Date: January 24, 2025

Did you know that more than 65% of organizations have high-volume hiring requirements? Indeed, the talent sourcing and recruitment sector is always bustling. However, despite this, several companies face challenges while striving to meet hiring needs. A Government of Canada survey reflects this, with over a third of Canadian organizations anticipating hiring difficulties. 

It may not immediately strike as a larger obstacle in your company’s operations, but a talent sourcing process riddled with hiccups can impact your bottom line. Essentially, talent sourcing challenges can result in positions remaining open for long periods. There is also the possibility of unsuitable candidates filling these roles. 

These consequences can cause lower productivity, innovation, and increased stress on both—the team with an open position, and the company’s hiring professionals. 

To help you identify and avoid the common challenges in talent sourcing, we’ve put together a series of guides. So, welcome to Part 2 of the Top 8 Challenges in Talent Sourcing and How to Overcome Them! Read on to find out more and lay the groundwork for a smooth talent sourcing workflow for your organization.

 

Part 1 Recap: How to Source Candidates While Avoiding Common Challenges

In Part 1 of our Challenges in Talent Sourcing and How to Overcome Them series, we discussed the following challenges:

1. Improving Candidate Experience: Ensuring a seamless and engaging application process, timely feedback, and smooth onboarding to attract and retain top talent.
2. Attracting the Right Talent: Building a compelling employer value proposition, leveraging employee advocacy, and using targeted marketing to capture the attention of qualified candidates.
3. Strengthening Employer Branding: Showcasing organizational culture, values, and positive employee experiences to establish a reputation as an employer of choice.
4. Adapting Hiring Strategies Quickly: Streamlining processes through automation, collaborative hiring, and maintaining a pre-existing talent pool to reduce time-to-hire.
5. Leveraging Data-Driven Decisions: Using analytics to identify hiring bottlenecks, forecast needs, and refine recruitment strategies for better quality hires and retention.
6. Addressing Talent Shortages: Expanding searches geographically, forming partnerships with educational institutions, and tapping into career changers or referral programs.
7. Eliminating Bias in Hiring: Implementing structured interviews, anonymized applications, diverse panels, and bias training to promote fairness and inclusivity.
8. Enhancing Workplace Appeal: Offering benefits like flexible work, professional growth opportunities, and a strong online presence to attract and retain talent.

Now that you’re up to speed with the basics, let’s tackle some of the more nuanced challenges that talent sources often face.
 

1. Are You Adopting a Skills-first Approach to Talent Sourcing?

What is the most customary approach to sourcing? Using CVs and resumes, of course. And one of the biggest challenges to talent sourcing and recruiting is finding the right hard and soft skills in a candidate. Resumes and CVs do not always properly represent a candidate’s skills. There may also be a mismatch between candidate skills and expertise, and the job’s actual scope of work. 

Typically, hiring processes place a heavy focus on industry-specific professional experience or qualifications. Often, there is also an emphasis on a candidate’s educational or academic qualifications. However, these may not always truly act as a reflection of a candidate’s actual level of skills and competence. 

Therefore, it is advisable to rethink job descriptions and focus on specific skill sets central to a role—instead of general qualifications. This will help you tap into a broader talent pool. In fact, hiring for skills can expand your talent pool by 10 times. 

Moreover, as per research, organizations that focus on skill-based hiring can reduce bad hire rates by around 400%. They can also experience a 10% increase in sales as an additional benefit. So, giving priority to skills over qualifications can increase your chances of finding top talent that performs well. 

Furthermore, it is also important to think about cross-industry talent sourcing if the role requires easily transferable skills. Often, job descriptions and talent sourcing approaches look for experts in a specific industry. 

However, ideal candidates may have the perfect skill sets and experience for the role, just in a different industry. 

For example, a project manager belonging to the technology industry may easily apply their expertise to the customer service industry. So, make sure to pay attention to specific skills and performance characteristics in addition to any traditional requirements that a vacant position has. 

Lastly, it is also important to explore talent pools with low representation. These can include people who haven’t attended regular educational institutes or haven’t held conventional employment roles. 

 

2. Candidate Experience is Critical to Talent Sourcing Success. How Are You Enhancing the Experience You Provide?

According to surveys, 70% of candidates have contemplated withdrawing from their most recent recruiting process. Nearly 40% attributed their decision to the hiring process being overly complex. So, delivering a satisfying experience for candidates is of utmost importance in the modern day. 

A difficult or drawn-out recruiting procedure might compel applicants to drop out, therefore reducing the pool of potential. Another element that may contribute to a bad applicant experience is poor communication. According to the 2024 Monster Work Watch Report, 47% of survey respondents reported poor communication as the most common cause for applicants withdrawing their applications. 

