Next Generation Sourcing

Introduction

Nowadays, sourcing is routinely done by posting jobs on websites or by conducting keyword searches on the resume repositories of numerous job boards. Companies employ these methods to ensure an adequate flow of active and passive candidates. Unfortunately, these approaches have serious limitations. Too much reliance on active sourcing yields a surfeit of unqualified applicants. Conversely, seeking passive candidates by relying on key word searching is time consuming and imprecise, not because there is anything wrong with search technology per se, but because the content being searched lacks specificity.

New sourcing solutions are required to address these problems, solutions that dramatically reduce the time to source, increase response rates, and improve applicant quality. They result from challenging conventional wisdom and applying technology in intelligent, innovative ways. This paper describes InqHire's unique approach to true next generation sourcing.

Refined Workforce Knowledge

Traditionally, demographics have been used to develop a statistical framework to describe selected characteristics of the population. Businesses have come to rely on these as measuring devices for determining the size and composition of target markets. Armed with sophisticated technology that mines demographic data, modern concerns now routinely develop marketing campaigns that exploit the interests of any given segment of the population.

Demographics are also an ideal tool to develop an understanding of the workforce but, to be useful in sourcing, entirely different demographic data must be used. Whereas traditional demographics can reveal such things as age, gender, or ethnicity for segments of the population, workforce demographics reveal the knowledge, experience, and skills that collections of individuals have acquired in business related activities. When worker preferences about chosen industry, or desired location and income are added, a complete picture of the workforce results.

Demographic Data Warehouse

Workforce demographic data is stored in a data warehouse which InqHire calls The Exchange. The Exchange gives employers extraordinary insights into the workforce at large and about the individuals that comprise it. At a national, state, or local level, The Exchange can create a picture of the workforce based on skills, knowledge, income requirements, or anything else you wish. For example, if you want to price jobs in a given industry, industry segment, and location, or perhaps determine the degree of difficulty of filling any given job, The Exchange can help you do that.

But the real power of The Exchange lies in its ability to locate qualified individuals for your jobs. To do that it must have detailed knowledge of workforce members, knowledge it has already captured from surveying individuals beforehand. Consequently, The Exchange can identify well qualified candidates, regardless of the number or types of qualifications you specify.

Automating the Process

The fact that the information you need resides in a warehouse isn’t meaningful unless you have an effective way of getting to it. That’s where CASE, InqHire’s Computer Aided Screening and Evaluation, comes in. CASE is normally used to screen incoming applicants to determine their eligibility for a job. But it also serves another important role: sourcing individuals through The Exchange.

Because CASE and The Exchange were architected as twin services, they communicate in a natural, effortless way. By working in tandem, job requirements specified in CASE form natural queries for The Exchange. This requires no key word or other data entry on your part - it happens automatically. Once The Exchange determines qualifying candidates, it notifies them of your interest immediately.

Next Generation Sourcing

In next generation sourcing, job seekers and employers collaborate to locate one another. They do so freely, quickly, and easily. Until now, the technology to bring about this collaboration did not exist. InqHire’s CASE and The Exchange have changed that for good.