How did Sourcing Become a Separate Role?

Sourcing has evolved as a separate role in the recruitment process. Whatever your thoughts on Recruiting vs. Sourcing, companies typically apply one of the following models: 1.) A full desk recruiter manages the entire funnel; market research, screening, interviewing, negotiating salary and closing. 2.) The recruitment process is split between a sourcer and a recruiter who work together to close job reqs. There are benefits to both models and not one is best for every company, however, there are some major cost benefits when splitting the two roles. We spoke to Derek Zeller, Lead Sourcer at Lockheed Martin about the evolution of the sourcer and here is what he had to say.

Derek: “22 years ago there was no such thing as a sourcer. That is what you did as a recruiter. Recruiters got saddled with all kinds of things that wasn’t recruiting. So they weren’t able to do recruiting anymore. Now they were inundated with resumes from job descriptions that were posted. OFCCP says that there is a definition of a candidate. So, any candidate that applies is considered an applicant. You have to reach out to them if they look like they fit the job. If you are a janitor, I can disposition you. If you have the subset of skills I am looking for, I have to call you and qualify you or find out why you wouldn’t be qualified and I have to document all that. Well, that takes time!”

Watch the interview below:

Stacey: Ten years ago, I started in recruiting and you know the traditional recruitment full desk model where you are posting your position you're doing the intake meeting you're posting you're doing your sourcing you're doing your calls you're doing your interviews you're bringing them in you're presenting like a full deck right now I was speaking with somebody recently in saying how company especially internal larger companies are moving more towards a model where it's lit where you have a recruiter who just handles the seconded screening and you have a sourcer who teams with that person and it's separated divide and so I want to ask you do you feel like that is something that model has always been around has it evolved into more of a robust model?

Derek: yeah. I mean when I first started 22 23 years ago there was no such thing as a sourcer that's what you did is a recruiter I think then he got into this whole thing look we're gonna have we don't have enough people our recruiters then eventually got saddled with doing all kinds of things that isn't recruiting so they weren't able to do actual recruiting anymore now they were just they were inundated with resumes to the job descriptions that were posted they got saddled by like OFCCP says there's a definition of a candidate so any candidate that supply is considered an applicant you have to reach out to them if they look like they fit the job so if I have a software developer job and you're a janitor I don't have to call you I can just position you out because you're just obviously not qualified but if you do have the the subset or set of skills that I'm looking for I have to call you in call and find out why you wouldn't people and I have to document all that well that takes a lot of time and you know in the corporate world you know you're working I know most recruiters if they're doing an eight-hour day you know they're bigger or a nine-hour day when they do for lunch they coming today believe it 5:00 and at 4:59 they're shutting a computer down.

I would never understood that's just not the way I can I do things but it's it's how I was trained so I think now the new conversation is is it sourcing or is it research teams it's interesting it's much easier to give information on people now than ever before there's plenty of tools that do it and it's not just emails anymore and then there's there's really good software products I'm going to do a quick shout-out to engage talent that really is more of a research tool you know yes they can give you phone numbers they can give you email addresses all that stuff all that really fun stuff they can get that for you but you can also print they're doing predictive analysis now and that's the new thing it's a big thing on Wall Street is predicting what's happening with a company because of the company's help you know did they get did he get delisted off the stock exchange or now is it you know like or Nasdaq what is their financial fiscal ability families you know I know a company don't went through three CEOs in two years and got two you listed if I'm a recruiter or what I want to go on what do you think the stability in that company is actually shooting fish in a barrel you're calling that company in bamm-bamm it's gonna be very rare that you're gonna find someone unless it's in like senior leadership is gonna want to leave and even then seem a little in senior leadership in my world but it gives you a much better accurate poped poach mentality you know and there are sorcerer's that are out the sorcerer's that are out there that are actually more research analysts because they don't want to talk to people they're introverts they don't they don't want to do all that first contact they don't get on the phone with somebody they just want to be they want to find the information they're hunters you know I think that's like there's the old gypsy there's nothing hunter-gatherer you know that it's if the hunters they go out and hunt and the gatherers they pick crow.

I think recruiting has become the gatherers and I think sourcing has become the hunters and they've been going out and bringing research by the way especially in a lot of different industries you bet your bottom dollar that Amazon wants to know what Microsoft's worked out and Microsoft wants to know what Google is working on if you ever noticed they're all coming out with the same product at different times because they go and impose the team that finished the product is like well you'll finish that product come bring it to us we'll give you some more money and you get to do it all over again right I mean I know I'm shopping a nightie terms but this is this refers to any manufacturing you know.

I know a company that was in desperate need of people who did manufacturing in Ohio and we're having hard time to find people to move to Lima Ohio that's where the factory and we engage talents - one more time so let's don't talk about him but engage talent was able to find a factory 45 miles away that was shutting down and had 350 people that were losing their job yeah and the company this was like what was that how come we didn't know it's like I mean literally like they're just like how come we didn't know it because you're not doing you're not using sourcing to its fullest potential you just want phone numbers and emails that's not the way it works place and it's the research on finding information on people and why they would want to contact you what's going on with a company if we're you know this might be a good company to go hunt from you know it's like I need XYZ type of person okay I'm gonna go out and find out what companies have those types of people in the area or in the country if they're you know if we're willing to relocate and a lot of companies are they're willing to pay for good talent so I'm gonna go out and find that ABC company and so I'm gonna start digging in and finding those people and there's a lot of less than two but it has the researchpiece of it and that's what I think sourcing is really going I'm excited about that I really am you know.

Stacey: we were talking about why why sourcing has now been divided from like a different sort of recruiter role where the recruiter is doing the recruitment like but not the sourcing aspect of it and so I think on the front end when you're doing that quote-unquote talent mapping when you're surveying the landscape seeing where your opportunities to find candidates or companies that have the similar candidates we're going to have similar text stacks you know or or new universities or companies that have a high turnover taking in the growth and you know all that sort of thing that you can do on the front end but then taking in a tool like you said engage talent and being able to harness that open source intelligence right out there on a continuous basis.