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I am looking for some insight and best practices for establishing an internal sourcing team. Currently on my team individual recruiters are responsible for their own sourcing, including name generation and proactive passive sourcing.
We have had some success but in order to move to the next level I want and need to develop a dedicated team to source for key skill sets. I have a background in sourcing so I understand the skills need to be successful what I am looking for from the group is the following
Do you currently have a dedicated team? What metrics do you use to measure the teams success? How does the team interact with the client? What service level agreements are put in place between the recruiters and sourcers? When do the sourcers hand off the candidate? What challenges have you been ran into?
Thanks for any insight you may have. Note I am looking for more corporate environment examples than agency.
Amy
11 replies
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I worked for a firm that implemented a sourcing team and that is exactly who headed the team sr recruiters that specialized in finding the hard to find candidates that weren't on any job boards. They not only sourced resumes but also sourced passive candidates information that were currently working for competitors. Their philosophy was if your focused then you will be better then someone with split responsiblities. They were successful and where treated with the same esteem as any recruiter. I currently work for a company that everyone sources and recruits. I think both situations can be effective if you have a strong team.
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I feel strongly that a sourcer should be tasked with ONLY sourcing. I do not think a person who enjoys the solitude that telephone sourcing requires is likely also to be good at the "facey-face" smiley techniques needed to readily engage that possible candidate she has uncovered on the phone. I think this is a completely different skill set that belongs more to recruiting.
Ideally, to me, a sourcing department would have:
1-2 people to do the job "set-ups" for the sourcers
5-10 people who enjoy doing telephone sourcing - they receive the jobs "set-up" and ready to start their research/calling on
3-6 people who can do the "profiling" of the names the sourcers come up with - that "first call" made to the potential candidate to gather information about and to gauge initial "interest" in the offered opportunity.
Remember, at this stage "no can mean yes". What I mean is the very fact that most of these possible candidates are not actively looking yields to a certain amount of surprise that you're calling in the first place - the likelihood is nobody's called them before like this and you're likely to be catching them "off-guard", catching them at their desks hard at work doing what they do. Many times they're flattered and intrigued.
This is a different animal from calling names found on the internet or on the job boards. Out of ten names identified over the telephone, seven are likely to be interested, from mild to very, in your opportunity. Two will be just not interested "at this time" in sharing their info with you or discussing the opportunity and one will tell you to drop dead or you won't be able to reach in the specified timeframe. Can you take the rejection?
;)
50 - 100 recruiters to handle the deluge.
Maureen Sharib is a seasoned telephone names sourcer, names sourcing since 1997. She and her husband Bob own the names sourcing firm TechTrak.com and Maureen telephone-names sources daily as well as teaches telephone-names sourcing in her online telephone names sourcing course "The Magic In The Method." She can be reached by email at Maureen@techtrak.com or by phone at (513) 899-9628.
Maureen will come on-site to your company to teach telephone names sourcing to your sourcers. Call her for her rates. It's not inexpensive but the results your sourcers will produce in the future will be!
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Hi all,
maybe I'm a bit old fashioned but isn't a sourcer nothing less then someone doing work for recruiters who are bored in their job ? Personally I think that by using sourcers, the recruiters lose touch with their market they work in. As stated above by Scott Axel, the sourcer is doing more recruitment then the recruiter self...why not save money as an organisation and make sure that you have good motivated recruiters who get a thrill out digging out the right candidates, no matter what it takes !
Marc Trebels Allegis Group Europe Netherlands
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I don't think that sourcing should be considered a first step into the recruiting world. I think for a sourcer to be really good at what they do, they need to have a complete understanding of what the process is. The recruiting industry is a difficult one to understand in just books and courses.
Also.. I think that if you bring on and find an amazing entry level sourcer who can uncover great candidates and is really good at what they do... why would you want to remove that person from that position.
I think that (for the most part) in a situation where sourcing and recruiting are split.. the sourcer does more "recruiting" than the recruiter. The sourcer is responsible for uncovering the candidate, an intial conversation and then setting up all future successes. If the sourcer is not a good recruiter your process will end at the uncovering stage.
