How To Source Top Talent For Your Business?

Talent sourcing is key for building long-term success in your business. If you surround yourself with quality employees who buy into your company culture, you’re more likely to build sustainable productivity and achieve business objectives.

Likewise, a bad hire has a direct impact on team morale and your bottom line, with the potential for unforeseen repercussions later down the line. If you’re looking to improve how you source top talent for your business, here’s the steps you should be taking.?

What is talent sourcing?

Fundamentally, talent sourcing is the process of finding niches in your business and then bringing in talent to fill these gaps. Once you’ve identified areas where you need a specific skill set or more resources to achieve business goals, you’ll leverage your talent pipeline to find the right person for the job.

There are generally two pools of candidates that you can use to source talent, the active candidate market and the passive candidate market. The active candidate market sounds like what it is – a demographic of candidates that are actively seeking work.

However, data suggests around 90% of people are willing to talk about potential opportunities, provided the role suits their career goals. This is the ‘passive candidate’ market and is often difficult for employers to reach.

With this in mind, it’s vital you reach every available demographic if you want to find the top candidates for your open vacancies. If you have a talent pipeline that taps into both markets, you’ll be in a much better position to find your next star employee.

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How to source top talent for your business

When you start searching for new talent, you can use the following steps to help develop your talent pipeline:

1. Establish a culture

Company culture is the heartbeat of a business. It directly impacts productivity, morale, employee retention and even the ability to hire new talent – provided that your employees buy into it. People are more likely to join a company if they’ve heard good things about it from previous or existing employees.

Once you’ve established a positive culture and you understand the type of business you’re trying to build, it makes hiring significantly easier as you’ll be able to choose based on both technical ability and culture fit. While this may narrow your search in the outset, it mitigates the potential of a bad hire and improves the chances of a great long-term hire.

Remember, hiring someone that doesn’t fit the culture can make them feel isolated or unhappy while hiring new talent that also fits the culture can re-energise a team and provide a new perspective.

2. Use your employee’s networks

During the initial stages of the recruitment process, many companies speak with existing employees to try and establish potential referrals. Many people have peers that work in similar professions or operate in similar circles, which automatically opens you up to a wider talent pool.?

Secondly, a candidate that is referred by an existing employee is more likely to result in a successful hire. This is mainly because employees don’t want to refer a candidate who is the wrong fit for the position as this reflects badly on them.

During this process, your employee may also act as an advocate for the business, offering a great first impression that might not have otherwise been possible.

When you begin sourcing top talent, consider setting up candidate sourcing sessions with employees – they might be a recruitment channel that you did not initially consider.

3. Utilise a recruitment agency

We previously mentioned the opportunities that might be available in the passive candidate market. This is a difficult demographic for an employer to tap into, often requiring the right contacts or significant resources in terms of time and manpower. For businesses that are hiring in-house, this usually requires integrated marketing support which only eats up your budget.?

A more affordable alternative is working alongside a recruitment agency. Working with a recruitment consultant offers several benefits: access to the passive candidate market, an established network, industry knowledge and third-party support.

If you’re a business based in Guernsey and you choose to work with a Guernsey recruitment agency, for example, you’ll be gaining insights into the local market that can’t be found from larger mainland companies.

Remember, a bad hire costs a business roughly 1.25 to 1.4 times its base salary . Rather than take this hit, it’s better to spend the money working alongside a trusted partner and reduce the impact on day-to-day operations.

4. Establish and maintain a strong brand

If you have a great reputation within your industry, you’re significantly more likely to find great talent. Everything customer-facing that you put out into the world impacts your brand. This ranges from your social channels to the way you conduct yourself in a meeting or work with suppliers.?

You’ll want to maintain great relationships with external parties and provide a good experience for employees, particularly those who

have left. Remember that people talk about previous roles and if you’re spoken about in a positive light, future candidates are much more likely to join the business.

A great way of building this brand initially is through reviews. People read and make decisions based on reviews – whether that’s through Google, Trustpilot or platforms such as Glassdoor. It’s definitely worth your time to go through these platforms and ensure you’re coming across in the best way.

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