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Proactive outbound sourcing activities are driving the highest levels of success and satisfaction among recruiters and TA teams, especially in the critical Attraction and Pre-Application stages of the recruiting process. These are just a few of the key takeaways from Talent Board’s latest research report, Developing a High-Quality Candidate Pipeline in 2022, published in partnership with Clinch, a company that helps recruiting teams deliver authentic candidate experiences from first engagement to application.

The report is based on a 2022 global survey of 350 recruiters and TA professionals who shared insights into the activities and tactics their teams are using to attract and engage high-quality candidates in today’s fiercely competitive talent market.

The survey revealed that proactive outbound sourcing improves both candidate and applicant quality for a substantial portion of respondents: 55% said outbound recruiting raises candidate quality somewhat or significantly, while 43% said it lifts applicant quality.

Outbound sourcing activities also improve several other recruiting KPIs including hiring manager satisfaction (as reported by 36% of respondents), the time needed to present potential candidates to hiring managers (29%), diversity, equity, and inclusion (28%), and offer acceptance rate (27%).

Top Outbound Activities … and Some Old-School Staples

A full 90% of respondents conduct some form of outbound recruiting activities, the most prevalent of which are: 

• LinkedIn messages — 44%
• Sourcing external databases — 41%
• Sourcing internal databases — 36%
• Headhunting — 33%
• Building talent communities — 33%

Despite outbound recruiting’s positive impact, TA teams also continue to rely fairly heavily on old-school attraction and engagement activities. For instance:

• 61% of respondents are leveraging employee referrals.
• 58% post to job boards.
• 48% post to LinkedIn.
• 44% conduct employer branding efforts.
• 37% utilize recruitment marketing campaigns.

As I’ve written in the past, old-school tactics definitely have their place in modern recruiting, but they don’t typically generate bold results. Today’s employers need to consider adopting more novel and proactive approaches like outbound recruiting tactics, virtual recruiting events, live online recruiter Q&A sessions, and employer branding campaigns—all of which can help to fill their pipelines with quality candidates and distinguish their organizations from competitors.

Our survey also delved into TA teams’ top challenges, their key priorities for the year ahead, specific drivers of hiring manager satisfaction, and much more. I’ll share a few more of our key findings in my next post, so be sure to check back here soon.

In the meantime, you can download the full report here for a fascinating snapshot of “life in the trenches” for today’s recruiters and TA professionals. The report offers some really useful insights into how they’re coping with the escalating need for talent at a time when quality candidates are scarcer than they’ve ever been for certain industries and sectors.

Be safe and well.

Kevin W. Grossman, Talent Board President