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The Data-Driven Strategic Sourcer vs The Resume Spammer

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Oct 22, 2020

Automate your hiring team relationship so you can deliver quality talent faster. Transition your relationship from tactical support assistant to a strategic partner and solution provider.

Historically Recruiters are known for being very gut-driven, which leads to the constant questioning of accuracy.  The reason stakeholders and hiring teams are always asking us to be resume pushers and to see more resumes is to collect enough data to build their business cases for each hiring decision they make. A data-driven strategic Sourcer can immediately save the company time and money by presenting this data upfront in the very first intake kickoff meeting.  You can put your relationships on autopilot and worker smart rather harder by delivering the hiring teams real-world talent analytics with candidate supply and demand statistics and market data.

When you present the data, you automatically transition yourself as the solution provider, and the team’s perception is immediately transformed that you are the market expert.  You gain immediate trust, which results in the ability to deliver and present only the top 2-3 talent profiles—the requests for spamming and guessing large pipelines of resumes stops.  The next time the team is developing their forecast of budgets, they will help proactively consult on the market for these business cases.  The best value add is that you save everyone time and money and reduce the time to fill ratios by 50%.

Predictive Talent Analytics Help You Hire Better talent

  • People Analytics
  • Jobs analytics with supply and demand trends from multiple analytics tools combined with real-time data from all of your tools. Automate the report
  • Target market heat mapping
  • Salary comparisons – Combine and compare with historical internal equity data
  • Combine and compare with real-time two weeks of data from real-life interview pipelines.

Talent analytics collaboration kickoff meetings create partnership vs. resume spammer

  • Sharing and collaborating talent analytics and overall analysis empowers stakeholders with the reality of the current talent shortage and market conditions.
  • It automatically resets the dynamic of the relationship into a partnership, which allows them to set or reset expectations of what talent is available in the targeted geography. In most cases, they will move requirements from “must-have” to “nice to have.” In some cases, you can influence them to seek business justifications to change locations or add a relocation budget.

Utilizing talent analytics in an intake call where the hiring team can make changes to the requisitions reduces the time to fill by 50%. The best-case scenario is to get everyone involved in the interview process and offer budgets on one call.  Deliver your presentation on 1 -3 pages and be prepared to make recommendations and adjustments on the fly.

Researching the market and going to your kickoff meeting prepared with a Knowledge is power

  • Work smarter NOT harder. Automate your searches in a tool to deliver targeted candidates to your desk daily.
  • Research the entire Interview team and top performers’ LinkedIn profiles. Identify department “assumption” titles to make educated guesstimates on technical products, target companies, target universities, professional associations, certifications, and additional skills that might be needed for this role.
  • Research the company division or program mission and clients. Ask about the product focus, geographic targets, and why they chose to hire in that area: Research the talent supply and demand data. If the reports recommend talent is accessible in other markets, ask if there are reallocation options available or if there is another office in the location where the talent available. Research salary trends in both markets and provide a comparative analysis with the cost savings outlined for their needs.  There are tools that provide skills in heat maps, including those in your reports.

Ask the tough questions:

  • Ask if “assumption” skills and guestimate technical skills meet the needs of the team. Share where you came up with the educated guess, ask why or why not?
  • Ask for the detailed specific technical skills and product knowledge not listed in the original job description.
  • Ask for a list of customers, competitors, subcontractors & target companies to develop a strategic sourcing strategy for each role. Share your market intelligence and align with the hiring team’s expectations.

Prove and share the market research LIVE on the call with skype or zoom in less than 15 minutes. Don’t just calibrate with 2-3 candidate resumes.  Show your work and process to the hiring team.  Let them see how you are screening the screen out of the candidates.  Most of the time, this exercise delivers additional knowledge about the position, and the hiring manager advises in real-time keywords and other system integration tools preferred for the project objectives.   The majority of the time, they will request to adjust the skills on the spot.

The exercise gave ‘market pressure’ scores, proved candidate supply shortages and skills gaps. While going through the live pipeline on whatever job board or database, you are using, the hiring manager will uncover additional target companies and out-of-the-box ideas, which will allow the stakeholders to reevaluate expectations and close the requirement faster.

  • Posting & praying job descriptions on job boards, LinkedIn, and social media is a reactive approach. It typically doesn’t attract the candidates your company is looking for. Don’t spend more than 15% of your time on this archaic task. Automate it and move on.
  • In most companies, you are required to disposition and provide the best possible candidate experience for each candidate who has applied online. You can set up automated email responses through most applicant tracking systems. Automate it, customize for each candidate as much as possible and move on.
  • Share information with your hiring team, recruiters, and sourcing teams – knowledge is power. Empower the entire team with the information that saves you time and money the next time you prepare for the same search. Give specific examples of previous and active candidate competitive offers with specific details. If you are building relationships with your applicants, they will share their current offer details with you.  Try to collect as much information as possible, i.e., salary, bonuses, benefits, 401k contributions, day-to-day responsibilities, company, and why they chose that role over yours.

Strategic Sourcing proactive Partner vs. resume paper-pusher

  • What’s changed since we spoke last?
  • What’s been missing out of everyone interviewed so far?
  • What’s it going to take to fill this role?
  • Ask about the strategic goals of this position? 30, 60, 90 days, and 1 yr from now.
  • What are the top 3 technologies required, what are they going to do with them, and why are they required?
  • What’s the business challenge we are trying to solve? Is this an integration of new technology into the cloud? Break-fix solution? Why is this an ongoing need? Is there a high turnover?  Why?
  • What challenges and major projects are the teams facing this year and next?
  • What keeps you and the team awake at night, and why?

Recommended Insight tools and resources

  • Hiretual Insights
  • Gartner’s TalentNeuron
  • LinkedIn’s Talent Insights
  • CareerBuilder’s Supply and Demand Analysis

 

So, what’s it going to be?  Are you going to continue to be a resume pusher?  Or do you have the guts to push back and reposition yourself as the data-driven strategic sourer solution provider?