What are the 3 types of recruiting sources?

In today's hiring landscape, most candidates find their way into a position through a multitude of recruiting sources, directly and indirectly. 

Gone are the days of knowing exactly where a company makes the first contact with a candidate, of simply posting a job ad in the classified section of the local newspaper and getting responses only from the people who saw it. Now the points of contact are more numerous and occur at different stages of the hiring process.

Determining where candidates are finding your company and your openings is now more complicated than ever, which means it is difficult to figure out which recruitment sources your recruiting team should spend the most time and money on to reach the largest talent pool. 

In this post, we will clarify what are the 3 types of recruitment sources. Ideally, within the strategic planning of a company efforts should be concentrated in most of the sources as far as possible.

We know that your company can reach candidates in a thousand ways, and to remain competitive in the recruiting market and attract the best, you must keep reaching wherever they are.

These are the 3 sources of recruitment that the strategic planning of a company should include:

1. Internal sources

It is not news that your company can find the best employees within the organization itself. When a vacancy arises, it can be given to the employee who is already on the payroll. Internal sources could be promotion, transfer of the employee from one company to another, and in certain cases demotion. 

When a deserving employee is assigned a higher position, all other employees in the organization are encouraged to work hard, but of course, for this to happen the human resources team must inform everyone of the vacancy through internal advertising.

Taking into account internal sources of recruitment is important for your company because it increases employee morale, decreases the possibility of errors in recruitment, promotes loyalty, encourages self-development in employees, reduces costs in training plans and prevents the recruiting team from making hasty decisions, as existing employees are already well proven and can be trusted.

2. External sources

All organizations have to use outside sources to recruit for senior positions when existing employees are simply not the right fit. Also, it is completely normal that more people are needed when expansions are undertaken. Outsourcing sources are helpful to breathe new life into and bring new profiles and experiences to the company. 

Either because the business is growing and the workforce needs to be increased to cover all the tasks; or because they have suffered some kind of loss in the team.

You are likely already familiar with many external hires recruiting sources such as online job boards, industry education institutions, trade associations, conferences and events, job fairs, employment agencies, former employees, past applicants, rival companies, media, or social networks such as LinkedIn, Twitter or Facebook.

Including external sources of recruitment in your hiring strategy is important because it provides a broader and more diverse pool of candidates, brings new ideas and skills to the company, provides and fosters your culture as an employer, allows you to fill your talent portfolio for consideration. in the future and decreases the chances of favoritism in the workplace.

3. Mixed Recruitment

Mixed recruitment sources are a synthesis of the above. Most businesses apply this alternative because it encourages the competitiveness of internal workers, at the same time that it attracts new talent to the company.

In general, it is recommended that this modality be used not in a parallel search, but in stages. In this way, the company can fill vacancies with internal sources and turn to external sources when the business needs cannot be covered with the first option.

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