So, organizations need to concentrate on making the hiring process straightforward. This will keep people interested and make the experience better for all involved. 

The benefits of a simplified application procedure are more than just attracting top talent. They also help improve your company brand. This can also help lower the possibility of unfavorable internet reviews, which 35% of applicants will most likely post after a bad encounter. 

Also note that good candidate experiences translate into higher retention rates. They increase the likelihood of candidates referring your company to other professionals. 

Furthermore, when looking to improve, it’s a good idea to regularly ask applicants for feedback. Around 67% of North American companies currently do so!

 

3. The Job Market is Always Changing, and Existing Processes Can Turn Inefficient. Are You Using Technology to Address Talent Sourcing Challenges?

As the need for talented professionals increases, recruitment teams encounter new hurdles, particularly in high-volume hiring conditions. These include recruiting process delays and inefficiencies. 

Technology can help address such challenges via automation of time-consuming activities and more streamlines communication between hiring managers and candidates. Almost 93% of companies use some or the other variation of talent acquisition technology today. Applicant tracking systems being the most common. 

These solutions speed up the recruiting process by simplifying applicant sourcing, screening, and communication. This relieves recruiters of quite a bit of manual effort.

Another challenge that falls under the same umbrella is managing large numbers of applicants while preserving quality. The implementation of artificial intelligence and automation can substantially enhance the efficiency of the most time-consuming responsibilities. These are internal screening, evaluating candidate pools, and coordinating interviews.

To further decrease time-to-hire, hiring teams need to revisit the beginning of their process: how do recruiters find candidates? In your hiring process, remember to utilize predictive analytics and AI-driven evaluations to better match applicants to positions. These tools can yield more favourable matches, according to abilities and expertise. 

Technology also helps companies monitor trends and project skill needs. This helps them stay ahead of the curve and guide their talent sourcing choices. 

 

4. Are You Ensuring Diversity in Talent Sourcing?

Avoiding unconscious prejudices when reaching out to underrepresented groups isn’t easy. However, it’s quite important. When employees come from different backgrounds and perspectives, it helps with brainstorming and decision-making. 

Unfortunately, sometimes, the hiring process often misses candidates from different backgrounds. This can be because of invisible biases or of outdated ways of finding candidates. 

A more diverse team is more likely to be adaptive and able to change course quickly when the going gets tough. According to research by McKinsey, businesses with the highest levels of ethnic diversity are 36% more likely to have better financial results than those with lower levels of diversity. 

However, a lot of organizations have a hard time reaching out to marginalized communities. This means they miss out on qualified applicants. So, how to source diverse talent?

Blind recruiting methods are the answer. They remove identifying information from applicants, like their names, genders, and ages. You can then evaluate candidates based on their qualifications alone. This may be useful in reducing prejudice throughout the recruiting process. 

Organizations may increase their access to various talent pools by forming partnerships with diversity-focused groups. These include those that advocate for women in technology or minority leadership initiatives. 

One way to diversify recruiting efforts is to expand sourcing efforts to non-traditional platforms. These may encompass job boards that expressly target underrepresented groups or community engagement activities. Here’s an interesting statistic: incorporating diversity and inclusion into company strategy enhances risk detection and mitigation capabilities by 30%. 

So, by adopting the measures above, you may increase the diversity of your candidate pool. You may also foster an inclusive recruiting process that is reflective of the communities your organization serves.

 

5. Are You Struggling to Source Talent from Global Talent Markets?

As the world becomes more interconnected economically, businesses are seeking top talent from all around the world. However, there are a lot of obstacles to overcome when recruiting on a global scale. Complying with different labor regulations, recognizing cultural variations, and managing complicated visa processes are all part of this. 

Due to the complexity of international laws and regulations, organizations often encounter difficulties in handling international employment. These obstacles have the potential to raise expenses, prolong the onboarding process, and hinder the recruitment procedure overall.

 However, there’s no reason to worry. Working together with international recruiting firms and legal professionals who focus on cross-border hiring can help you overcome these challenges. These professionals may assist with cultural sensitivity, local labor law compliance, and expedited visa applications. You can also reduce the chances of delays or compliance breaches that come with cross-border recruiting by partnering with seasoned agencies.

To further facilitate easier transitions for applicants and the organization, it is recommended to teach internal HR professionals to understand the complexities of global recruiting. Global application tracking systems and other technological advancements can help you handle applicants from across the world. They can also help you stay in compliance with their various regulatory obligations. 

