With the current talent shortage in many industries, it's become more important than ever to explore all options for sourcing candidates.
That's where outbound recruiting comes in.
In this article, we'll give you everything you need to know about outbound recruiting, from what it is to the different types of strategies you can use.
Outbound recruiting is a proactive approach to sourcing candidates. Rather than waiting for talents to apply to your job postings or come to you, outbound recruiting involves actively seeking out and approaching candidates who might be a good fit for your open positions.
It can include reaching out to passive candidates who are not actively looking for new opportunities, as well as those who may not have applied to job postings or otherwise expressed interest in a position.
This approach involves searching for talent through various channels, such as social media, professional networks, referrals, and events. One of the goals is also to build relationships with potential candidates even before a job opening arises.
Inbound recruiting is a strategy of attracting candidates to apply for a job through a company’s website, social media, or job boards. It is a reactive approach that relies on job postings and brand awareness to generate applications.
Outbound recruiting, on the other hand, is a proactive strategy. It focuses on actively reaching out to potential candidates and building relationships with passive profiles before a job opening arises.
Both approaches have their advantages and disadvantages. But you can make them work together to create a competitive talent acquisition plan.
The main advantages of outbound recruitment are:
While you will find great benefits in outbound hiring, there are still some downsides to consider:
Cold outreach: This involves sourcing potential candidates who you have not had any previous contact with.
Warm outreach: This involves reaching out to candidates who have previously interacted with your company, such as through events or past applications.
Referral-based outreach: This involves leveraging your current employees or network to find potential candidates who might be a good fit.
There are several different channels you can use in an outbound hiring strategy, including:
Whatever approach or channel you use, the offer you make must be clear, transparent and personalized. Recruitment is like a sales job where you need to target the right candidates with the right offer at the right moment.
You must show your potential candidates that you value their unique profile and that your company has great perks to provide in return.
That’s why when reaching out, especially for cold outreach, make sure to include :
When doing social media or email outreach, you must focus on getting responses.
Why ? Because doubling the response rate will reduce the workload by four times. This is because a better response rate means more interviews for the same volume of people contacted.
Secondly, doubling the response rate will result in better candidates. There is an adverse selection bias, where the best candidates are the least likely to respond. Therefore, improving the rate of positive responses by 10% to 20% is likely to result in better quality candidates.
Continuous improvement is crucial. The more you measure your results, test and continuously improve your messages, the higher the response rates, number of interviews and candidate quality.
There are two main tools you’ll need to have your way in any outbound recruiting strategy.
LinkedIn Recruiter is the most known sourcing tool out there and for a reason : most professionals are on LinkedIn.
LinkedIn Recruiter helps you find suitable applicants more efficiently. It is a hiring platform that assists with finding, shortlisting, and managing candidates. The tool utilizes insights from LinkedIn's active community to reduce overall hiring time. You can also easily reach out to a large number of applicants using its bulk messaging capability.
Inspired from the infamous Client Relationship Management System, an alternative solution dedicated to recruiters was born : the Candidate Relationship Management System.
Leonar is one of them.
It will allow you to :
While outbound recruiting can be an effective strategy for filling open positions, it can also present several challenges for recruiters, including:
Outbound hiring has become a necessity for companies looking for a competitive advantage in finding top talents. It won’t replace the traditional Inbound practices. However, it has the power to balance its weaknesses considering today’s recruitment issues.
By understanding the different types of hiring strategies, as well as their challenges and benefits, recruiters can make informed decisions about how to best approach sourcing candidates in their industry.
But as competition for top talent continues to increase and considering the continuous evolution of technologies and social media, outbound recruiting is likely to become even more important for any successful talent acquisition plan in the years to come.
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