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Feb 10, 2017
This article is part of a series called Editor's Pick.

If you are anything like me, you are intrigued with finding the one stop shop sourcing solution and immediately clicked on the link to read this article. That is every recruiter and sourcers wish, right? Buzz kill. There is not a single solution to sourcing and getting instant results can be equivalent to the chances of winning the lottery. This view is of my opinion; no statistical data was utilized to formulate that analogy.

We are all on the hunt for the best sourcing tools, and some are even seeking instant results from their efforts. Most of us that have been in the industry for a while know that it doesn’t exist. However, we continue the quest to find the closest thing to what successful sourcing should look like.

Now that reality has set in, what do you with this information? How can you still be successful at sourcing given that fact that it doesn’t always produce instant results?

Here are four tips that hopefully will inspire you to keep up the adventure of finding the best solutions for sourcing:

One size does NOT fit all

There are so many tools out there, and they all serve different purposes. Try not to get stuck making one tool that you have fallen in love with work for every sourcing project that you are involved in.

Focus on building a sourcing toolkit that is expansive and diverse. I highly recommend downloading the SourceCon’s Wonderful World of Chrome Extensions ebook. You will have an option to download the ebook at the end of the article by Shannon Pritchett and Dean DaCosta. Feel free to reference one of my previous articles to learn about a few other tools as well.

Be Relentless!

Because sourcing does not always produce instant results, be relentless! Never give up. Continue to keep focus when sourcing; especially for hard to fill requisitions. It’s the effort you put in now that will pay off later. Put a placeholder (recurring on your calendar) if you must, as a reminder to source every day.

Collaborate

Sounds simple, right? And it looks like it also may not have anything to do with sourcing. However, it does. Sourcing does not have to be a solo sport. Reach out to colleagues in the industry after you have had a strategy session with the hiring manager and collaborated. Just that simple. Pick the brain of someone else to come up with a great starting point for your sourcing strategy. You would be amazed at what could happen as a result of that conversation.

 

Know when to move on

There does come the point in sourcing where you will need to move on. The key is knowing when to do this. Do not spend a lot of time on the same sourcing activity that is not producing any leads. For example, if you are spending a half hour tweaking the same Boolean search string time and time again with no results, then you just might need to move on. Do not continue to do the same thing repeatedly. Utilize your time to try different things to yield the expected result which is to identify potential leads, and candidates to engage.

Lastly, remember that sourcing is just the beginning. Your initial groundwork will set the foundation for the success and quality of the talent pool that you are trying to build. The more information that you get on the front end from a hiring manager makes a world of difference with preparation in sourcing. Make a commitment to stay consistent with sourcing efforts and research a new tool now and then to spice things up.

Have fun on the adventure of sourcing!

This article is part of a series called Editor's Pick.
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