Maximising Your Recruitment Strategy: Employee Referrals and Other Top Sourcing Channels
Hiring the right candidates is very important in attaining your desired business objectives. Your
recruitment strategy is essential in determining how your business will attract, hire and onboard talent. That’s why, it is important to know the best sourcing channels to use when presented with a vacancy to fill, to reach the right candidates efficiently.
Employee Referrals
Employee Referrals are one of the top ways to attract quality talent. When a business hires a candidate from an employee referral, it directly indicates that employees working in the company are happy with their work, and they believe highly in the company’s culture. To make employee referrals work, existing employees need to see how their colleagues will fit into the company’s work culture, and trust them to do a great job.
You can attract potential candidates through employee referrals by incentivising employees with rewards through a referral programme. You'll need to think about how to unlock employee engagement and collaboration and how best to share vacancies, so candidates can be referred easily.
Research shows that *employee referrals are most effective for Skilled/Technical Professional
roles, closely followed by entry-level/low-skilled roles. Smaller companies (under 250 FTE) report higher quality of candidates but less quantity. However, there is very little difference in reports resulted in the remaining size bands of organisations.
Source: UK Candidate Attraction Survey 2022/23
Professional Social Networks
Professional social networks, namely LinkedIn, is a widely used channel to source candidates. It seems to be most suitable for skilled/technical/professional and senior/executive roles. One point to note is that research tells us that *those who measure the results from the channel get improved results. This is the same for many channels - if you measure results you will see better performance.
*Sectors that report particularly good results from professional social networks include Marketing/Advertising, Business Services/Consulting, Media/Publishing and Science/Pharmaceuticals.
Talent Pooling/Applicant Tracking Systems
When recruiters look to source candidates they have a plethora of tools at their disposal. Interestingly, the ATS/CRM/talent database is rarely the first channel of choice. Chances are it falls towards the mid to end of the candidate sourcing workflow (*see page 11 of the report).
However, this channel delivers a good range of quality and quantity of candidates. Sectors that are embracing the channel include Technology/Software/Telecoms, Science/Pharmaceuticals and Marketing/Advertising/PR.
Talent pools should be second nature for Recruiters and TA teams to build talent pipelines and engage with passive candidates. Having a target list of pre-screened, engaged candidates is not only a fast method to recruit proactively but is cost-effective too.
Careers Site
Typically the careers site is the go-to channel for Recruiters to advertise vacancies. It is used by 97% of in-house recruiters, yet has bags of potential for delivering even greater results.
Careers sites are a platform to express your EVP and employer brand and make it easy for
candidates to apply, register interest and sign up for job alerts. There is a webinar on that very topic to watch at your leisure.
You might have the dream role to fill. But what does your employer brand and careers site content tell prospective candidates about what it's like to work for you? Can they get a feel for the company culture? How they will fit in? What they can expect? Do you share the recruitment process/timeline or FAQ's? Many don't and it is a downfall to not have the basics included on your careers site.
Sectors that seem to be getting it right for this sourcing channel are Hospitality, Retail and Energy/Utilities sectors. They see higher than average returns for this sourcing channel.
Final Thoughts
Effective sourcing channels can make a substantial difference in hiring top talent that fits your company culture and business goals. These ideas and channels are just a few options that you can utilise to recruit top talent. Ensure that you use a variety of sourcing channels to maximise your chances of finding the best candidates - and understand what your recruitment data is telling you.
Contact Eploy for Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) Expertise
At Eploy, we offer a highly configurable Applicant Tracking System designed to help you attract, hire, and speed up the process of recruitment. Get in touch with our specialist team at Eploy to schedule a personalised demo. No hard sell, no strings attached. Just some winning ideas to help you with your recruitment strategy.