Sourcing strategy: a guide to successfully attract top talent

Before you start thinking about interviews and qualifying candidates, it's good to establish a few essentials first. From where to advertise roles to the best recruitment tools and services, ensure your business attracts top talent with this practical guide.

Build a strong employer brand

• Ensure your company culture is positive and engaging: This helps motivate existing employees and attract new talent.
• Update your careers page: Use your careers page as a sales pitch to prospective employees. Showcase your company’s purpose, employee value proposition (EVP), benefits and ways of working. You can also feature existing employee profiles, with pictures and videos, to humanise your company and encourage new talent to join your team.
• Have a content marketing strategy: Post engaging content (at least two to four updates per month on LinkedIn) to showcase your company’s work, achievements, culture, values and career opportunities.
• Encourage employee advocacy: Encourage your existing team to share your company’s work, values and job postings on their own social media channels. This will help boost brand awareness and build trust.

Use free and low-cost channels

Make the most of free or cheap tools and channels to keep track of prospective talent.

• Head-hunt on LinkedIn: Connect and send messages to your network on LinkedIn. Target qualified individuals and be transparent about your intentions.
• Encourage referrals: Incentivise your employees to refer qualified profiles and leverage their networks to find your next hires.
• Build long-term partnerships: Regularly meet and engage with universities, alumni associations, apprenticeship providers and career centres to raise your brand awareness among recent graduates and qualified talent.
• Keep an eye on potential talent: Record any potential profiles and companies worth nurturing for future hiring opportunities. You can use an applicant tracking system (ATS) to help manage email sequencing, searching and tracking.
• Join relevant groups: Identify and join relevant online groups, forums and slack communities, where you can engage with new talent and advertise roles when appropriate.
• Attend industry events: Attend industry conferences, meetups and networking events. Advertise your attendance online, participate in talks, provide opportunities for potential candidates to meet you and be proactive about follow ups.

Get in touch with our team to find out how we can help you connect to our London ecosystem of networks and partners.

Choose the right paid channels

Allocate a budget to advertise and recruit top talent on the right channels for your business.

• Use specific job boards: Reach large audiences on LinkedIn and Indeed or use specialist boards to target certain industries and demographics. When you create a job posting, consider the level and expertise you seek, as well as the ideal candidate’s motivations and preferences. If you have a unique selling proposition (USP), such as a remote-first culture, include this in your advertising.
• Advertise on social media: Target specific demographics and interests on platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, X, TikTok and Instagram. Sequencing is crucial to maximise the effectiveness of your ad campaigns.
• Explore talent marketplaces: Browse through candidates open to new opportunities on LinkedIn Recruiter and Recruiter Lite. These are paid services but are worth investing in due to their robustness and reach. Find tech talent on Hackajob and Haystack. Or contact specialised agencies for niche or urgent hires.

Track, analyse and review your strategy

Whether free or paid, regularly review which tools and channels are most useful and effective in finding and recruiting new talent for your business.

• Track key performance indicators: Monitor key metrics such as time to fill a role and candidate quality.
• Integrate tools: Connect your ATS if you are using one with other tools like LinkedIn and job boards to streamline processes and capture data for your analysis.
• Compare channel effectiveness: Compare the performance of different channels (such as job boards, social media and referrals) to identify which are most effective. Check which yield interviews and placements to also assess the quality of the candidates brought forward.
• Identify areas for improvement: Use data to identify obstacles, inefficiencies or underperforming strategies or tools.
• Make data-driven decisions: Implement changes based on your analysis. Test and optimise continually for effectiveness and efficiency.

Learn more about tracking the right metrics throughout your recruitment process.

Avoid these common mistakes

Now you’re all set to establish an effective strategy to recruit top talent, save more time and money by avoiding these common mistakes.

• Skills gap: Use tools such as LinkedIn Talent Insights or Boolean search to identify the size and location of your candidate pool, and ensure the skills and experience required are available in the market.
• Limiting the pool: Requesting minimum years of experience or specific qualifications can exclude or discourage talented candidates from applying. Instead, consider transferable skills and the potential for a candidate to develop into the role. Differentiate between essential and desirable skills to demonstrate flexibility and broaden your results.
• Ignoring competition: Know what your key competitors are offering. How does your offer compare? Consistently benchmarking salaries, ways of working, market position and career progression can help you to remain competitive.
• Unrealistic timelines: Review your current team, capacity and access to hiring tools before establishing a recruitment timeline. Manual processes, head-hunting and limited team availability can slow the recruitment process.

Read more tips on how to recruit top talent, from ensuring a positive experience for candidates to planning interviews and offering a role.