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Hot Tip #18 - On the Sourcing Edge - New Ideas for Passive Candidate Development

By Lou Adler, June 26, 2007

I've recently created a ning.com business networking site called Sourcing Strategy. You should join it if you want to hear about the latest techniques in Internet sourcing. We'll be using this site to share, discuss, and create some great new ways to attract top people to a company's career website. The most obvious "in your face" idea is the use of a business networking site like this one to find and recruit top talent. I suspect some recruiters are already calling other recruiters who post clever, practical, and innovative ideas. Those who philosophize and pontificate are quickly shunned.

Read more articles by this author.

Related Topics:

Recruiter Hot Tips, Sourcing

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Now take this same idea to recruiting all types of people. Why not have your employees create similar specialized business networks comprised of top, mostly passive candidates to discuss leading-edge ideas relevant to their area of expertise? If they were amply rewarded for proactively seeking new potential employees, you'd be able to find some top talent pretty quickly. Of course, you'd have to help them find members from their society memberships, college alumni, and prior companies, and then you'll need to help them keep the site going, but what a bonanza of talent you'd have if you could pull this off.

As part of this you'd want to help your employees set up these sites and then give them content to use to attract new members. The principle here is to leverage technology in combination with your employee referral program. In the process you'll be demonstrating that your company is doing some leading edge stuff, whether it's in accounting, engineering, sales, or helping the community go green. Perhaps even use this to sponsor some type of community or fund-raising event.

One of the key points to making this concept work is that you'll need to work with consumer marketing people to drive traffic to your site rather than legal, admin, HR, or comp and benefits. Developing a pool of passive candidates that you can tap into when needed is an important concept and one worthy of implementing. Many companies have tried this idea, but few have succeeded on a consistent basis.

I suspect the reasons for the lack of success are largely due to an inability to use technology as effectively as needed, the lack of a big enough advertising budget, and an attempt to treat all passive candidates as equal. Understanding the make-up of your target audience will help you develop appropriate campaigns to drive people to your business network or to your career website. For example, an Axe deodorant theme like "Bom Chicka Wah Wah" might work for Gen Y males and "Are You a Desperate Housewife" might work for Wells Fargo looking for mothers who want to work part-time, but you'll need something a bit more sophisticated to attract mid-level managers. Perhaps something like "Time is your most precious asset. Don't Waste Yours."

Regardless of the campaign or the target audience, you need to test it using some innovative ideas, and once you get it working, keep it up. Great sourcing, like great marketing, is a continual process, not a one-time event.