Recruiters use a variety of methods to search for and source qualified candidates to fill open positions at companies. With the rise of technology and online platforms, recruiters today have more tools and resources available than ever before to aid in their search.
Job Boards and Online Platforms
One of the most common ways recruiters search for candidates is by posting job openings on online job boards and platforms. Popular general job sites like Indeed, Monster, CareerBuilder, and LinkedIn allow recruiters to post openings and then search through resume databases of active and passive candidates interested in new job opportunities. In addition to these large general sites, there are also niche and industry-specific job boards that cater to certain roles like engineering, healthcare, tech, finance, etc. Posting on relevant job boards helps recruiters cast a wide net to reach more candidates.
Recruiters can also search through resume databases on these sites to identify qualified candidates even without posting an opening. Resume databases contain millions of resumes searchable by keywords, titles, skills, locations, and more. Recruiters can search for resumes meeting their criteria and then reach out to promising candidates directly about openings.
Social Media Platforms
Social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn provide another way for recruiters to search for and identify candidates for openings. Recruiters often search these sites by location, company, job title, skills, and interests to find qualified people to reach out to. They can also post openings directly on these sites or engage with potential candidates through networking groups and pages. Beyond the major social networks, there are professional networking sites like GitHub for developers and Dribbble for designers where recruiters can search for industry-specific talent as well.
Referrals and Recommendations
Leveraging personal and professional networks is another go-to method for sourcing strong candidates. Recruiters will ask colleagues, managers, team members, and other contacts for referrals to people that may be a good fit for an open position. Referrals provide an added layer of endorsement and validation since they come recommended by someone familiar with the candidate’s work and background. Referrals often translate to higher quality applicants during the hiring process.
Similarly, recruiters will look through their own networks on LinkedIn and social media and reach out to contacts who may not be actively job searching but could be interested in new opportunities. Tapping into existing professional connections and networks is a good way for recruiters to find candidates not widely marketed elsewhere.
Company Career Sites and Talent Networks
Most companies maintain a careers section on their website where they list open positions and allow interested candidates to apply directly. Recruiters will source applicants that come in through the company site to evaluate. Many companies also maintain talent networks or candidate databases of people interested in or recommended for roles at the company that recruiters can pull from as well.
Sourcing candidates from the company’s existing pool of talent networks and previous applicants provides recruiters with people familiar with and interested in the company already. This can translate to higher engagement and interest during the recruiting process.
Schools, Alumni Networks and Associations
For recent graduates or current students, recruiters may tap into university career centers, job boards, alumni networks or student associations to find candidates. This could include attending university job fairs, advertising openings through college career centers, or working with school alumni associations to source candidates from a school’s alumni network. Recruiters can also leverage professional associations like industry trade groups, minority professional associations, and Chambers of Commerce to reach qualified candidates through the organization’s membership and network.
Events and Conferences
Attending and recruiting at job fairs, industry events, conferences and meetups provides recruiters with access to a large pool of potential candidates to network with. They may collect resumes and talk to prospective candidates at these events to find people interested in new job opportunities or just build relationships with talent for future openings down the road.
Staffing Firms and Search Firms
Working with specialized staffing agencies, headhunters and recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) providers gives recruiters access to more candidate sources. These staffing partners maintain their own networks and candidate databases to source passive candidates open to new roles. They will submit qualified candidates to client openings. This allows companies to focus their efforts on screening and interviewing applicants rather than the initial sourcing.
Internal Talent Sources
Before looking externally, recruiters will often search within their existing company workforce for candidates. This could include promoting from within, transferring current employees, or re-hiring former employees. Tapping internal talent pipelines helps fill positions faster and also aids talent mobility within the organization. Recruiters may post openings internally or work with managers to identify current employees who may be a good fit or ready for a new opportunity or promotion.
Niche Sourcing Strategies
Beyond the major channels above, some other niche sourcing strategies recruiters use to find candidates include:
- Searching patents to find inventors and technical talent
- Purchasing targeted candidate contact lists from data providers
- Connecting with authors, presenters and speakers if relevant to opening
- Looking through citations on research papers and academic articles to find researchers and academics
- Scouring comments, forums and communities for subject matter experts and influencers
Boolean Search
A key technique recruiters use to filter and find relevant candidates across many of these sources and databases is Boolean search. Boolean search allows you to combine keywords with operators like AND, NOT and OR to conduct more sophisticated searches. Some examples of Boolean searches recruiters may use include:
- (product manager OR program manager) AND consumer goods
- data scientist AND (Python OR R) AND (finance OR banking)
- nurse NOT “registered nurse”
Using Boolean search gives recruiters more control and filters to shape searches to their specific position needs versus just searching general keywords.
Applicant Tracking Systems
Most recruiters will also utilize applicant tracking software (ATS) to organize, filter and manage candidates during the hiring process. These ATS programs store and categorize all incoming resumes, profiles and applications based on keywords, skills, qualifications and more. Recruiters can use built-in tools to search for and filter applicants, manage outbound communication and progress candidates through defined hiring workflows.
Integrating their sourcing efforts with an ATS provides recruiters with a central database to manage and track viable candidates across different pipelines as they progress through screening. It also aids collaboration across recruiting stakeholders involved in reviewing and assessing applicants during hiring.
Sourcing Strategy
While the above outlines the main sourcing channels recruiters use, each recruiter or company will tailor their strategy based on factors like:
- Position type and seniority level
- Required skills and experience
- Location(s) needed
- Current employment market conditions
- Urgency in filling the role
- Industry and niche recruiting expertise
- Existing network and previous hiring pipelines
- Personality of hiring manager and team dynamics
Understanding the context around an opening guides what sources recruiters prioritize and invest most of their efforts in researching candidates from. They will actively adjust and adapt their approach based on the role needs and hiring situation.
Intelligent Search Tools
Artificial intelligence and automation tools are playing a bigger role in helping streamline candidate searching for recruiters. Intelligent sourcing platforms can automate tasks like scraping resume databases, identifying contact information, sending initial outreach and screening candidates against qualifications. This allows recruiters to focus on more strategic, high-value tasks during hiring.
Algorithms also aid in discovering and rediscovering candidates from across the web, social media, resume sites and internal databases to automatically match to open positions. These AI tools complement and enhance human-driven recruiting to speed up and expand pools of qualified applicants.
Conclusion
Modern recruiters leverage a robust mix of online platforms, social networks, professional contacts, events, job boards, internal mobility programs and AI to source qualified and interested candidates for open positions. Rather than relying on candidates to find and apply to postings, recruiters take an active approach in their search – mining current and prospective talent pipelines across the web and their networks. A blend of human effort and technology allows recruiters to connect companies with top talent proactively and efficiently.