Finding the best talent is every business’s dream. This is why highly qualified professionals will always be in high demand with companies both big and small constantly looking for the best workers to fill their open positions.
That being said, there are many cases when companies simply don’t have the budget to spend on an optimized recruitment process. However, this doesn’t necessarily mean that you can’t get a good specialist in your niche. You still can if you do everything right with the resources you do have and a simple direct sourcing strategy in place.
But this isn't always easy; here are the five mistakes that will destroy your direct sourcing strategy and how to avoid them.
1. Neglecting Your Brand Reputation
As an employer, you will have many requirements for your candidates. You might expect a potential candidate to have a specific number of years of experience or a certain level of knowledge about a specific subject. While you need to prioritize your own requirements during your candidate search, you should still consider the perspective of your candidates. In other words, what do they think about your business?
Neglecting brand reputation can be your first major mistake. If you don’t think about the way you appear to your candidates, you can’t possibly expect to attract the best of the best in your industry. Your brand’s image matters a lot to potential candidates. Of course, different people will have different opinions, but most will at least expect a company to have a decent reputation with minimal scandals.
Even some big, recognizable brands have numerous scandals related to working conditions which have turned off many people who may have wanted to work for those companies. It goes without saying that professionals want to be treated well. The same applies to your own business. You need to objectively assess your brand’s reputation and improve where needed before you start trying to attract top talent.
2. Creating Inadequate Job Listings and Ads
The next mistake you could make concerns the practical aspect of your recruiting and sourcing process. Attracting the right candidates often depends on the way you present yourself, but besides your brand image, you should also think about your job listings. Creating inadequate job listings and ads will do you no good – in fact, it could do you more bad than good in the long run.
For instance, if your job listing is too vague, contains mistakes, or makes unrealistic claims (or claims that seem too good to be true), a potential candidate might decide to skip it, meaning you are losing an opportunity to add a valuable employee to your team. That’s why you should pay special attention to your job listings and ads.
If you don’t have enough writing experience yourself, it’s always a good idea to outsource writing to others. You can check out one of the top writing reviews sites to find an experienced writer who can create your job listings and ads for you. This way, you will be certain that you aren’t missing out on the opportunity to find another great candidate who can apply to your job position.
3. Making Too Many Assumptions
One mistake that seems to be overlooked quite often is the mistake of making too many assumptions. It’s natural to assume what your candidate is thinking, what their logic is, and what their knowledge level is. What you should do instead is try to find a balance between assumptions and actual facts. What do your potential candidates actually think? What do your potential candidates actually know?
What this looks like in practice can differ on a case-by-case basis. For instance, you might decide that it’s better to ask candidates what kind of salary they expect instead of listing a specific salary on your job posting. This is something candidates will actually want to voice their expectations about rather than hearing what you can offer. The problem with this, however, is that there will be people who won’t apply to your job position precisely because the salary is missing from the listing.
This is why you need to try to understand the perspective of potential candidates as much as possible. If you understand how your candidates think, you can make realistic assumptions about their way of thinking and provide them with an offer that they won’t decide to pass on. Likewise, you will also understand which assumptions can’t be made.
4. Ignoring Potential Candidates
Yet another mistake that seems unrealistic but actually still happens is the mistake of ignoring potential candidates. As funny as it may sound, it’s absolutely possible to ignore potential candidates during the talent acquisition process if you are making one mistake after another. Essentially, there are two reasons why you could be ignoring potential candidates:
- You Are Ignoring Active Candidates: These are candidates who actively reach out to you to inquire about open positions. If you have created job listings, you need to make sure you're taking time to look through all the candidates who reach out or apply. Don’t make this mistake of ignoring them, and try to consider everyone to see who the best fit is.
- You Are Ignoring Less Qualified Candidates: These are candidates who don’t meet all your requirements but could still become valuable members of your team. In some cases, a person with fewer years of experience might be way more qualified for the job than someone who has as many years of experience as you are asking for. That’s why it’s worth considering the candidates who don’t seem like the perfect fit at first but who could still be valuable to you.
Once again, if you need help writing your job listings, it’s a good idea to reach out to a professional and experienced writer in the talent acquisition field who can create your job listings for you. These will help you attract the best talent and find the right people to join your team.
5. Not Using Different Recruitment Channels
Last but not least, a simple mistake you could be making is not using different recruitment channels. While it’s great to use the channels that have worked for you before (e.g. LinkedIn, job boards), you should still try to diversify your recruitment channels to find even more potential talent.
Besides diversifying your selection of recruitment channels, it’s also a good idea to experiment and try to find unusual channels to use in your recruiting and sourcing process. You never know where you can find the right person to hire. For instance, in you're looking to hire tech talent, tech forums can be a great place to look for experienced professionals who sometimes even share their own works on such forums and show off their experience.
Final Thoughts
At the end of the day, every company’s success directly depends on the people working there. That’s why it’s so important to spend enough time and effort on recruitment and find the right people for your team.
If you don’t have enough resources or a big enough budget to launch a sizeable sourcing and recruitment campaign, you can still succeed in your candidate search if you do everything correctly. Remember the mistakes listed in this article and avoid them at all costs while sourcing candidates to find the best workers who can join your team.
About the Author: Lillie Jenkins is a creative copywriter and content writer. She has worked as a copywriter since school, so her writing skills are well-honed. She works as a copywriter at the popular writing center TrustMyPaper. She writes publications in such fields as marketing, business, education, and personal life. More than writing Lillie loves to travel and read professional literature.
