Simplifying the hiring process: Why Direct Sourcing is worth the investment
In an ideal world, hiring a new worker would be a straightforward process. Choose the best resumes, have a few interviews, start onboarding and voila, your position is filled.
The reality is much more nuanced than that. Those in the talent acquisition field have seen significant changes as the market slowly flipped from employee to employer-led.
Suddenly, companies who struggled to find applicants are being bombarded with an onslaught of resumes as many organizations reduce the amount of available open positions during uncertain economic times.
To complicate matters more, businesses are still facing a global skills shortage, meaning that, in a sea of resumes, few will have the experience needed for niche, technical positions.
This explains why Direct Sourcing is growing in popularity. According to a 2022 Staffing Industry Analysts (SIA) report, 84% of large organizations have either adopted a Direct Sourcing program or were planning to start one in the next two years.
Another survey, this one done by LinkedIn in 2024, shows that the top three most popular topics for recruiting professionals this year include quality of hire, employer branding, and the candidate experience.
Direct Sourcing hits all three topics, allowing companies to leverage their own resources and branding power to build talent pools filled with pre-vetted candidates.
We look at the benefits of Direct Sourcing and how it can help hiring professionals optimize the talent acquisition process.
Benefit 1: Consolidating your supply chain hiring process
Large organizations don’t typically handle all their hiring needs in-house. It’s common to turn to staffing companies to support hiring across all labor categories.
If you’re a huge consulting firm with offices across the U.S., for example, you’ll likely work with several different vendors. Some will focus on full-time hires while others may work on building a contingent workforce.
In this case, you’ll probably need an MSP to manage your supplier population.
After several years, managing all third-party vendors can become complicated and time consuming. The larger your supplier base, the harder it becomes to track, govern, and assess quality control, leading to reduced hiring efficiency.
Direct Sourcing allows clients to reduce their supplier lists and regain control of their supply chain while building thriving talent pools.
Not only does this lead to a significant cost savings, it also helps companies:
- Take control of their hiring process by reducing the number of technical systems, communication channels, and manual steps needed.
- Establish consistent quality control through automated systems.
- Remain agile and pivot when needed, especially as the hiring market continues to change.
One of our clients, a leading health insurance company, was focused on expanding their contingent hiring program. They worked with TalentNet’s Program Readiness, a data-based decision-making workshop, to create and implement key Direct Sourcing best practices. The company also integrated our intuitive, end-to-end Direct Sourcing platform while strengthening their curation strategy. As their talent acquisition process continued to thrive, the organization was able to reduce the amount of third-party vendors used while meeting, and then doubling, their hiring goals.
Benefit 2: Making life easier for hiring managers
The hiring process is filled with manual, time-consuming tasks. From sorting through hundreds of resumes to reaching out to potential hires, managers and curators are often too busy to focus on strategic decision-making and candidate engagement.
Direct Sourcing technology automates key processes, reducing the need to screen a barrage of resumes and manually track each applicant’s progress. TalentNet’s platform, for example, includes:
- AI-powered candidate matching capabilities, which matches talent community members to open positions based on their resumes.
- Communication features through TalentBench that allow curators to quickly send personalized texts and emails to potential hires.
- A Job Description Optimization feature that creates well-written job descriptions in minutes.
- TalentNavigator, a feature that uses cutting-edge generative AI to automate time-consuming tasks. TalentNavigator can quickly create short lists using internal candidate profiles, apply applicants for positions (with their consent), and manage talent pools.
TalentNet connected with a global social media giant while they were undergoing a period of significant hyper growth, making it difficult to manage and optimize the hiring process. The company needed a better way to track and re-engage with successful past hires. After participating in Program Readiness, the company created new best practices, allowing the organization to leverage its brand power, implement stronger internal communications and use social media champions to attract talent.
TalentNet helped the social media giant streamline their workflows, leading to an increase in fulfillment rates, which went from 12% in 2021 to over 50% in 2024. The organization also built an engaged talent community of over 68,000 members in the U.S.
Benefit 3: Ensuring better compliance in your hiring process
Keeping up with a variety of changing compliance regulations is a significant challenge, especially for companies expanding into new regions. Working with a variety of vendors increases compliance risk, as it becomes difficult to vet every third-party and ensure they keep up with compliance laws.
Integrating with a Direct Sourcing solution not only reduces compliance risk, it ensures greater data protection and privacy. TalentNet, for example, is an industry leader in compliance and data privacy protection. We’re one of the few in the market to achieve both an ISO 27001/27017 and SOC 2 Type 2 certification, allowing us to help clients meet evolving compliance rules.
Capgemini, a leader in the consulting and technology services industry, was focused on expanding their company to prominent talent hubs worldwide. TalentNet supported the client to ensure they met global compliance expectations. By working with each country’s data privacy offices, we helped Capgemini successfully expand into India, the UK, France, the Netherlands, and Belgium while building a global talent community of over 100,000 members.
Benefit 4: Creating a superior candidate experience
Building a positive candidate experience is vital in any Direct Sourcing program. Not only do these experiences build trust and loyalty with potential hires, they lead to more referrals, longer retention and less onboarding. A positive candidate experience can include:
- A quick and easy application process. TalentNet’s platform, for example, allows candidates to apply for a job in 60 seconds, without having to fill out repetitive forms or upload unnecessary documents.
- Transparent, personalized communication. It’s important to touch base with applicants throughout the entire process, and keep in touch with those who were unsuccessful, as they may be right for future roles.
- Engaged talent communities with valuable employment information tailored to each industry.
TalentNet connected with a significant player in the financial services sphere to help them improve the quality of their candidates while building a better candidate experience. Working with AMS as a recruitment partner, TalentNet helped the company grow its Talent Community by 460% and hire 60% of its roles from internal talent pools.
Optimizing your hiring process
Direct Sourcing allows companies to prepare for long-term hiring while creating key best practices that help curators find better talent faster.
From consolidating a bloated supply chain and building superior candidate experiences to creating a seamless workflow for hiring managers and simplifying compliance expectations, a solid Direct Sourcing platform is essential for successful hiring.
To learn more about TalentNet’s intuitive platform, book a demo here.