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Are You in the Stone Ages on the Sourcing Evolutionary Scale?

By Lou Adler, January 21, 2009

Over the past few years I've had the opportunity to work with some of the leading recruiting technology vendors along with a bunch of small and large companies in a variety of industries. What becomes relatively clear as one zooms out is that there is a rapid merging of advanced consumer marketing concepts with recruitment technology. Some might call this Web 2.0 on steroids, or Web 3.0, but it's certainly far beyond the Web 2.0 stuff companies are implementing today.

There are a bunch of common threads that are apparent in those companies that are taking full advantage of these trends. For one, their recruitment leaders are well-versed in the latest technologies and proactively use and support them. Second, these companies tend to be extremely sophisticated on the use of advanced marketing and advertising for their own products and services – this makes the decision to use these same concepts for recruiting top candidates a simple and smooth one, since no convincing is necessary. Third, these companies are relatively flat and not overly bureaucratic – their recruiters work closely with hiring managers, there is a dedicated IT support team for the recruiting department, legal and HR compliance doesn't dominate the decision-making, and the executive team advocates, not merely supports, the idea of state-of-the-art sourcing and recruiting.

Text the word "sourcing" to 96625 to participate in a super quick survey to benchmark yourself and get a sense of where recruitment advertising is going. Then send me a tweet (LouA) with your ranking. This is one way you can interact with your candidates, especially if you've just opened a req for 10 new pharma sales reps or java geeks.

Where are you on the sourcing evolutionary scale?

Below are the five primary sourcing processes currently in use at most companies, from the basic posting of requisitions on job boards to extremely automated Web 2.0 interactivity without any postings whatsoever. As you evaluate where you stand on this sourcing evolutionary scale, I'll embed some more of this Web 2.0 interactivity into the article itself, so you can see it for yourself and figure out how this can be applied to sourcing. Most of what I'm doing is pretty basic, but it will give you a sense of what can happen on a mass scale. Start by joining my sourcing network and commenting on the article.

On this same front, are you aware that if you've downloaded the graphics in this email, we know that you at least opened the email? If you click through to finish the article on our web site, we'll know how many of you have decided to read it all, and which other pages you viewed and how long you spend on each page. We also can find the location of your ISP to determine if we should have a live workshop in your area. As you read further, you'll discover more interactive links including video, free webinars, and a more extensive survey than the one above. You soon will be using all of these tools for recruitment advertising, and those that automate them first will get the lion's share of the best candidates.

The Sourcing Evolutionary Scale

1. 1995-2003, the Stone Age: Posting traditional job descriptions on major job boards. Candidates are treated as subservient and must jump through hoops to apply.
   
   
2. 2002-2005, the Dark Ages: Posting traditional job descriptions on targeted niche boards. Candidates are still treated as subservient, they must jump through hoops to apply, and managers expect them to be enthused before they hear about the job.

3. 2005-2008, the Middle Ages: Search engine optimized ads on niche and major boards, plus the addition of creative advertising that emphasizes what's in it for the candidate. An open-door policy is started where candidates are respected and they can contact someone to gather further information before applying for a job. This is usually via Twitter, IM, or iPhone. (More advanced sourcing articles.)

4. 2008-2010, the Modern Era: In addition to the above, it includes the latest Web 2.0 tools, proactive employee referral programs, providing multiple opportunities for prospects to engage with the company before applying, and breaking down barriers to entry. Also: the creation of talent hubs for major job groups, aggressive use of aggregators, advanced search engine marketing, pushing compelling ads to relevant social media sites, and the focus on building a proprietary prospect resume database with basic CRM capability.

5. 2010-2012, the Near Future Age: This era is characterized by the elimination of job requisitions replaced completely by full-fledged search engine optimized talent hubs and talent communities that seamlessly integrate with the expanding universe of social media sites. These micro sites will support fully-automated CRM capability (automated multiple messages for nurturing prospects based on workflow designs) and easy broadcast to each prospect's personal networks. The messaging will be behaviorally-based, targeted to the appropriate audience, creative, and compelling. Eventually, these hubs will be integrated with workforce planning and strong process control metrics to provide a just-in-time sourcing process.

Much of what's described here is already available, except for the complete integration, but I've seen much of this already in beta. So it's not a stretch to think the integration will arrive sooner, rather than later. Jobs2Web seems to be the leading provider of this integrated feature set, but there are others like Shaker Advertising that are developing comparable tools, but taking a slightly different approach. (Check out our free events page to see what's in store tomorrow!)

Stepping back from the details, where does your company stand on this sourcing evolutionary timeline? Here's a link to a more comprehensive survey allowing you to benchmark yourself against your competition on this sourcing evolutionary scale. The survey results are in real time so you won't need to wait to see where you stand.

The interactivity in this article is pretty basic, but imagine if it was all linked to every possible blog and social network using every type of communication tool available. Then imagine this was set in place and dynamically configured and customized for any class of job. I'll be reporting about this sometime next year.

Companies like Jobs2Web, First Advantage, Shaker Recruitment Advertising, and ATSs like iCims, are now providing much of the same functionality on a larger and more automated scale. This is the future of sourcing, and much of it is available today for you to try out. You need to get on board now regardless of where you are on the evolutionary scale. Just recognize that the further you are behind now, the faster you'll need to catch up. Also, recognize that there is really no catching up, since if you're not revamping everything on a continuous basis, you'll fall further and further behind.