Coming from the full-cycle recruitment I still wouldn’t draw a bold line between sourcing and other efforts ultimately called to bring the best available talent to the company. The setup and expectations for sourcing could vary from company to company. Consequently, the needs and processes would be different.
So what does a sourcer do?
😎 A spoiler: no, we don’t pull up profiles from a database. Instead, we create the “databases” ourselves.
A sourcer is a researcher, marketer, cheerleader, tech nerd, brand ambassador, sales, relationship manager and Konmari organizer all in one.
And the three core areas would be:
- Talent mapping
The market assessment is the most visible part of the iceberg. It entails demographics, diversity representation, salary bands, availability of talent, research on who is hiring and who is laying off and so on. The list can continue.
- Search strategy
This is where sourcers bring their own toolkits resembling shopping carts on Black Friday to spot the talent. Oftentimes I prefer stepping out of my Google sheets, Evernote or Notion. Instead, I actually think on paper drawing a mindmap where the candidates may “reside”, how they may identify themselves and which communities they are likely to join.
- Marketing & PR
Every outreach is a marketing campaign with a personalized approach, candidates’ personae, EVP and success metrics (open rate, response rate, etc). In the meantime, a sourcer acts as a company ambassador able to envision the bright perspectives for the candidates, while genuinely understanding how these perspectives can fit candidates’ needs.
