How Candidate Rediscovery Gives Recruiters the Edge

For years, recruiters have sought the secret to getting an unbeatable competitive edge in the talent market. Finally, they may have found it, thanks to new technology that uses AI to rediscover candidates in recruiters’ existing talent pools.

Your preexisting candidate database can be a potent tool for filling positions with the most qualified individuals in less time. Indeed, talent pools are gold mines of information, containing warm leads for top candidates. However, candidate rediscovery involves more than just a few clicks and a call. Recruiters must screen hundreds, if not thousands, of profiles to find the right matches.

Manually sifting through a candidate database, especially a large one, can be time-intensive and tedious, so few recruiters have leveraged this talent source to its full extent in the past. To scale this processes efficiently, however, recruiters can now deploy AI, transforming their existing candidate databases into dynamic, real-time sources of leads.

AI Keeps Candidate Information Up to Date

Candidate databases are priceless sources of information when maintained properly, but they can easily fall out of date. Candidates’ profiles change daily as their careers advance, and without proper care they become obsolete and incomplete. As a result, information within a typical candidate database steadily loses value over time.

To ensure that candidate information stays current, recruiters should use emerging AI-powered candidate engagement platforms. In practice, these take the form of AI-enabled applications that can automatically reach out to candidates via email or text message. In these messages, candidates are asked if their information is current — and, if not, they are invited to provide updates as necessary.

A continuously updated database creates an arsenal of actionable insights for recruiters. The new skills, market moves, and industry transitions of candidates are now at recruiters’ fingertips, giving them drastically increased insight into their talent pools.

AI Can Help Identify the Warmest Leads

Even the most up-to-date resume may not tell a candidate’s whole job-search story, but when automated outreach systems reengage with previous applicants, they can effectively assess their current status in the job market.

When engaging candidates, AI-powered applications can ask them about the types of jobs and job titles they’re looking for. This information helps recruiters prioritize where they are spending their time. Focusing on candidates who are actively looking is absolutely more valuable than guessing who may be open to a move.

But what happens if a good-fit candidate is not interested in the role in question? With the implementation of automated outreach systems, a disinterested candidate is no longer a dead end. Even if the candidate indicates they are not at all interested in further opportunities with the company, there is still a chance to gain valuable insight. The AI application can pose questions to the candidate that unearth exactly why they chose not to continue, helping recruiters better understand how to effectively engage future candidates.

The data AI gathers from disinterested candidates is especially valuable when recruiters step back to analyze the big-picture trends in talent acquisition. Recruiting is a field of constant evolution and change, and this information ensures the company stays ahead of the curve and avoids driving away top-tier candidates in the future with outdated methods.

Reengaging Candidates Can Create a Ripple Effect in the Market

In the long run, candidate rediscovery allows recruiters to reach beyond their databases of previous applicants. Renewing conversations and keeping the company name at the top of candidates’ minds effectively builds the company’s employer brand. Even though a candidate may not be interested in a role, a simple message from a recruiter can foster in candidates a more pleasant opinion of the company. In turn, the candidates are more likely to speak positively about their recruiting experiences. They may even give warm referrals to friends or colleagues, creating a ripple effect of favorable brand messaging.

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Currently, the talent pool is growing increasingly tight. Turning existing candidate data into a dynamic sourcing and outreach tool gives recruiters the competitive edge necessary to attract top-tier candidates before other organizations can.

The quickest way to a qualified candidate is through a warm lead. What better warm lead than those in your existing database? Today’s recruiters need to modernize, harnessing innovation and intelligently automating their outreach to succeed before the competition does.

Raahul Srinivasan is product manager at AllyO.