiting industry.

Source: Harvard Business Review

How Reflik is Disrupting the Recruiting Industry

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Since the dawn of the 21st century, technology has drastically improved healthcare, transportation, and communication but certain industries like recruiting have remained relatively untouched. Mobile connectivity and more accessible job boards have certainly helped but they haven’t opened up recruiting fully to the general public. With the introduction of Reflik to the recruiting world, anyone now has the ability to refer qualified candidates to exciting positions in exchange for referral rewards. Reflik’s disruption of recruiting benefits employers, recruiters, job seekers, and the general public!

For Employers

Most employers know that the best new hires come through referrals.  The problem is that there aren’t enough referrals from in-house recruiting programs.  A company’s employees can refer their friends but they may not know about many of the jobs that are open in the company – particularly in different departments or at different locations.  Company referral programs often don’t offer enough incentive for their employees to “look” very hard for new candidates.  Reflik disrupts the process – providing employees greater incentive and opening up the process to our members – giving the employer an exponential increase in potential candidates for less than the cost of using a recruiter.

For Recruiters

Recruiters are great at recruiting – but they are often limited by the need to manually find job listings – some of which they may not have access to.  Sorting through candidate lists to match known job openings to candidate lists takes time, contacting potential applicants takes time, and tracking the process and progress of the applicant’s progress takes time.  Reflik disrupts the process – providing the recruiter with more job listings and automating the process through our matching algorithm and contact system and by tracking the progress of the applicant at every step of the way.  Recruiters can save time, find more jobs and focus on what they do best – recruiting more applicants.

For Job Seekers and Members

Our members have access to potentially hundreds of job seekers in their social networks.  Reflik is where social media meets recruiting. Some of these are “active” job seekers – but some are “passive” job seekers who might take a better job if they were referred to it.  Our automatic matching algorithm compares social media profiles to our job listings – and identifies matches which can be referred by our members.  The members who refer successful candidates are rewarded with a substantial referral fee.  We are disruptive because our referral reward is “real money” with an average of $5000, and matching and referring is easy.

Reflik is “disrupting” the traditional job search and recruiting industry with new, revolutionary ideas.  The job market will never be the same.

Another incredible perk of Reflik is that it is open to everyone regardless of experience in the recruiting world! Reflik is free for members, job seekers, recruiters, and  employers to sign up and use.  The only time money exchanges hands is when a successful candidate is found and the referral fee is paid.  Employers win by gaining access to exponentially more candidates at a much lower cost than recruiting services or multiple job board postings.  The recruiter wins by gaining access to more job listings and automated time-saving systems.  The job seekers and members win by easily finding jobs and getting paid for referring their friends and contacts.

Check out how Reflik works!

by Ash Geria