 

6. Are You Sourcing for Retention Potential?

When there is high employee turnover, it means that the company’s culture isn’t fit for the candidates. Retaining good employees is still a major problem for a lot of businesses. Finding, hiring, and training a replacement typically costs about 33% of an employee’s yearly compensation. 

A common cause of high turnover is when prospective employees’ expectations do not align with the reality of the workplace. It doesn’t take long for new hires to lose interest when they do not receive briefing on the company’s values or opportunities for career growth. Employee morale, productivity, and retention may all take a nosedive when a company’s values and work style are not compatible.

In order to tackle this, it is advisable to include culture-fit tests into your talent sourcing and overall employment processes. The results of these tests might shed light on how well a candidate fits in with the established norms and values of your organization. 

Setting reasonable expectations for recruits requires open and honest communication on the company’s values, purpose, and chances for advancement. To find employees who are likely to stay, try using structured interviews to find out what they want to do with their careers in the future. This can also help you understand how it fits in with the company’s mission. 

Fewer employees leave companies whose culture and principles are made explicit throughout the hiring process. Therefore, by emphasizing cultural fit and open communication, you may increase employee engagement and satisfaction, lower turnover costs, and increase retention rates. After all, what is sourcing in talent management, if not handling critical hiring performance indicators?

 

7. Do You Have Strategies for Adapting to AI-Driven Candidate Applications?

Artificial intelligence has the potential to make talent sourcing more efficient. However, it also poses some new problems, especially when it comes to accurately assessing candidates’ skills. 

The use of AI to create resumes and cover letters makes it more difficult to assess the true abilities and aspirations of candidates. Hiring managers are facing a growing challenge in determining if applicants are really qualified for open positions due to this. 

Hiring managers express their aversion to AI-generated CVs and cover letters, with 80% of them expressing this sentiment. It’s easy to tell whether a job application has employed AI, according to 74% of respondents. 

As a consequence of dismissing AI-generated resumes, you risk dismissing qualified applicants. You may also fail to notice those who may have bolstered their submissions with the help of AI.

Incorporating organized interviews and practical tests into the hiring process can help you deal with this issue. Talent sourcers can employ these tools to assess a candidate’s practical skills and problem-solving abilities, making sure they meet the job requirements. 

Furthermore, systematic interviews that ask the same questions of applicants might reveal more about their goals and cultural fit. 

It is not advisable for employers to depend just on AI-generated information when evaluating applicants. What makes a great talent sourcer is the ability to effectively use a mix of AI and human-driven evaluations. This allows for a more accurate reflection of candidates’ actual abilities. Companies that use skill tests to recruit are 40% more likely to get employees who are good fits for the position, according to research.

 

8. Are You Balancing Speed with Quality?

Several companies struggle to swiftly fill unfilled jobs in the employment market today. This can cause operational interruptions. So, the result is rushed hiring decisions. Unfortunately, the quality of the recruited applicants may suffer as a result of this sense of urgency. 

Shortcuts in the hiring process, such as omitting background checks, talent evaluations, or comprehensive interviews, could arise from the need to fill positions rapidly. In the end, this impacts the company’s ability to succeed in the long run. The question that now arises is, what is talent sourcing strategy calibration for speed and quality?

As we’ve mentioned above already, it’s a good idea to use an application tracking system with automated screening to balance speed and quality. An applicant tracking system may simplify hiring by swiftly eliminating unsuitable applicants according to predetermined standards. These include education, work history, and skill sets. 

Recruiters can then concentrate on top applicants by reducing manual resume evaluation time. AI-powered solutions to evaluate applicant fit based on job criteria may speed up the decision-making process. There is a higher chance that only competent candidates are put forward. 

 

To Sum Up

The difficulties of today’s competitive employment market need a deliberate approach to talent sourcing, which is an intricate and ever-changing process. With every obstacle comes a chance to hone and perfect your talent sourcing strategy. 

These could be embracing a skills-first approach, guaranteeing diversity, or adjusting to AI-driven applicant applications. You can achieve long-term success by attracting and retaining top personnel. And it’s easier than you think—you can do this via the use of technology, streamlining the applicant experience, and placing a premium on cultural fit!
 

With DataSourcer, you can overcome all of your talent sourcing challenges.

Here at DataSourcer, we provide state-of-the-art technologies that simplify talent sourcing, allowing you to discover top prospects with ease and speed. We make it easy to handle diverse sourcing, skill-based recruiting, and high-volume hiring with our data-driven strategy. Get in touch with us if you need assistance in developing a more robust and effective hiring process.