Being Recruited vs. Being Sourced

Given a choice, if a person is open to a new assignment, would you agree that they would prefer to be recruited than sourced? Of course a lot depends on what is meant by recruiting and how that is different from sourcing. So, although I am no Wikipedia expert and regardless of how it is currently practiced, recruiting brings to mind an effort by the employer to interest and attract the prospect into joining the employer’s staff.

This description applies to the movie Jerry McGuire, where Tom Cruise played the lead role as a Player’s Agent. In this capacity, one of his responsibilities was to cajole an athlete to sign up with a particular team or a particular agent. Clearly he was recruiting and the athlete felt valuable and that his skills were desirable, at least in the eyes of Tom Cruise.

However, you may recognize that your company’s recruiting efforts are more like sourcing expeditions. Under this premise, the company works to identify who may be qualified for the assignment and then makes an offer that the firm thinks is fair and reasonable. No particular effort is made to show a high level of interest in the candidate and little is shared about how the candidate would benefit from the new job or how valuable the new assignment would be to the employee’s career. Instead, the candidate is burdened with demonstrating to the employer, how they would be of value.

So if it is not clear that the prospect is qualified for the position and the company needs to be convinced by the candidate that they are worthy of an offer, why are we going through the effort of an interview?  An interview that fails to excite the candidate and often leaves them sitting in a chair for hours waiting for someone to free their schedule so that a hurried conversation can be conducted.

Yes it is much better to feel recruited than sourced and I believe it is better for the firm as well.

From Michael Salisbury with the Human Resource Alliance (HRA) at www.hralliance.biz

Next up: Onboarding