How do candidate sourcing companies work?

Candidate sourcing companies works primarily in the front-end of the recruitment cycle to source candidates that matches a specific job requisition.

Firstly, there are two types of sourcing in terms of candidates. Passive Candidate Sourcing and Internet Sourcing. Passive candidate sourcing focuses on candidates that do not have their resumes on the internet, are typically gainfully employed, and need to be made aware of your opening. Passive candidate sourcing is also known as direct recruiting. Internet Sourcing is explained below.

For Internet Sourcing, source mediums will vary with each company, but can include major and local job boards, social networking sites, proprietary and private resume databases and the general Internet. The advantage of using these types of companies include affordable pricing and a more comprehensive search to find the BEST qualified candidates available. While small and medium businesses may be limited in resources (time, money and manpower), sourcing companies will typically have access to many of the resume utilities and charge a fraction of the cost in comparison to if an independent company were to try to access these sites on their own. Importantly candidates sourcing companies are not agency recruiters, and there are no third party recruitment fees.

It is important when attempting to select a sourcing company, that you query on their process and what type of work is performed when searching for matching candidates. I also recommend being extremely thorough with the company and provide as much details as possible, as to the types of candidates needed for the position. Be weary of companies that simply using Spiders to crawl databases searching for specific keyWords. For example searching for a Project Manager that has overseen a web design project, is not the same as a web designer. Some companies will merely search for keyWords, and not qualifications.

It may take some time to find a qualified candidate sourcing company, but it will be worth the effort in long term time savings, greater efficiencies in the recruitment cycle and overall savings on the recruitment budget.