An international, medium-sized automotive supplier based in Hesse wanted to realign its HR department - and in particular the recruitment of specialists and managers. In February 2016, the company hired the HR interim manager to set up an active sourcing team for the recruitment of specialists.
Large and well-known corporations receive hundreds of applications every day. However, many very successful companies do things differently. Active sourcing is particularly useful for small and medium-sized companies that have a largely unknown employer brand, have location problems or face other recruiting challenges. Unlike a job advertisement, active sourcing allows a personal connection to be established with the candidate. This allows a good portion of the company's values to be conveyed as soon as contact is made.
The aim of active sourcing in this company was to find suitable employees more quickly with less external support. Previously, the company had advertised jobs on regional and national job boards and on its own careers pages and waited for suitable candidates to apply - often without the desired success. They then commissioned personnel service providers or recruitment consultants - at a corresponding cost. Unsolicited applications were managed with an Excel list.
The particular challenge of the interim mandate was to define a stringent recruiting process and to install the topic of active sourcing in the company with two of the four HR officers. At the same time, the selection process for suitable applicant management software, which was to be used company-wide in the future, began.
Implementation of active sourcing
The motto "Post and Pray" - i.e. placing job advertisements and then hoping and waiting for the right applicants to apply - has long since become obsolete. In order to track down the few suitable good candidates and retain them in their own company, HR managers have to go on the search themselves, i.e. carry out active sourcing. But even this is not always enough. The first step was therefore to show management that active sourcing alone is not the panacea for faster, more targeted and more cost-effective recruiting. Rather, successful active sourcing also requires a change in attitude within the company: away from the applicant and towards the candidate. The requirements profile of a sourcer is also different to that of a traditional recruiter. The sourcer sells the company and the vacancy, while the recruiter sifts through the incoming applications and checks the professional and personal fit of the applicant in an interview.
Workshop for two HR officers
The management and the HR interim manager decided on two HR officers who would be responsible for active sourcing in the future. The two candidates were trained in a two-day active sourcing workshop. Both speakers selected a current vacancy in the company, which was worked on in the workshop in a concrete and practice-oriented manner.
A one-week trial access for the talent manager was agreed with XING, after which the workshop began. Under the guidance of the HR interim manager, the participants developed text templates for written contact and telephone scripts for telephone contact. As part of the template development, the participants identified the employer USPs (Unique Selling Propositions) and completed these on the careers pages, the XING company profile and the company's Facebook page. The participants also developed templates for Excel lists, which were used temporarily until the recruiting software was implemented in order to manage the recruiting process professionally.
The two speakers then got to work. After a week, there was an initial structured personal exchange to discuss experiences, eliminate uncertainties and work on fine-tuning the processes.
Selecting the applicant management system
In addition, the HR interim recruiter discussed with the management whether active sourcing should only be used to fill individual vacancies or whether a talent pool should be built up in the medium term - and thus applicant management software would be used. At the same time as the workshop started, the HR and company IT system landscape was analyzed and described together with the IT department. Based on the briefing, external HR software providers were asked to present their solutions to the company. The HR interim manager identified two favorites and used this pre-selection to create a decision template for management.
By the end of the interim project, the most important vacant specialist positions had been successfully filled using the "new" method. The recruiting process was initiated in preparation for future vacancies. Further implementation was carried out by the company's HR officers, with whom further on-the-job training takes place regularly. Management positions will continue to be filled via personnel consultants in the future.
