Sourcing
Also called: candidate sourcing, talent sourcing
For roles where the right person rarely applies (senior engineers, specialized sales, niche operations), sourcing is what hiring actually is.
What sourcing covers
Three activities sit under the label:
- Searching. Boolean searches on LinkedIn, GitHub, niche directories. A senior engineer who is not job-hunting is found here.
- Outreach. Sending the first message. The bar is high — a generic “We’re hiring!” message gets ignored; a specific one about the candidate’s recent work gets a reply.
- Network activation. Asking your team and your investors for referrals. The cheapest source of high-quality candidates in most companies.
Sourcing is what fills the top of the hiring funnel when the job posting alone doesn’t.
Why an SMB needs to source
Most SMBs hire one or two highly specialized roles per year that an inbound posting will never fill well. For those roles, sourcing is the entire process. The “applications” the team reviews are ones the team itself produced.
Sourcing also produces a different shape of candidate. Inbound candidates self-select for “I am job-hunting now.” Sourced candidates often were not actively looking — which means the conversation is different, and the offer needs to compete with a job they already have.
What good sourcing looks like
A few signs:
- Specific outreach, not blast. A reply rate of 25-40% on outbound messages is normal when the message is specific. Below 10% means you’re blasting.
- One conversation per role per week, not 20. Sourcing is high-effort. Three solid candidates beat thirty cold names.
- A live talent pool. Candidates who said “not now, ask me in six months” need to live somewhere you can find again. Without that pool, you re-source every time.
- Referrals built into the team’s habit, not a quarterly ask. Birthday-style reminders to every team member work better than a once-a-year all-hands.
What sourcing is not
It is not spamming candidates. Mass-sent LinkedIn InMails with no context damage your employer brand and rarely produce hires.
It is also not a separate function from recruiting in an SMB. The same person who screens inbound applications usually sources for the hard roles.
Where Join fits
Join’s talent pool stores sourced candidates and re-engagement notes so a “not now” today is a conversation in six months. See the features page.
