Lively Discussion on Measuring Sourcer Performance

October 2, 2015 at 12:42 PM by Rob Stevenson

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When it comes to impacting workflows, priorities, and the day-to-day focus of your team, the single most important factor is incentive. Here, I don't mean compensation or belief in the company mission. Rather, what ultimate metrics are used to assess a team member's efficacy?

For sourcers, there is much debate on what exactly these metrics should be. Sheer volume of calls/emails? Phone screens? Whether their sourced candidates make it to the face-to-face interview? Hires made? The answer will depend on how you define the role of your organization's sourcers, and how big of a hand you expect them to have in your hiring cycle.

At Entelo, we're of the opinion that a sourcer's role is to build pipeline for recruiters and hiring managers. Since they're typically not going to be meeting people in face-to-face interviews, or extending offer letters, it doesn't make sense to measure them based on how candidates perform at those stages. On the flipside, measuring sourcers based on activities earlier in the pipeline, such as number of total outreaches, will only encourage them to lower their standards for who they list. What's more, if your sourcers are reaching out to people, the personal nature of their messaging will surely suffer. Thus, the sweet spot seems to be incentivizing them based on the one area of the hiring cycle they most impact--number of candidates brought on site. If people source candidates the recruiter or hiring manager deems worthy of a closer look, they've done their job. If it's later decided that these candidates weren't right, it's likely a calibration issue with the hiring manager, who will need to provide more specific details about who they're looking for. 

We discussed this in some detail on our most recent podcast episode:

 

Our Director of Customer Success, Loni Spratt, raised an interesting point about a Sourcer's impact on hires made. If hires aren't being made, she reasoned, the budget for sourcers could very well dry up. As a result, sourcers need to be passing on candidates who have the best chance at making it all the way, in order to prove their own worth.

The jury's very much still out on how exactly one should incentivize sourcers, but it seems it can all be extrapolated from how exactly you define the role at your company. What area do you focus on when it comes to assessing sourcers? Hit us up in the comments! 

 

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