Technology drives our profession as much as curiosity. It is always changing and constantly evolving. 2017 was undoubtedly the year of innovation and speculation. With so many sourcing tools being released, blocked and improved on a daily basis, we forecasted another heavy reliance on tools and technology. The results weren’t surprising. Sourcers are slowly using more and more technology each day to find candidates. Through this increase, technology does continue to drive and transcend our job, yet there is still a tremendous opportunity for many of the new sourcing and recruitment technology players to penetrate the market.
Sourcers are still spending an hour each day using automated sourcing tools. However, the average sourcer who completed our survey only spends around 12 hours a week sourcing candidates. This data tells us that about half of the time a sourcer spends looking for candidates is with an automated sourcing tool.
Hiretual is the most popular automated sourcing tool being used by candidates to find talent. Over 40 percent of all survey respondents use Hiretual at least once a month. Connectifier was a close runner-up, capturing 34 percent of the market share. Lusha finished third with 29 percent of sourcers using it to find candidates.
Outside of automated tools, LinkedIn and Indeed are still two favorite products for sourcers. The majority of survey respondents continue to use LinkedIn on a daily basis. In fact, 96 percent of sourcers use LinkedIn to source candidates (a slight percentage decrease from last year). Sourcers are extremely satisfied with LinkedIn. Out of a one to five scale (five is the highest score), sourcers rated their paid version of LinkedIn as a 4.52 (.23 lower than a year ago). This satisfaction rating was far ahead of its competitors Indeed (3.8), CareerBuilder (2.48) and Facebook (2.72). Facebook had the highest satisfaction increase over the past year (.29 increase).
Outside of LinkedIn and Indeed, many sourcers are using and Facebook and Github to find candidates. Twitter, who finished the highest outside of job boards last year, fell to third in 2017. Though their time spent sourcing is limited on those social sites, over half of all survey respondents use Github and Facebook at least once a month to find candidates.
This year, we asked sourcers how they like to build search strings. The vast majority, almost 60 percent, prefer to build their search strings manually. Hiretual and SourceHub were the two most popular automated boolean builders used by sourcers.
Once a candidate is found, sourcers are spending an average of 35 minutes a day customizing messages to candidates. This yields an average response rate of 35 percent. Additionally, sourcers are spending around 40 minutes a day on research prior to sourcing, and around 20 minutes with the hiring manager in an intake meeting.
