Article by Caroline Fast
Understanding the relationship between employer branding and sourcing is crucial to the implementation of work procedures that may help companies in the increasing competition for human capital. This article will explain the different concepts, the connection between them, and how to measure the effectiveness of the integration between employer branding and sourcing. Employer branding and Sourcing are both concepts that arose from the “new world”, from the challenges that the new reality brings with it. One of the main challenges companies are facing nowadays is acquiring new talent and retaining it within the company. Employer branding and Sourcing have everything to do with it!
But first, what is employer branding? Employer branding is the perception of the company as a good place to work at, is the company an “employer of choice” in the eyes of potential candidates, passive or active, in the eyes of the employees, and in the eyes of external parties? Employer branding communicates the vision of the company, its values, and its culture, it emphasizes and highlights what makes the company unique as an employer in the context of recruiting and retaining employees. It is the ability of the company to tell its story and communicate it internally and externally, and it affects how the employees and potential candidates will relate to the company and experience it. Employer branding has a direct effect on the retention and recruitment of employees in the organization. It provides a sense of connectedness and belongingness to existing employees while at the same time acting as a tool for attracting new employees and is therefore very significant.
Sourcing is an area of specialization in the recruitment process that focuses on the initial contact with the candidates, mainly including the process of finding and attracting candidates for open job positions. The sourcing process includes every activity that revolves around identifying and assessing potential candidates as well as selecting and engaging with those who seem like a good fit for the position.
Sourcing and employer branding influence each other in a two-way relationship, employer branding directly affects the response rates of candidates when they are approached, the percentages of positive returns, the percentages of contracts signed, and the total time to hire - which is the time it will take to bring in a candidate and close him to a position. Sourcing affects employer branding mainly via the candidate's experience, starting with the channels through which the candidate is approached, continuing with the knowledge that is given to the candidate, the way in which the information about the company is presented and delivered, and whether seriousness and consistency are expressed. The initial contact with the sourceres affects the candidate's first impression of the company, his opinion about the company, and about the people who work for the company or on its behalf. This moment of initial interaction with the candidate is a critical one, as this is the moment where the candidate creates an opinion about the employer that will influence whether the candidate will eventually become a part of the company.
After establishing that the ability to bring suitable talents to the company is affected by employer branding, and in its turn, the process of sourcing affects the branding of the employer, how do we measure if this interaction works properly? It is not easy to measure precisely the effect of employer branding as it is often measurable in the long term. But if we insist, apart from checking how many searches the company's name had on google, we’ll notice that employer branding measurable goals align with Sourcing measurable goals. Those could be the number of relevant CVs that entered the pipeline, the total time to hire, the response rate to sourceres, the percentage of offers that went out to candidates, the percentage of job closures, and the general cost per hire. Additional success indicators in the field of sourcing could be challenging jobs that we were able to close and direct feedback from hiring managers.
To summarize, Continuous work is necessary in order for companies to succeed in today's competitive world. Companies need to make sure the sourcing process is done in the best way possible. In addition
Companies need to constantly create differentiation and create uniqueness in order to maintain their place in the market by working on their employer branding - this in turn will affect customers, employees, and potential candidates as well.
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