On average, talent acquisition professionals spend nearly 1/3 of the workweek (about 13 hours) sourcing candidates for a single role.
While organizations continue looking for new and creative ways to source qualified candidates, outbound recruiting has become an increasingly popular choice in today’s tight labor market.
By shifting your recruiting strategy from reactive to proactive, outbound recruitment continually fuels your sourcing methods. So, what exactly is outbound recruiting, and how can it help shorten your hiring cycle and bring a spark to your recruitment strategy?
What Is Outbound Recruitment?
Outbound recruiting refers to a variety of talent sourcing techniques, including referral programs, talent mapping, headhunting, and personalized outreach campaigns. Recruiters use these strategies to identify qualified talent and extend offers before potential candidates ever become aware of a job opening.
The innovative hiring strategies of outbound recruitment have helped revolutionize how recruiters source candidates today. It empowers hiring professionals to actively engage in recruiting, instead of waiting for applicants to initiate contact via inbound recruitment.
Outbound recruiting allows recruiters to go out and proactively look for the right candidates to fill available job openings. This proactive approach helps reduce the time-to-hire and can also identify potential candidates who may not have applied otherwise.
DYK?
70% of the global workforce comprises passive talent who aren’t actively job searching; the remaining 30% are active job seekers.
Outbound vs. Inbound Recruitment: Turning Reactivity Into Proactivity
Outbound recruitment can yield some highly beneficial results for organizations. This style of talent sourcing allows recruiters to reach a broader audience more quickly and efficiently than other approaches.
Outbound recruiting offers many advantages over traditional inbound approaches, especially when sourcing qualified passive candidates.
| Outbound | Inbound | |
|---|---|---|
| Reach | Wider | Narrower |
| Hiring Process | Shorter | Longer |
| Workload | Front-loaded | Back-loaded |
| Candidate Quality | Controlled by You | Luck-of-the-Draw |
#OutboundRecruitment offers many advantages over traditional inbound recruiting approaches, especially when sourcing qualified passive candidates.
Using outbound sourcing strategies gives organizations an edge over competitors and helps them stay ahead of peers in terms of hiring quality candidates quickly.
By investing resources in this proactive method, recruiters can reach individuals who may not yet have applied directly for a position with your organization.
Targeting people with the necessary skill sets regardless of their career status (unemployed, contract, etc.) allows recruiters to draw from a deeper pool of specialized talent.
This targeted approach of outbound recruiting strategies makes the process similar to spearfishing, whereas inbound recruiting is like casting a net in random waters while wearing a blindfold.
DYK?
70% of respondents agree sourcing automation would increase productivity.
Build Relationships With Candidates Early On
Outbound recruiting also allows organizations to develop relationships with potential candidates before they apply for positions.
Building relationships with talented professionals early in their careers can create lasting partnerships between employers and prospective employees.
This long-term perspective can increase loyalty among staff members and allow employers access to top talent – before they’re actively looking for new jobs elsewhere. In addition, finding skilled professionals to add to your talent pipeline increases your organization’s strategic and proactive capabilities.
Outbound recruitment can help eliminate various roadblocks when reaching out to passive job seekers who might already be employed.
Proactively reaching out to such groups enables organizations to create new opportunities for themselves and for potential applicants.
By providing access to a more diverse pool of talent than produced by traditional recruiting, outbound sourcing can help boost diversity in the workforce.
What role does #Techplay in the success of outbound recruitment? Find out this and more in @Visage_Jobs recent post:
Because time truly is money in the field of talent acquisition, outbound recruitment can provide employers with quantifiable savings.
When you reach out to suitable applicants directly instead of waiting for applications, you can significantly shorten your search process and proceed to onboarding.
If recruiters have access to pre-evaluated candidates when they’re most needed, it minimizes the chance of delays during the hiring process. And it works! 62% of talent teams find more high-quality candidates through sourcing than inbound applications.
Outbound Recruiting Tools and Strategies
Technology also plays a major role in the success of outbound recruitment.
Automation platforms allow recruiters to automate many time-intensive sourcing activities, from identifying prospects using sophisticated search algorithms to tracking engagement metrics to building personalized workflows.
These kinds of automations enable talent leaders to spend less time sourcing and more time engaging with promising leads that could become employees.
In addition, machine learning technology can help recruiters make data-driven decisions by providing insights derived from data gathered from past experiences. This information allows recruiters to hone their techniques over time and increase their chances of success with each new campaign.
Why Choose Visage for Your Outbound Recruitment Needs?
Schedule a demo to see how you can boost your outbound recruiting efforts with Visage.
Outbound recruitment is an effective and reliable way to proactively source top talent in a tight labor market. By using creative outreach methods like networking events and social media and building meaningful relationships early on, recruiters can edge out the rest of the field and ensure their organization remains competitive in today’s ever-evolving landscape.
Director of Sourcing Operations at Visage, Evelyn has experience in agency, RPO, and in-house roles spanning 12 years in the recruitment industry. Evelyn has built and oversees a 4000-member global freelance sourcing community. Every Christmas in Ireland, she enjoys putting up her THREE Christmas trees.