The old adage “don’t put all your eggs in one basket” holds true when it comes to your hiring process. Instead of relying on only one source for attracting applicants each time you have a job opening, you should focus on a multichannel sourcing strategy.
What’s Multichannel Sourcing?
Multichannel sourcing means seeking out quality candidates through a variety of applicant channels – including job boards, social networks and more – rather than only focusing on one channel.
Tapping into multiple sources for your hiring can have several benefits, including the following:
Benefits of Multichannel Sourcing
Speed Up Your Hiring Velocity
Rather than limiting your applicant reach to one source, a multichannel sourcing strategy enables you to attract quality candidates soon after you post a job opening across several channels at once, which will ultimately help you speed of your total hiring velocity.
As you receive applicants from multiple sources, review potential candidates on a regular basis to keep the hiring process moving. According to Hireology data, 70% of new hires are reviewed within 12 hours of applying. By speeding up the initial review stage, you can move candidates through the rest of the hiring process quickly, helping you fill the open role sooner rather than later, and ensuring you don’t lose top candidates to the competition.
Attract Quality Candidates
While quality is more important than quantity when it comes to hiring, a multichannel sourcing strategy means you can attract quality applicants from several different channels. Each source has its own strengths and tapping into them all will ultimately increase your chances of getting quality applicants. Our data has found that a strong career site can generate up to 30% of quality candidates, but top candidates also research new roles elsewhere – such as job boards and social media. By only focusing one one channel – such as your career site or a single job board – you could be missing out on top candidates.
Top Sources for Quality Candidates
A multichannel sourcing strategy doesn’t mean you should necessarily post open roles on every source imaginable. Instead, focus on some of the top sources for quality candidates.
Career Site
Your career site has the potential to be a top source of quality candidates. This is because top candidates who are deeply invested in their professional growth are likely take the time to research your company website, career opportunities and work culture. Be sure your career site includes details on the workplace culture, career progression, and overall benefits to help top candidates see the opportunity your team offers. Also, when posting in other channels, be sure to link back to your career site, so applicants can get a better feel for the role and your company as a whole.
Job Boards
Many top applicants find out about the latest job openings via job boards such as Indeed, Linkedin and ZipRecruiter. One of the benefits of job boards is, you can broadly distribute job openings to many applicants – but they might not be as engaged as other channels. Identify general hiring job boards and niche, industry-specific job boards that make the most sense for your business and open roles. Since most job boards have a cost associated with them, evaluate the success of job board spend based on number of quality candidates you receive, rather than total number of applicants received through each job board.
Referrals
Your best employees can also be your best recruiters. High performing employees tend to have extensive networks and can quickly spread the word of any new talent needs you have to friends, former colleagues and other relevant connections. Referrals can offer you a crop of quality candidates from employees you already trust, and save you money that would have otherwise been spent on other channels in the process. To encourage employees to refer new applicants, consider implementing an incentive program for referrals. Offer cash incentives, gift cards, extra vacation time or other incentives in exchange for referrals. And adjust the incentive level based on the level of role you’re hiring for.
Social Media
As soon as new jobs open up, have a plan in place to post across social media – including LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook. Social media enables you to reach a small, targeted pool of applicants who have likely already connected with or engaged with your business. In social postings, include a link back to your career site so quality candidates can apply directly, and encourage your employees to share the link with their networks. Having your employees post on Facebook, for example, means your job openings will appear in front of friends, friends-of-friends, and more, quickly reaching hundreds of people at no cost to your company.
Once you have a multichannel sourcing strategy in place, make it part of your hiring process to evaluate your candidate sources on a regular basis. Ask questions of your strategy such as, which sources are bringing in the most quality applicants? Then, adjust your strategy accordingly to ensure you’re putting the most resources into the sources that show the most success.
Earlier this year, we launched Insights, our easy-to-understand Q&A reporting, which answers such questions as, “What is my hiring velocity?” and “Am I following my hiring process?” In a few weeks, we’ll launch our third metric, “What is my best source of applicants?” With this metric, we will provide complete visibility into each of your sources, including total ROI by paid source, to help you further refine your multichannel sourcing strategy and, ultimately, make quality hires. To find out more about how you can source top candidates and build your best team, schedule a demo today.
