When it comes to recruiting, the goal of every employer/organization is to select the right talent. Getting this right is vital to a company's chances of success. Thankfully, there is more than one way to secure the right employees, and one of such strategies is outbound hiring. Read on to discover if outbound hiring is the right approach for your company.
Outbound Hiring meaning and definition
Outbound hiring is a process or strategy that involves a company personalizing its recruitment and chasing candidates identified to be suitable. By extension, such a process can involve poaching or a lot of convincing. This is because the organization goes out of its way to find the best candidates and woo them into employment rather than opening its doors to applications from interested candidates.
Regarding the stages of the candidate journey, a recruitment process that welcomes applications for open positions (inbound hiring) requires an organization to invest heavily in all the journey's stages. In comparison, companies employing outbound hiring skip the first couple of stages of the process and are likely to spend less on their employee brand. In other words, the strategy prioritizes approaching the best candidates rather than approaching them.
Benefits of Outbound Hiring
It increases a company's chance of hiring the best employees. When recruiters and hiring managers invite applications for an open position, it is done with the knowledge that they'd have to sort through resumes for the ideal candidate. In some cases, they might not find such a candidate and would settle for the most suitable one. In contrast, outbound hiring encourages to recruiter to headhunt. They can employ social talent data and whatever tools they need to secure an ideal candidate instead of waiting for resumes.
It emphasizes a personalized candidate experience. A personalized candidate experience can improve a company's success rate in hiring desired personnel. However, while this might satisfy a candidate and inspire them to join a company, the organization would still need to develop a suitable workplace environment and culture to retain employees.
Differences between Outbound and Inbound Hiring
Inbound Hiring strategies inspire candidates to figure out their pain points, while outbound hiring figures out such pain points to make a more attractive offer. Pain points are any conditions that make a candidate's current employment undesirable. In other words, they are situations that a company can leverage to increase its attractiveness to a candidate. Regarding pain points, Inbound hiring is passive, usually developing a positive brand without such pain points as a means of attracting talent. On the other hand, outbound hiring actively searches for talent, researching their pain points to gain an advantage. By extension, inbound hiring gets candidates to come to companies, while outbound hiring involves the company approaching a candidate.
Outbound hiring strategies are short-term fixes, while inbound hiring is a lasting solution. It's all in the approach. In the case of inbound hiring, a company builds an attractive brand for which people want to work. Hence, they are unlikely ever to experience a shortage of interested candidates, making it a long-term recruitment strategy. In contrast, outbound hiring only focuses on currently open positions. It doesn't necessitate brand building that could benefit an organization long term. Companies should employ both concepts, developing a solid employee brand but switching to outbound hiring for necessary talent like in executive searches.
Specificity. Inbound hiring involves making a company as attractive as possible and marketing the advantages an employee may enjoy over other jobs. However, there is no control over the talent attracted in terms of specificity of personality or skill set. Outbound hiring is particular with candidates. This makes the process more personal, increasing the company's control over suitable candidates and helping to generate greater interest from otherwise passive candidates.
How to Apply Outbound Hiring?
Find the right candidate(s). Companies without in-house recruiters usually outsource this part of the process. However, this is the advantage that outbound recruiting has over inbound recruiting. Recruiters can spend the necessary time searching for the right candidate, with their candidate person, skill requirements, etc., in hand. This usually involves a lot of research and tools.
Establish contact. This is important because it is the first piece of interaction with a candidate. A recruiter doesn't want to come across as too intrusive, and the idea is to make an excellent first impression. Such contact can be via email.
Emphasize the benefits of the employment opportunity. Suppose the research is accurate and you have a candidate's pain points. In that case, the mission should be pointing out the advantages that the organization's opportunity provides in contrast to the pain points. However, refrain from pointing out the pain points specifically; else, you risk coming on too strong.
Maintain open lines of communication. Chances are interested candidates would have questions. A recruiter needs to be available to answer said questions. Even when questions are not put forward, a little persistence is necessary. Maintain enough contact to increase interest, but not enough to be considered intrusive.