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Hello, I am interested in hearing how other Employment groups utilize Sourcers internally. Please email me or call me and share your thoughts on this topic.
Bob Corbin Contract Recruiter
Childrens Hospital Boston
robert.corbin@childrens.harvard.edu
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In my book - Electronic Recruiting 101 - I review in detail the structure of a successful centralized sourcing team. From metrics to compensation, and points in between like accountability, compensation and how to select sourcers, is all revealed in 6 very concise pages.
But you didn't as for an infomercial. You asked some specific questions so let me give you my inside take on them, based on having been instrumental in building several sourcing teams (Motorola, Cisco, Coke), architected and managed two of my own (Google, Microsoft) and having consulted on the design of numerous others:
1) Do you currently have a dedicated team?
Yes, its absolutely critical in order to reach the deepest of the talent pools: candidates who don't take the initiative to seek out career oppportunities on their own.
Check out the Kennedy Audio conference I did on this: http://www.kennedyinfo.com/audio/JustInTime/ as well as the article I published in ERE's Journal on Feb. 06 (Vol. 1 Issue 5): http://www.crljournal.com/pdf/CRLcover_0206.pdf. I think you can get past issues here: http://www.crljournal.com/past-issues/
What metrics do you use to measure the teams success?
There are so many ways to measure, and only a few experts I can point to who totally understand them. People like Dan Kilgore and Dan Hilber (http://www.ere.net/articles/db/D89CC5F6881B4A24A9A344D6E5FF0D37.asp), or websites like Staffing.org and hrmetrics.org can give you the "full scoop."
But there is one thing I can tell you from having lead my own teams: don't forget to establis a baseline and track trends over time, not just take snapshots. Anyone can look like they are flying if you take their picture while they are in the middle of a jump shot... but then again anyone can look like a looser if you take their picture while they are in the middle of defeat. Don't take two dimensional metrics, make sure there is enough comparison to clarify what the measurements mean, not just show the "current state" of your team.
Some ideas:
1) Sum of Offers Accepted 2) Number of Hires 3) Costs (total burdened cost of recruitmen) 4) Costs per hire 5) Time to fill (be careful where you "start" counting) 6) Customer Satisfaction 7) Quality of Hire
How does the team interact with the client?
Carefully
OK - not to be funny, but that's really important. If you are too agressive you will alienate recruiters because you are dealing too directly with hiring managers and leaving recruiters out of the process. If you aren't agressive enough you will be relegated to a basement function that nobody knows about and you will be the first to get cut when budgets are tight. Deal with each group in the way your customer wants to be dealt with. Not all your customers are going to want multiple points of contact (recruiter, sourcer, etc.) but some will. Negotiate what is best for you customer group (Business Unit), Hiring Managers, Business Leaders, Staffing Leaders and the Recruiters in the business.
What service level agreements are put in place between the recruiters and sourcers?
Sometimes a simple commitment to "this is what we need from you and if we get that this is what we will promise to deliver and if we deliver this is what you promise to do in return" works best. Keep it simple. If you need an attorney to decipher you SLA then your customers won't know what to make of you.
When do the sourcers hand off the candidate?
When the candidate tells them too. No, really. In some industries candidates don't mind being approached by sourcers, but in others they would prefer the first call to come from a hiring mananger. Only you know your industry well enough to answer this.
I will say that generally speaking you want to hand off at the most naturally point where there's the least potential for friction. There's a few places in the process where there is least friction: A) Before you call/email the lead for the first time B) when they are being scheduled for an interview and C) when they show up to do their interview. One of those three should suit your candidates fine.
What challenges have you been ran into?
Oh boy. All of them. No, really, all of them. The biggest ones are:
1) lack of buy in from upper management after a leadership change 2) "oops we have to cut the budget, I know, lets start with this sourcing team because we don't understand what value they add" 3) recruiters afraid to pick up the phone and follow through with a lead 4) recruiters thinking of sourcers as junior (i.e. thinking sourcers want to grow up some day and be a recruiter) 5) hiring managers not haviing a clue how to treat a candidate that still needs a bit more romancing
But the list goes on. Each environment will provide its own opportunities or obstacles. One thing you can do is bring someone in as a consultant who's done it before to help you architect the team. Then can even help you tool up and get things rolling.
