Sourcing Top Talent Through Candidate Engagement

This article on strategies for sourcing top candidates was originally published in March 2019. All relevant copy and statistics have been updated as of June 2021.

When thinking about your organization’s future, the people you hire are the most important ingredient to achieving your goals. Finding the best talent makes a substantial impact on the result of your company’s success. To succeed, you must make a strategic effort to source top passive talent instead of waiting for candidates to come to you.

In today’s hiring space, a lack of qualified candidates and increased demand for top talent means that job seekers hold more power in the recruitment process. Creativity has become imperative when it comes to sourcing and candidate engagement. Pair that with Collaboration, Calibration, Candidates, and Culture (The Four C’s of IQTalent Partners’ Diamond Recruiting Process), and you have yourself a winning strategy.

The sourcing process means much more than just compiling data from qualified candidates. You have to get to know your candidates personally and build rapport with them while you research (sometimes, the relationship-building process is the research). But, an important thing to note about sourcing is when you’re looking to fill a position, waiting for the right person to find and apply to your job posting may take substantially more time than anticipated. Here’s how to better manage your time with experiences and testimonials from our team:

IQTalent Partners Employee Experiences With Diamond Recruiting

Collaboration: As the foundation of the recruitment process, collaboration gives everyone involved a feel for what to expect out of the recruitment experience. When collaborating, you get to see precisely what your sourcing and recruitment process will look like and can identify the type of person you’ll be looking for. As a team, you can work together to determine what criteria a candidate must have to fill the positions in question.

“Collaboration means getting everyone together to find the best talent by working collectively to utilize our Diamond Recruiting process. The first step of this specialized search process is to collaborate with our client to act as authentic ambassadors of our client's culture. We are true teammates, not middlemen brokering transactions."

— IQTalent Partners Team

Calibration: Once you’ve collaborated on the requirements you’re looking for in a candidate, it’s time to start the search. This part of the recruitment process includes searching for potential candidates that fit your criteria. Once you’ve created your list of talent possessing your required skill set, it’s time to start mining for diamond-level talent.

"Calibration is one of the most critical C’s when establishing a good relationship with our clients and candidates. We want to show the client through our calibration that we understood what they were looking for from our initial conversation (when we collaborated) and pushed the envelope to see how wide our bulls-eye can be when sourcing new candidates. Candidates can surprise you, so we don't want to put them inside a too narrow profile. Calibration not only sets us up for success but also establishes a trusting relationship with our clients. Our client understands if we have to re-calibrate during the search to truly find the right fit."

— Alex, Practice Leader, IQTalent Partners

Candidates: Next, it’s time to take a fine-tooth comb to your list and pick out the most qualified candidates to fill the role. Review each candidate’s profile and narrow down your candidate pool by matching skill sets to skill requirements. Once you’ve narrowed down the talent pool to the most qualified candidates, it’s time to measure fit in your company.

"Our Diamond Recruiting process provides both clients and candidates with a highly personalized process. With any new engagement or potential candidate, we spend the necessary time getting to know each other. As a Recruiter, I want to know what a company needs from potential employees and what a candidate needs from a new opportunity to succeed. We’re helping individuals find careers, not just staffing openings."

— IQTalent Partners Team

Culture: Finally, it’s time to align your remaining candidates in the pool to the cultural impact they’ll have on your team. It’s essential to measure a candidate’s personality, interests, demeanor, and communication style to ensure a proper fit beyond technical skills. Taking the time to assess for culture fit before hiring a candidate can save you from making a bad hire. When candidates are a good match with your workplace culture, they are more productive and require less intensive training.

"We want clients to be excited about their hires, and we want candidates to thrive in their new jobs. That’s why we need to assess culture fit along with skills and experience. Intangibles like personality, work style, and interests all factor into a good mutual fit."

— Francine, Recruiter & Engagement Leader, IQTalent Partners

Set Phasers To “Engage”

With the Diamond Recruiting principles put into place, it’s time to engage your remaining candidates. You’ve narrowed your pool down to the most qualified individuals, but if you don’t engage these candidates correctly, you may end up losing them. Once you’ve engaged with a candidate, you must discover what motivates them. A candidate’s motivation can significantly impact whether or not they become a successful employee and align with your company’s values. Staying on the same page as your candidates will play a large role in the success of your engagement and recruiting efforts overall.

The IQTP Way

When you commit to a qualified candidate sourcing partner, you can rest assured that no candidate leaves un-contacted. We share all the candidate data with you at every point in the process, something most other external recruiting agencies don’t do. This helps to keep you in the loop and also establishes trust in our recruitment efforts. Acting as an extension of your in-house recruiting team, IQTP instantly adds a wealth of experience and knowledge across various industries. Our team of expert sourcers can help you find and screen candidates, ensuring you spend your time and effort connecting with the best candidate for the role.

No matter what, it’s important to remember the significance of communication in the sourcing and recruiting process. Whether you’re planning the process with your team or engaging with your most qualified candidates, communication will have a massive impact on the result of your recruitment process. To learn more about the Diamond Recruiting process, or for more information about how to successfully source and engage top-level talent, reach out to our team of experts and schedule your free consultation today.