Why Crowdsourcing is Becoming a Promising Method for Talent Acquisition


Organizations predominantly fill open positions utilizing job boards, Applicant Tracking System, CV screening, talent assessment followed by candidate selection. Apart from this approach the next most common way to fill jobs is by using the help of a recruitment agency.

But all these come with limitations like the time taken to fill, overall expenses, etc. Also, the crucial step that decides the success of your talent acquisition relies on attracting the right set of candidates to apply to the job opening to choose from among them.

The sky is the limit when it comes to talent sourcing techniques.

Therefore, recruiters and organizations constantly look for better ways and strategies to source talent. One of the most promising talent sourcing channels is crowdsourcing. You would have heard of crowdsourcing when it comes to fundraising and charity-related events, but now the power of the right crowd has also occupied its space in the recruitment industry.

Now, let’s quickly understand the advantages crowdsourcing offers in hiring.

Advantages of Crowdsourcing Talent Acquisition
  1. Gives access to a larger talent pool.
  2. Enables access to better qualified candidates.
  3. Reduces hiring time.
  4. Minimizes hiring cost.
  5. Enables building a strong talent pool.
  6. Enables better candidate willingness.
  7. Allows acquiring candidates with more relevant skills.
  8. Gives access to passive candidates.
  9. Candidate sourcing part becomes simplified.
  10. Help fill vacancies with specialized needs.
Top 6 Strategies to Crowdsource Talent Acquisition 

Recruitment Marketplaces 

Recruitment marketplaces are among the best places to acquire candidates through talent crowdsourcing. Such hiring platforms effectively connect organizations with expert recruiters who can source the best suited talents for a given job vacancy. Recruitment marketplaces usually come with platform support where independent and agency recruiters can screen and upload candidate profiles that will be background checked and sourced to the organizations looking for talent. This is more of an outcome- driven talent acquisition solution that uses crowdsourcing as one of the strategies to enable enterprises acquire quality talent within a shorter turnaround time.

Recruiter Marketplaces

Recruiter marketplaces are slightly different from recruitment marketplaces. Here an employer can choose one or more recruiters they prefer to work with. Simply put, organizations can choose a recruiter to work with based on their experience, industry expertise, recruiter branding, placement fee, etc. Recruiter marketplaces provide immense opportunities for talented recruiters to assist employers in filling hard-to-fill job openings with the best-suited candidates.

Job Referral Programs

Job referral programs are similar to your friend recommending you an excellent job opening to apply. There are two types of job referral programs: internal and external job referral programs. The internal job referral program is only open to the internal members of an organization. Employees can refer suitable candidates from their known circle and get an incentive for the successful placement of the candidate. The external job referral program is open for both people within and outside the organization, where the person who made a successful job referral will receive a placement fee. Launching a job referral campaign could be made simple using Google/Microsoft forms or online posts and survey links that can be shared and reshared by everyone.

Social Media

Social media is also one of the promising platforms that can help acquire suitable candidates when used in the right way. Here it is essential to use the right keywords when looking for candidates. You also need to populate your posts and profile with the right keywords to be found by the most relevant lot. Job-specific networking platforms are designed and optimized to connect potential candidates with employers and recruiters.

LinkedIn is excellent for candidate sourcing and a commonly used job networking platform where you can find the most open-to-work professionals and niche groups. You can also target job-related groups on social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and communities for recruiters, job seekers, and niche industry professionals.

Industry Specific Events

Organizations conduct events such as job fairs, training sessions, seminars, educational sessions, and so on, both online and offline. Though the primary focus of conducting such events would be training, knowledge sharing, and skill development, this can also be an excellent medium for creating a talent network that acquires a relevant talent pool.

This also benefits active and passive job seekers looking for suitable positions and industry professionals with a solid network to volunteer as part of this professional talent network. Such interactive programs help employers and recruiters assess the participants' skills they can convert as their talent pool and sort and rank them according to their skills and subject knowledge even before they apply.

One-to-one Digital Communication

It is possible to acquire candidates by directly communicating with prospective candidates. It can be run as a talent program only if you have enough contacts registered on your website career page to whom you can directly send details regarding the existing and upcoming job openings. This communication is mainly done via email, WhatsApp, and text messages using bulk messages. To run this process smoothly, you need message and email templates that are bulk actionable, a go-to recipient list, ready-to-use job descriptions, a strong talent pool, and a strong talent attraction and retention strategy.

Challenges

Crowdsourcing always comes with specific challenges. Crowdsourcing does not guarantee outcome as it cannot be relied upon as the only source to acquire talent. When there is a need to fill urgent positions, HR experts recommend using a human-tech collaborative effort to source talent. Both people and technology in silos cannot effectively fulfil an ambitious hiring goal. Further, employers and recruiters face problems choosing the best-suited crowdsourcing strategy and the platform to get started with. Here is the list of top talent sourcing platforms to make your effort easier.

Top 5 Recruitment Marketplaces

MyRCloud

Recruiting Hub

Hiring plug

BountyJobs

Crowdrecruiting

Summary

The ultimate goal of crowdsourcing is to simplify talent acquisition. A crowdsourcing campaign needs a proper design, planning, and promotion to target the right audience. Some platforms allow you to conduct job campaigns and implement crowdsourcing as an in-built strategy to acquire suitable talent, called recruitment management solutions. These solutions offer end-to-end hiring services, partner and client managers, dashboards, and tech support.

Fill this form by populating the Template Name field with "Crowdsourcing" to get to know more about talent crowdsourcing and to launch your own talent crowdsourcing campaign by utilizing job referrals, LinkedIn, etc., along with the help of platform support and a community of recruiters.

Signing off:


Vidhya V,

23rd August 2022

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