Cheers, Shally
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I agree that a sourcer possesses a unique focused skill set and I feel this person should be allowed to work apart from the madding crowd if she needs to, and most need to. Many sourcers like to work alone and do not thrive in an environment where there?s a lot of commotion. Even background noise from surrounding cubicles can impact a sourcer's focus - especially if she's telephone sourcing - she needs absolute quiet and the confidence to know that her routine will not be broken or interrupted in any way once she is on the phone. She probably needs to be in a room by herself to be most effective.
But I'm talking about the nuts and bolts of the process and I think you're looking for a recommendation on how to set up a sourcing department. If the world was my oyster (and it is) this is how I would set up a corporate sourcing department:
For every three to five recruiters I?d want to see one telephone sourcer in place, maybe two if the positions they?re tasked with placing are difficult, like IT, pharma and finance are these days. For every three sourcers, I?d like to see one person tasked with doing all the phone screening those three phone sourcers produce. What do I mean? Either have the recruiters doing the initial phone screening or have someone in-between the recruiter and the sourcer doing it. This last I think would be ideal.
Let?s spell out the distinction between phone screeners and phone sourcers. Phone sourcers are that rare breed of sourcer who is able to go to the internet for a few ?names in? to a company and then get on the phone and, if she has to use those names, uses them to get other names of people inside the brick and mortar walls of a company ? the people you have no chance of ever coming across because they?re not posted anywhere on the web and probably will not post their resume online, even when the time comes.
A phone screener, or profiler, as it is sometimes called, is someone who calls through that batch of phone sourced names and pitches the opportunity. I see this as part of the recruiting function and NOT that of a true sourcer?s . A telephone sourcer should be doing ONLY THAT - sourcing names over the telephone and for that she needs all her available energy and accumulated wit because it is probably the single most difficult thing in the recruiting cycle to do, bar none. Very few want to do it and even fewer attempt doing it. Take a poll in your recruiting departments ? you?ll see I?m right!
I?ve seen recruiting departments who task their ?sourcers? with all types of responsibilities ? from posting on the boards to pulling resumes down off them; to detailing reports of same that eat up entire days of her valuable time, to placing print ads and writing copy for same, to calling through ?lists? of conference attendees not knowing what their titles are in advance ? the ill-advised practices goes on and on but I will stop here to spare the broken these painful reminders.
Why in the world would you want to take this rarest of species, this exotic fine-boned creature, this deep sea swimmer who, like a shark, must continue to move in order to breathe, and task her with administrivia? Are you nuts? Have you lost all reason, man? Think about it. She can mainline results into your company?s bloodstream, the likes of which you?ve never witnessed. Why would you want to clip her wings and keep her bound to the mother ship? Let her soar with the eagles and run with the wild horses ? set her free and watch the results. You?ll be astounded and delighted with the results.
I guarantee it.
;)
Maureen Sharib is a seasoned telephone names sourcer, names sourcing since 1997. She and her husband Bob own the names sourcing firm TechTrak.com and Maureen telephone-names sources daily as well as teaches telephone-names sourcing in her online telephone names sourcing course "The Magic In The Method." She can be reached by email at Maureen@techtrak.com or by phone at (513) 899-9628.
Maureen will come on-site to your company to teach telephone names sourcing to your sourcers. Call her for her rates. It's not inexpensive but the results your sourcers will produce in the future will be!
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Thanks for all the great insight. I have one further question, which is more of a philosophy question. Is our sourcing team seen as a feeder group into the recruiting organization? What I mean by that is it a stepping stone for someone to get into the role as a recruiter. I see a sourcer as a unique focused skill set and should be staffed with Sr level recruiter. I envision the team having a researcher that will help with more of the junior level activities but overall the team needs to be staffed with Sr level recruiters. Thoughts?
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Hi Amy -- we do have a dedicated centralized sourcing function at UHG and has been in place for a couple of years now.
