The Top Untapped Places Recruiters Can Use to Source Candidates

Some research found that only 36% of people are active candidates, but 90% are willing to talk to a recruiter to learn more about a position. This is why candidate sourcing strategies are an essential part of the recruitment process, but some recruiters don’t know where to find that talent.

If you are a hiring manager or recruiter struggling to find qualified candidates amid the Great Resignation, you’re not the only one. However, you can try and fix this by using untapped places to source candidates.

But where are these untapped resources? Keep reading to find out.

Specific Job Boards

You can start by looking for a niche or specialized job board that you can post job ads on. Job seekers likely know what type of industry they want to work in, and they’ll start looking for job boards that match their needs. For example, if someone wants to work as a recruiter, they will look for recruiter communities.

These job boards might also attract more people than a generalized job board. Many job seekers will try to think outside of the box to find the best jobs, so they’ll turn away from job boards like Indeed to see more places.

These are great job seekers that you’ll want to hire because these candidates are taking the initiative to find a job in a particular industry. They also tend to be more serious about pursuing a career.

If you don’t know of any specific job boards in the industry you’re hiring for, you can try searching for them on Google or another search engine. You can also check out Recruiter.com’s different career communities!

Graduate Pipelines

If you are looking to fill entry-level roles, you might want to check out graduate pipelines. Targeting these pipelines is vital to get new and fresh talent who have their finger on the pulse.

Recruiters should build relationships with colleges known for producing the best candidates in an emerging space. For example, if you’re hiring someone for an IT position, find a school that specializes in IT.

When you build a relationship with the school, they could invite you to be a part of their campus hiring program. You can either attend career fairs, offer internship opportunities, or use the hiring data to figure out where you should open a branch of your company.

Social Media

Social media is a great way for recruiters to source candidates because these people will already be familiar with your employer brand. If they’re following you or liking your content, they’re already more invested in the brand and might be more eager to work with your company.

Posting a job opening on social media is free and easy, and you could have more engaged candidates applying. However, you should also be posting your jobs on LinkedIn.

Many people use LinkedIn as a job board to network and find new opportunities. With how extensive networks are on LinkedIn, someone could share your job and do the recruiting and sourcing for you.

While LinkedIn is the most popular platform for jobs, you might want to consider other platforms for sourcing candidates. For example, Reddit can be a beneficial sourcing platform. Reddit might be one of the more complex platforms to understand, but if you can master it, you’ll open up many more opportunities for candidates.

Reddit is set up with little communities that have different interests. So, for example, if you wanted to find a Java developer, you’d want to look for subreddits for web development, Java developers, or other related topics.

There may even be a subreddit dedicated explicitly to be able to post jobs. This way, job seekers can easily find a list of open jobs without even leaving Reddit. It’s free to post on these platforms, but keep in mind that each subreddit has its own rule, so make sure you follow all of them, or your posting might get deleted.

Local Events

If you are looking for local talent, search online to see if there are any local events that your company can attend. Sometimes cities will host large job fairs, and you can apply to set up a booth and recruit candidates.

Local events are also an excellent opportunity to incorporate existing employees and give them a sense of community. This sense of community might also draw in potential candidates. If you have a local event in the form of a party, this might take some stress out of having a specific recruitment event, making people feel more at ease when talking to recruiters.

Recruiting Agencies

If you still aren’t having any luck finding talent, recruiting agencies can step in and help you. These agencies typically have an extensive network of highly skilled or specialized recruiters who can see the talent you need.

When you have access to this network, you expand the possible candidates even more. These recruiters may even be sourcing passive candidates and turning them into active ones that apply for positions at your job.

These agencies usually are very skilled at finding the exact talent you need. When they finish searching for and screening candidates, then your hiring managers only have to decide between the best of the talent pool.

Recruitment AI Software

Artificial intelligence recruiting can help automate the sourcing process so that recruiters can get back to doing what they love: connecting with candidates. And some research has shown that recruiters who don’t automate this part of the hiring process have 41% lower productivity and 35% higher costs.

Using AI software can make the sourcing step more efficient and successful. Since AI relies on data, the talent searches will be based on unbiased searches, and they will be able to evaluate candidates that are the best fit for your positions.

AI software programs will search multiple sources for talent as well. For example, Recruiter.com’s AI platform searches from sources like LinkedIn, GitHub, and other publicly-sourced information.

Then, the software will identify all of the candidates that might have relevant experience to match the job description that you’re trying to fill. Some people are worried that this will remove the human element of recruiting, but really, it helps to enhance it.

When recruiters don’t have to spend as much time sourcing candidates, they can focus on establishing a relationship with the candidate to recruit them.

Start Using AI to Source Candidates

Using Recruiter.com’s AI talent sourcing software means you’ll have access to over 150 million candidate profiles in its database. You can customize your searches and use machine learning to match candidate profiles to find the best person for the job.

After the tool identifies candidates, they will be delivered to your inbox. After that, you can use automated and optimized emails to recruit these passive candidates into active applicants.

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By Alyssa Harmon