Recruitment is all about supply and demand. You need to find clients who are looking to buy skills and candidates who are willing to sell them. If you can match the two, then you are onto a winner. But what happens when the market gets tough, and you can’t find enough clients to pair up with the candidates? Well, you need to brush up on your online job-sourcing skills and find some roles that the average candidate isn’t able to find!
That’s where your sourcing skills come in. We’ve all heard (all too much…) about sourcing candidates, but it’s just as important to know how to source clients! So where do you start?
Facebook can be a great tool for sourcing new clients (and new jobs). Nowadays most companies will have a business Facebook page - where they can simply post a job onto their page for free - meaning their job ads will be reaching all their followers. Apart from being able to share jobs through the company page, businesses can also advertise roles using the Facebook Ads feature. It tends to be at a pretty low cost, too - for example, the average cost per click for Facebook Ads is $0.97. Doesn’t sound too bad, right? It can be a great alternative to more expensive job boards, which also tend to be a lot more saturated – so Facebook can really be a gold mine for prospective clients that haven’t been approached by your competitors yet!
Did you know that there are over 1.3 billion active Instagram users every month? And of these, more than 25 million businesses are using Instagram to promote their services and products. That’s not only a lot of potential candidates but also prospective clients! Businesses use Instagram to share their culture, showcase products, services, and build their brand online. Great news for a recruiter like you! Why? They simply allow you to gain more insights into the company – and charm them away when you to approach them as a potential client. It’s a perfect opportunity to show the prospect that you have done your research – and already know their brand more than any other recruiter.
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Very much like with Job Boards, most recruiters will turn to the jobs advertised on LinkedIn to find new leads – which means that you will be competing against a lot of other recruiters for the same roles. Make sure you are following the company pages of any potential clients, as well as connecting with their hiring managers so that you are able to see any jobs that they are broadcasting to their network. Why? You have to remember that not every company will have the luxury of advertising their jobs on the LinkedIn Jobs page.
Joining Groups in your target sector is a great idea as well. Answering and asking questions in groups gets you recognised by other professionals as an engaged member of the community. It makes it a lot easier to connect with potential clients if they’ve seen you being an expert in your field!
Do you think Twitter is dead? Not for prospecting clients! If you follow the Twitter feeds of companies you would like to do business with, you can easily create a list on Twitter that then allows you to see all the Tweets from these potential clients. It can save you a lot of time scrolling through the feed in hopes to come across something useful!
Another great thing to do? Use tags to search all the companies that might be needing help! Similarly to LinkedIn Groups, you can then paint yourself as the expert by answering their questions.
Job Boards
You might wonder why we put that here – it’s the obvious one and where most recruiters will turn to see who is currently advertising. So rather than go straight to picking up the phone once you see a company posting about a new role, play the long game. Use this as an opportunity to build your network by adding them as a contact on LinkedIn and commenting on any of their socials, as well as using your personal brand to share relevant and useful information. This way, they can see that you are relevant in the marketplace – and when the time is right, you can reach out to them as a warm call rather than a cold call (like all the other recruiters).
Where do I start?
Spend a bit less time on Job Boards sourcing - anyone can do this, and the chances are the competition will be stiff. If you really want to use those, plant some seeds with companies and let them grow rather than hitting the phones hard. Next, keep an eye out for possible industry trends on blogs. If you can spot them before anyone else, then you are onto a winner. And most importantly – get comfortable with social media! That’s where your prospective clients are.
