How much does your recruiting strategy focus on sourcing? Not actively nurturing different employee sourcing channels may be your biggest recruiting mistake. New research from Glassdoor Economic Research reveals that the interview source can play a big role in making a successful hire, making it faster and easier to find quality candidates.
The study found that employee referrals boost the odds of a successful job match by a statistically significant 2.6-6.6 percent.*
What is a recruitment sourcing strategy?
A sourcing strategy for recruitment is determined by the recruiter or recruiting team. The recruitment sourcing strategy is comprised of using different channels to actively engage and attract job candidates. Recruitment sourcing strategies can include job posting and advertising, social recruiting, mobile recruiting, employer branding, employee referrals, email outreach, and more.
To help, we compiled these tips for creating an effective recruitment sourcing strategy.
Recruitment Sourcing Strategies
Tip #1: Establish your employer brand as a passive talent source
Gone are the days of posting your brand message and expecting talent to buy in. Without employees backing up that message on other platforms, your credibility goes out the window and so does your hot candidate. Include employees in your employer brand strategy and leverage them to share your company's message to their networks.
For instance, do you have dedicated hashtags for them to use at company events that candidates can easily access to find more images of your brand? Are you reading and listening to feedback from employees? Including your internal brand ambassadors in the conversation is one of the most effective and best ways to source candidates. Using tools like Glassdoor's employer branding and recruiting solution, helps drive candidate sourcing strategies by increasing candidate acquisition through job posts, showcasing your employer profile, driving employee referrals through reviews, and allows you to measure the effectiveness of your recruiting efforts.
Tip #2: Use employee referrals to drive candidate sourcing
Are you checking on Glassdoor for how many of your own employees would recommend you to a friend? This could be a key indicator as to whether or not your employee referral program is working.
Among the 30 U.S. employers with the largest percentage of employee referrals reported on Glassdoor, on average, 75% of employees would recommend their company to a friend.**
Source: Glassdoor Economic Research
On the flip side, among the 30 U.S. employers with the fewest number of employee referrals reported on Glassdoor, on average, 64% of employees would recommend their company to a friend.**
Source: Glassdoor Economic Research
If you are hovering on or below the 64% range on Glassdoor -- do not be discouraged! Reevaluating your employee referral plan and working on these tips can help that number tick up. The more likely an employee is to recommend your company to a friend has a positive impact on how likely they are to participate in an employee referral program. Using employee referrals is one of the best talent sourcing strategies for recruitment.
Tip #3: Update your online presence for an effective sourcing strategy
The most common hiring channel reported in Glassdoor job interview reviews is online applications (42%), followed by college or university referrals (10%), employee referrals (10%) and recruiter referrals (9%). The least common job interview sources reported were in-person connections (such as meeting company representatives at a job fair, 8%), staffing agency referrals (2%) and all other sources (4%).*
Since the majority of people apply online, it's important to ensure that your online platform is up to data across all channels that talent might be researching you. Have you googled your own brand to see what pops up? Optimizing your online presence is one of the essential ways of sourcing candidates.
This graph shows the breakdown of job interview sources reported in our sample of Glassdoor interview reviews data:
Source: Glassdoor Economic Research
Conclusion
Of the six recruitment sourcing strategies we examined, employee referrals performed best, boosting the chances of a successful job match by 2.6 to 6.6%. As employers search for ways to streamline hiring processes, our results suggest tapping the personal networks of employees remains an effective sourcing strategy.
*Based on the study "Why Interview Sources Matter for Hiring" by Glassdoor Economic Research: https://www.glassdoor.com/research/studies/interview-sources/. For complete methodology: pr@glassdoor.com.
**Data for percentage of employees who recommend their employer to a friend as of 7/31/15.
