Patience is a virtue in most cases, but not for today’s talent teams trying to meet their company’s hiring needs. Recruiters have traditionally relied on inbound recruiting to capture and reel in qualified candidates.
However, in today's candidate-centric job market, most recruiters don’t have the luxury of waiting and hoping top-tier talent knocks on their doors. Prospects will move on to other opportunities, and competitors will swoop in.
To find the best candidates efficiently, recruiters must be proactive in seeking out talent. In this guide, we take a look at what outbound talent sourcing is and why it’s giving savvy recruiters a leg up.
What is outbound talent sourcing vs. inbound recruiting
Outbound talent sourcing vs. inbound recruiting is really about who makes the first move: the recruiter or the candidate. Outbound sourcing is a method of talent acquisition where recruiters or hiring managers proactively reach out to potential candidates who may not have applied for a job opening or even be actively looking for a new role. Because they aren’t active job seekers, these candidates are often referred to as passive candidates.
Outbound recruiters actively seek out top talent in their industry or field and initiate contact through various channels such as email, social media, networking events, or referrals.
In contrast, inbound recruiting primarily relies on applicants to come to you. This can be via your website, LinkedIn profile, a job board listing, or even events. The success of your inbound recruiting efforts often depends on the strength of your employer brand, but we’ll go into more detail on that later.
Pros and cons of outbound talent sourcing
Inbound recruiting sounds nice, in theory. You can post a job, sit back, and let the applications roll in. However, sorting through applications and resumes to pinpoint the best fits becomes tedious for recruiters.
Outbound talent sourcing has its challenges, too, but there are also huge benefits to both hiring teams and candidates. Let’s review both below.
Advantages & challenges for talent teams
On the plus side, outbound talent sourcing:
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Widens and deepens talent pools by not relying only on active job-seekers to fill open roles.
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Gives recruiters more control over the quality and volume of talent in their pipeline because they can target profiles that meet their specific criteria. This is extremely helpful with hard-to-fill roles or fields where talent may already be scarce, like engineering and cybersecurity.
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Diversifies pipelines at the very top-of-funnel, which leads to more diversity throughout the pipeline.
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Means teams don't have to rely on job postings and ads, which can get expensive!
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Increases awareness of your company and its open roles, one prospect at a time.
However, it does come with a few challenges:
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The time and effort it takes to source and engage passive talent can be draining on resources
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Not all candidates will be up for a switch and many may not respond at all
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Teams are often reliant on the information candidates available on the web, which may be outdated or incomplete
Benefits & considerations for candidates
There are advantages to outbound talent sourcing for candidates too, including:
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They’ll waste less time applying for jobs they won’t be a good fit for.
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A less tedious hiring experience. If you already have enough info about them to reach out, they shouldn’t also have to complete an entire application too!
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The opportunity to build relationships and trust with your company, before they’ve even started looking for a job.
From the candidate’s perspective, there are a few things to consider with outbound talent sourcing:
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Those who are currently employed are often already overwhelmed with emails and don’t necessarily want to be bombarded by irrelevant messages from recruiters.
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Passive candidates may not respond to your initial outreach, so follow-up emails are key.
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Passive candidates also may not know your company exists, let alone the open roles. With outbound recruiters, it’s your team’s job to communicate what your company does and what you offer potential candidates.
How to use inbound vs outbound talent sourcing
There’s no right or wrong answer when it comes to which strategy you choose; many companies use both. What does matter is that you consider what is right for your company and that you implement your strategy thoughtfully. Let’s take a look at the main components to consider for both.
The important elements of your inbound recruiting strategy are:
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Your career page and website. Get our tips for making yours stand out.
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Your social profiles
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Your employee reviews on sites like Glassdoor
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Your application process
With outbound talent sourcing, you’ll want to make sure you invest in:
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Efficient sourcing strategies and tools to identify relevant talent and build rich profiles
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Automated recruiting email sequences, so you can keep top-of-mind with candidates, without having to set reminders to follow-up
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Scheduling tools that make it easy for candidates to take the next steps with you
Several parts of your recruitment process that will impact both inbound and outbound talent sourcing. One example is employer branding. In theory, a strong employer brand naturally leads to more inbound candidates and it also generates more awareness and interest with outbound candidates. Positive Glassdoor reviews, engagement on social media, and a great experience on your site all contribute to passive candidate perceptions.
Overall communication between you and your candidates is also key, and you’ll want to make sure you tailor the emails you send to both passive and active candidates.
Ideally, all of these elements will be working together to deliver a high-quality, diverse pipeline.
The best outbound talent sourcing tools
There’s no need to rely on manual sourcing to identify the best talent for your company. Now, recruiters can peruse an entire marketplace of platforms dedicated to outbound talent sourcing. Check out this list of important questions to ask when researching sourcing tools to find the right fit for you.
In general, the best outbound talent sourcing tools will enable you to build a pipeline of rich, up-to-date candidate profiles and reach out to them with just a few clicks. What sets Fetcher apart from AI sourcing tools is the algorithms combined with human monitoring to deliver curated batches of candidates. With supported searches, talent teams can not only save time but connect with diverse candidates they wouldn’t have discovered on their own.
About Fetcher
Our mission is to help you engage talent that will transform your business aspirations into reality. Great talent is hard to find - that's why we offer a talent sourcing platform that not only gets your brand in front of the right candidates but also gives you a competitive edge in talent acquisition.
Begin building a relationship with your next great hire today and let Fetcher handle the rest. Learn more.