We currently measure our sourcers as follows: # of candidates sourced by sourcing strategist (monthly) # of sourced candidates sourcer passes to recruiter # of sourced candidates recruiter passes to hiring mgr # of hires (not much weight here)
We are however in the process of revamping our metrics and don't have them finalized at this point.
The executive sourcing strategist are engaged on most discovery sessions the recruiter has with the hiring manager. During the discovery call the sourcer explains his/her role to the mgr and come up with a sourcing plan during the initial call.
We're in the process of putting together a SLA between the recruiters and sourcers. We do however have a SLA between the recruiter and hiring mgr.
The sourcers initally do a short phone screen and immediately pass the candidate to the recruiter. The recruiter then presents the candidate to the mgr and take it from there. If the candidate is turned down, in order to keep the relationship between the sourcer and the candidate, the recruiter contacts the candidate and rejects them at that point.
The challenges we've had with our sourcing function is this is the first year we're taking a harder look and have 6 very large initiatives that we're implementing for 2007 as improvements. 1. technology -- sourcing portal including database and other tools 2. redefining sourcing definition 3. standardizing sourcing process 4. sourcing education 5. market intelligence 6. metrics
These are very agressive targets but will make our overall sourcing function better in the long run. I work for a corporate environment and would be happy to talk with you further. Feel free to contact me at 952-936-7353 or lori_a_rogers@uhc.com.
Regards, Lori
p.s. I've spoken to Fran Crisman at great length about this as well.
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Hi
I am also currently in the process of creating a sourcing team. I have been talking with organizations who are know for their best practices on the structure , processes, metrics, etc. I would be happy to share what I have so far. I am also interested in hearing what others have to done in this area. I work for a large healthcare system where HR is decetralized at each of our 42 facilities.
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Amy,
My example is from an agency environment, but I think it could be applicable to what you are trying to accomplish.
Do you currently have a dedicated team? Our teams are made up of: - 1 Sourcer to source for a number of related skills sets - 2 Candidate Relations Directors to contact, qualify, sell, and network with sourced candidates - 1 Managing Partner (client facing) to sell our services, gather requisitions and walk candidates through the interview process once they get there.
What metrics do you use to measure the teams success? We look at overall ratios regarding a variety of criteria - Calls to Contacts (2:1) - Messages to Call Backs (5:4 ratio) - Intakes to Sent Resume (2:1) (to hiring manager) - First Interviews to Hire (5:1) - First Interview to Final Interview (5:3) - Final Interview to Hire (3:1)
How does the team interact with the client? We have one team member perform all interactions with the Client. In his absence all other team members are aware enough of candidates? current situations to assist in any minor needs of the hiring manager.
What service level agreements are put in place between the recruiters and sourcers? We do not put any agreements in place put this is a good idea to begin with. Our success relies on the Sourcer and Managing Partner being on the same page. They steer and drive the ship. They are the ones that see and understand the overall picture of all hiring needs. Qualifiers pay more attention to the specific needs as they pertain to the particular jobs they are responsible for. They deal with what they are given.
When do the sourcers hand off the candidate? Our Sourcers hand off the candidate as soon as they are identified. They will go to one of the 2 qualifiers based on the particular skill set of the candidate. The qualifiers then discuss in detail with the candidate, their previous experiences and future aspirations. At this point, any relevant position is described to the candidate leaning on the positives that have been identified in the qualifying process. With the candidate?s green light to proceed, a presentation is made to the Managing Partner for final approval, and presented to the hiring manager.
What challenges have you been ran into? The main challenges you will find with developing a team based model is of course, the people. You need to insure that team members will get along. We use a behavioral assessment test for all possible hires for Bluespeed. You need to make sure that all team members feel the reward of a successful hire. Have your sourcer listen in while a requisition is being gathered, and have your qualifiers listen in while debriefing with the hiring manager after a round of interviews. Keep everyone involved and they?ll stay involved.
Good luck!
Eric Gilson Director of Sourcing Bluespeed Technology, Inc. www.bluespeed.net
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