The Talent Sourcing Process

Talent sourcing involves recruiting high-quality candidates and grooming them for career success. The term talent sourcing is sometimes used interchangeably with executive recruitment. Executive recruiters seek the top talent in high-demand positions by using a variety of strategies. These strategies include:

Executive Recruiting Talent can be sourced through many different approaches. A talent acquisition strategy can involve rigorous on-the-job training for the best-qualified candidates; screening of candidates through advanced and comprehensive assessments, and seeking out candidates through the use of on-the-job or online experience. In addition, companies that engage in talent sourcing also develop relationship networks with other employers who can use the candidates as well. The ultimate goal of talent sourcing, in its simplest form, is to transform non-qualified candidates into qualified candidates.

Developing Talent For any hiring manager, the single most important consideration in the initial steps of the hiring process is developing the right talent pool. To develop the best pool of applicants possible, begin by identifying those who have demonstrated interest in your industry, your company, or the position in which you are hiring. The first step in talent sourcing involves identifying qualified candidates through the most effective of sources-factory, college, internship, or employment referral sources.

The second step of the recruitment process involves developing a pool of candidates through rigorous screening. Screening candidates is the next step in talent sourcing. Many recruiting professionals mistakenly believe that there is a set formula for effectively screening applicants. While a comprehensive interview is still required, there is no substitute for a detailed screening process that identifies key talent gaps and provides an objective assessment of each candidate's suitability for the position. A comprehensive screening will identify a series of candidates, which will go through the hiring process in order to build a targeted, high-quality applicant pool.

Professional recruitment agencies recognize that the most successful recruiting strategies involve more than simply sending out a resume to every applicant available. In reality, most hiring decisions are made based on an initial analysis of a candidate's job skills, personal attributes, and potentials for success. This is where knowledge of the most effective sourcing models can be so critical. The talent sourcing process involves identifying both strong and weak candidates, then analyzing the candidates to determine if they possess the combination of skills and personal attributes that are required for the role in question. By utilizing the best available modeling techniques, professional recruitment agencies ensure that their candidate selection process results in the hiring of the most effective and well-qualified applicants.

The next step of the talent sourcing process involves developing a list of targeted, future roles. These roles, or "top priority" roles, are the next level of candidate development after the initial candidate pool. The initial candidate pool was designed to establish a base of qualified leads; however, the final list of potential, strong future talent acquisition candidates must also be developed based on the same principles used in identifying strong future candidates. To this end, the final candidate development list is broken down into functional categories, including subfunctions such as human resources management, finance, marketing, operations, manufacturing, and executive management.

Once the initial candidate pool has been refined to a more targeted set of targeted, high-quality applicants, the next step of the talent sourcing process is to identify the best candidates for each of the functional areas. This second stage is known as the comparative analysis process. A comparative analysis of the applicants at each functional level will help to determine which roles will be the most beneficial in terms of recruitment and which will not. In addition, the comparative analysis will help to determine which functional areas will require the most money, the most work, or both in order to hire and develop the most effective talent.

Ultimately, the Talent Sourcer process becomes a collaborative one. It involves multiple parties - recruitment agencies, sales organizations, human resource management teams, coaching organizations, executive management, and coaches themselves - who are committed to working together to identify talent that meets the needs and requirements of their organizations. As recruiting and hiring activities progress, they become increasingly dependent upon one another. Ultimately, the recruitment and hiring activities of an organization become a disciplined, systematic, and collaborative effort - much like a team.