Technology is leading the way in the 21st century and as sourcing experts, we must use it to our advantage. As a follow up to “The Importance of Research In Sourcing,” I would like to introduce the importance of social sourcing in the world of sourcing. Bit.ly is a great tool for this as it allows you to create targeted candidate outreach to multiple channels.
You simply attach your customized single Bit.ly link to all of your social media resources, and you have a one-stop shop for tracking candidates. Bit.ly allows for a centralized method to analyze who has clicked on your link and powerful insights into which candidate outreach is yielding the best results. In Bit.ly campaigning, not only are we able to use these links on all of our social media resources, but we can also pass that URL to our colleagues to share with their networks, share within user groups, blogs, etc. From candidate searches to engagement through email campaigns, you’ll have the recruiting analytics tools to measure and refine your approach.
Bit.ly ties recruitment sources into predictive analytics which, in the long run, can help improve the source of hire. Hires can be tracked to its original source, which can help understand the best resources for finding these niche candidates. If we aren’t gaining clicks, we can change our criteria.
In addition, Bit.ly can help eliminate poor sources, as well as increase the quality of our hires. Since candidates can be traced to their original source, developing a history or origin will help us chart the best mediums to find them. It will also help us understand the best, or perhaps worst, companies they come from, assuming there given trends in the history.
I recently did a survey to see how many people use Bit.ly, and approximately 75% of sourcing professionals I surveyed use it for the convenience of shortening URLs. A tremendously smaller percentage of approximately 8% use it for the purposes of campaigning and analytics. Of those that are using it for insights, they have found it very helpful to understand where and how to best curtail their sourcing efforts. Bit.ly isn’t always leveraged to its fullest potential. As sourcers, Bit.ly can often be overlooked by other popular techniques to engage candidates, such as name generation, data mining, and deep dive internet research.
Social sourcing campaigns are effective and simply just a different take on sourcing. It is still in essence candidate outreach and engagement, but to a different degree.