Before I go into a long winded disertation about what you need to create a solid and successful sourcing strategy. Humor me, by letting me state two definitions.

First”sourcing” for me is the process of identifying candidates for the organization.

Second, (wait patiently this is the long winded part, take a deep breath!!) I define “strategic sourcing” as a standard and formal process that incorporates on-going analysis to evaluate the right mix of tools and techniques to guide and/or improve candidate generation performance and to reduce the total cost of recruiting.  (try reading that out-loud with only one breath, uuugghhh!!)

Okay for serious stuff, a sourcing strategy should be methodical, and must address such things as assessing requirements (identifying who would want the position and why, not just looking for keywords), it would define your target candidate’s habits (what conferences might they attend? or what discussion forums would they participate in?), it would provide for market analysis (it would create a list of target companies and the strategy to entice their candidates), and last but not least (let’s here a drum roll here…) it would determine the appropriate tools and techniques to ensure your search success. 

Now that seems like a tall order don’t it. At minimum it sounds too textbookish (it is a word in “my” dictionary, okay.) Here is what I mean by all that, in order to create a successful sourcing strategy you need to understand your search objectives and the scope of the search. (I can hear you already, I should just say so and avoid the overcomplicated statements, I know, I know.. c’est la vie!)

The sourcing strategy will craft a plan that will show step by step what techniques, tools, and  sources, whether internal or external, will drive the success of your search. The strategy should provide you with a central outline or broad underlying structure to show you the way, yet it must be flexible enough to engage and overcome any obstacles to your search needs.

Without a  thorough and well thought-out sourcing strategy you are leaving your search success up to chance and also increasing the risk of misunderstanding the needs or worse having no true understanding about the obstacles you will be exposed to.