Sourcing candidates means your employment specialist utilizes her professional contacts, creativity and comprehensive knowledge of the vacant position to identify qualified applicants for your company. The employment specialist or the staffing agency to which you outsource this function narrows down applicants to a select number of candidates and sends that list to your company. Sourcing occurs at trade shows, seminars and conventions and via posting online to career or social networking sites. Many job announcements are made through word-of-mouth. This is a very effective method for sourcing applicants.
Screening & Reviewing Applications
The introduction of Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) has changed the way recruiters and employment specialists do business. Hard copy applications are almost obsolete, now replaced with online application processes that software developers fine-tuned for the human resources field. Employment specialists review applicant qualifications, often searching for keywords identical or similar to those in the job vacancy announcement. This minimizes the time spent thumbing through paper applications and enables recruiters to narrow the list of candidates to a manageable number of people whose resumes suggest they are qualified for the job.
Preliminary Phone Interview
Employment specialists conduct preliminary phone interviews with applicants. The purpose of a telephone interview is to obtain more information about the applicant, ask questions related to work history and verify the accuracy of information on his resume. Some employment specialists with a substantial amount of experience also might ask industry-specific questions. The applicant has an opportunity to ask questions, too. If the preliminary interview is fruitful, the recruiter forwards the application to the hiring manager. This step in the process saves time in face-to-face interviews--the recruiter can discern whether the applicant has requisite skills and qualification before inviting him to the office for a face-to-face interview. Gleaning a significant amount of information about the applicant's work history is quite possible in a 30-minute telephone interview.
Pre-Employment Processes
After the hiring manager conducts