10 sourcing techniques to find candidates for your offers at a lower cost
In markets that are sometimes tough and competitive, recruiters have to constantly reinvent themselves to find the best talent.
When a new vacancy appears, the search for candidates (or candidate sourcing) should ideally be multi-channel, to maximize the chances of success. Of course, the issue of cost also needs to be taken into account in any recruitment strategy.
Are you a recruiter in a company or recruitment agency?
From the most traditional to the most recent, discover 10 sourcing techniques to find candidates at lower cost.
1. Automate your prospecting with tools
Automated prospecting is perfectly feasible if you choose the right tools! With solutions such as Waalaxy or Lemlist, you can automate and target your contacts on LinkedIn or by email.
The advantage of automation is that you can contact a large number of candidates, while addressing them in a personalized way to avoid the "recruiter robot" effect. For successful personalization, it's important to have an up-to-date database. This helps avoid errors and improves the return rate, since the aim of these solutions is to increase productivity in the recruitment process.
Automated prospecting tools can be used to expand your pool of candidates, reactivate your recruitment pool and distribute your offers to give you more opportunities to recruit the best talent .
Estimated cost: subscription ranging from €0 to €70/month (variable according to tools and desired level of functionality).
2. Exploit and work your LinkedIn network
With a total of over 830 million members by 2022, LinkedIn is the most widely used professional social network in the world (source: LinkedIn Corporate Communications). Candidates, companies and freelancers use it to gain visibility and develop their reputation.
As a recruiter, you can use LinkedIn to develop your employer brand, attract the best talent and, of course, exchange directly in the messaging system to present your vacancies.
On this network, an estimated 36,000 skills are listed. As a result, the platform has become an inexhaustible source of candidates. And to get the most out of this network, it starts with exploiting your current network and working daily to expand it.
Search by keyword, interact on the latest news and join groups of recruiters or professionals in the sector you're interested in to find your future talent.
Estimated cost: Unlike the paid solutions offered by the platform, such as LinkedIn Premium or LinkedIn Recruiter, working and exploiting your network without advanced functionalities is totally free.
3. Create a content strategy on LinkedIn
When it comes to recruitment, the aim of a web content creation strategy is to generate leads, increase brand awareness and visibility, or promote a job offer.
On LinkedIn more specifically, the aim is to attract profiles that are looking for new opportunities. This is why you can address specific themes through posts, articles, images or videos. This content must attract attention while providing real added value. The more interaction you generate, the more visibility your algorithm will give you.
As a recruiter, you can share your company events, give brand news, spread your values or simply give value-added advice. Always keep in mind your target audience.
Finally, for a sustainable content strategy, select topics in advance and organize your publications in a calendar so that you have a view over several weeks.
Estimated cost: free of charge.
4. Advertise on job boards
Whether generalist or specialist, job boards remain one of the most relevant sourcing techniques. To attract candidates, the first step is to write a clear, structured and transparent job advert.
Making contact via a job board maximizes the chances of initiating an exchange with a candidate. Indeed, creating a candidate profile on these sites clearly underlines their desire to land a new job.
What's more, these sites all feature an advanced search engine, so you can see at a glance which profiles in the CV library might match your needs and expectations.
These include job boards such as Indeed, Leboncoin, Monster, Cadremploi and Apec for executives.
Estimated cost: some sites are free, others cost between €400 and €800 to post a job.
5. Setting up co-optation
Co-optation is a technique that consists of using the network of employees (the co-opters) to recruit candidates from within the company (the co-opted). It's also known as sponsorship or participative recruitment.
If you want to set up a cooptation system within your company and you have a vacancy to fill, inform your employees to find out if any of their contacts have the skills you're looking for. Co-optation is based above all on skills, not just relationships.
Estimated cost: free of charge, but it is common for the company to pay a bonus to the co-optee at the end of the trial period (variable amount determined by the company).
6. Use the Google search engine
With over 90% market share, it's the most widely used search engine in France and worldwide. Have you considered using Google for your candidate sourcing?
Google stands out in particular with its "advanced search" function. This is available in the "settings" icon, and provides targeted, relevant results.
Thanks to this feature, you can specify keywords (and exclude some at the same time), a job name, a location or even specify a site from which you'd like to obtain profiles (e.g. LinkedIn).
Estimated cost: free of charge.
7. Participate in job-related events
Generally speaking, combining the web with events is an excellent recruitment strategy. It is important, however, to maintain a certain consistency between the information disseminated online and that disseminated during events.
Job fairs, forums and job dating events are ideal for sourcing candidates. Meeting jobseekers at these events enables you to make targeted contacts. In fact, some events are directly linked to a particular business sector, profession (tech, industry, banking) or geographical area.
Estimated cost: some trade shows are free of charge, while others cost between 500 and 2000 euros to rent a stand. Rates vary according to the reputation of the event.
8. Create partnerships with schools
To target young graduates, you can approach schools, universities and training institutes. By creating partnerships (for internship and work-study offers in particular) or joining alumni groups, you can broaden your pool of candidates!
You can also take part in school events such as business games or other competitions to meet future graduates.
Estimated cost: free of charge.
9. Search for internal candidates
Do you work in a company's HR department and have a new vacancy? You can of course use your existing CV library!
To organize your search and manage the different profiles, we recommend you use a management tool or CRM, as in the case of external recruitment. And don't forget to publish your vacancies on your corporate website.
In-house sourcing is just one of the techniques available , but it has the advantage of offering opportunities to your employees and limiting the cost of integration and training.
Estimated cost: free of charge.
10. Using an ATS to support you in your daily work
ATS (Applicant Tracking System) software is a recruitment management tool designed to boost your candidate sourcing.
It centralizes the overall management of the recruitment process and tracks the progress of each stage for all candidates.
Traditional ATS software offers a multitude of functions: CV storage, multicasting of advertisements, profile database searches, etc.
An ATS is a real time-saver, enabling recruiters to move faster on tasks that don't require human or interpersonal skills.
Are you looking for an ATS for your recruitment needs? Discover Marvin RecruiterATS, the 1st intelligent ATS that helps you generate a maximum number of recruitment process bids, and accompanies you until your deals are a success.
Its data and artificial intelligence-based technology enables it to automatically feed your pipeline with relevant candidates to call: those who do this job or who are destined to evolve in this job.
