Being in the recruiting industry you’ve heard these terms a thousand times but how often have you stopped to wonder whether there is a difference between them or are the same. And if they are same why do we have so many different terms for the same reason? Well I’m not sure about you but I for one would like to know if there is any, Difference between Headhunters, Recruiters and Sourcers. Therefore, I’ve taken the liberty to answer these similar questions that most of us are also wondering. So let’s take it step by step and begin with how they are defined.

Definitions

If you wish to get a clear understanding of these terms it is important for you to understand the terms first.

Headhunters

These are individuals that are hired by a third party corporation or company in order to locate suitable candidates possessing certain skills sets that aren’t easy to come by. These skill sets are harder to find and requires a certain background.

Recruiters

On the other hand a recruiter is an individual that is hired by a corporation or company to fill positions that crop up on regular bases within the organisation. The recruiter may be either employed at the organisation and work solely for that company or a third party recruiting organisation. These individuals may work within their own business or are usually a part of a larger staffing organisation.

Sourcers

These are individuals that are tasked with finding candidate details such as a specific name, title and or contact information of that particular person.

Now that we have a clear understanding of the terms we’ll be able to understand what the tasks these individuals are involved in are and this too might help you get a clear understanding.

How do they work?

Headhunters

For Headhunters, as mentioned earlier, these individuals usually take a proactive and an aggressive role in finding candidates and reach out to the ones directly if they find them suitable for the post. Such candidates are reached out and searched by headhunters. Their task usually consists of actively sourcing candidates and is completed once they get the candidate but these individuals aren’t involved in the recruiting process apart from locating candidates.

Recruiters

Recruiters on the other hand are involved throughout the recruiting process beginning from advertising job specs, scouting the desired talent, recruiting the right talent and introducing the new recruit’s to the company staff. 

Sourcers

Sourcers have a relatively similar role to the ones mentioned earlier but they are tasked to only source candidate details that are forwarded to recruiters to take the recruiting process to the other level. These individuals are present for a brief period of time i.e. they need only source candidates with the requirements and then recruiters handle it from there.

In a nutshell, a Sourcers role ends after a candidate has been sourced and shows an interest in the job offerings. Similarly a Headhunters role comes to a halt after a particular prospect has been located. While a Recruiters role begins at the application stage and only ends after an offer has been extended and /or accepted.

Hope this information was as useful as it was for me. Well I think it’s safe to say that, the difference between headhunters, recruiters and sourcers is clear now. If you have any suggestions or pointers that you’d like to add, do let us know via the comments sections.

For a recruiter apart from sourcing candidates via Social Media platforms they even dig into their existing connections. Just imagine if you could view connections that aren’t your immediate ones, won’t it assist and boost sourcing results?

Well if you have been having as much trouble sourcing the right candidates as most of us usually do and are looking to View Third Degree and out of Network Profiles then, take a deep breath; your search is finally over. What a relief!

Are you fed up with the constant interruptions during sourcing caused by ads, then that too can be taken care of with a simple tool to do that for you.

So let’s take care of the issue at hand i.e. How to view third degree and out of network profiles?

Viewing third degree and out of network profiles has never been as simple as it is now. This can be done via Private Browsing. Here is how you can browse privately irrespective of the Browser used. Whether you are using Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome or Safari there is a way nonetheless.

Google Chrome

This browser has a feature that enables you to browse privately i.e. incognito. Here’s how:

• Left click the Customize and control Google Chrome icon (the 3 Dots icon on the right hand side of the page)
• Select  the option New incognito window
• To speed up the process use the short cut Ctrl+Shift+N

Chrome allows you to access the profile searched in the private browser. Before opening the profile in any job portal you can right click on the link and select the option Open link in new incognito window. Once you do this any profile you access will open in the incognito browser with its own tab.

Mozilla Firefox

Like most browsers even Firefox has the private browsing feature. To shift to private browsing follow these steps:

• Left click the Open Menu icon (the 3 Bar icon on the right hand side of the page)
• Selecttheoption New Private Browsing
• To speed up the process use the short cut Ctrl+Shift+P

Once you are in the New Private Browser you can view and search profiles easily. This will assist you in your search for third and out of network profiles thus improving your sourcing results.

Safari

Most browsers have the private browsing feature. To access it follow these simple steps:

• Under the tools section, left click the icon (the Cog icon on the right hand side of the page)
• Select the options Private Browsing and Block Pop up Windows

Once you have done this your Private Browsing is set up and you can start searching and accessing profile links that meet your criteria. This will also enable you to access third and out of network profiles which will boost your sourcing results.

Prevent Pop Ups

Most browsers will take care of these interruptions via private browsing; if it isn’t then you always have a tool AdBlock that will do this for you.

So here is the answer to your troubles and if you have any other to add do let us know in the comments section. This will increase our knowledge as well as our readers.

A common challenge faced by most Talent Acquisitionist is dealing with hired candidates without a relieving letter. While there are various reasons for such problems dealing with them is difficult especially when they are the preferred candidate and are serving their notice period or are unable to get a relieving letter due to genuine reasons or other commitments. Therefore, how does one deal with such individuals and still hire them is the question on our minds.

Thankfully we @SourcingAdda realise such challenges and try our level best to address these concerns to arrive at alternative solutions that are workable. And thanks to one of our Mumbai group members Archana who suggested we discuss on, How to deal with candidates who have joined the company without submitting a relieving letter? We are able to be of better assistance to our members. Therefore we have disclosed the chat for your review so let’s find out what options are available from a Recruiters perspective

Just like most fields have certain myths so also the Recruitment Industry too has assumptions that people have followed till date. These misconceptions that are held are followed blindly and the field of Recruitment is no exception.

The misconceptions need to be checked and rectified in time or else it will affect the performance and efficiency with which Recruiters function. This will in turn affect the quality of the hires. We as Recruiters need to be aware of the “Myths of Recruitment & Selection”, if we are to recognise any of the Myths that apply to us. Therefore, here is a list of the, “5 Myths of Recruitment & Selection – Debunked”

Myth 1 – Job Board Ads & the Website are most Effective Recruiting tools

Well that used to be the case earlier but with the updates to Social Networking sites everything is going digital. Due to the recent developments such as Boolean Search Strings, Application Tracking System (ATS) and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) this no longer holds true. Isn’t this a shocker?

Myth 2 – All Experienced Individuals are Egomaniacs

If you are doing this, “stop it right now” because you will be turning down individuals of exceptional talent and calibre. You will be depriving yourself and the company staff of the benefit of the tips, tools, techniques and the wisdom an experienced person has to offer.

Myth 3 – Best Applicants, Make the Best Employees

Are you wondering why an applicant who nailed the interview, got selected for the job but turned out to be the exact opposite of what you had expected him / her to perform on the job? Don’t fret,  you probably have been a victim to this myth just like others before you, so next time ensure that you evaluate all the aspects before you make a decision to hire them.

Myth 4 – All Shortlisted candidates, must be asked the same questions

While it helps to ask similar questions as it reduces our work and also helps us gauge and compare the answers. It isn’t very effective because you are skipping information that differentiates one from the other.

Myth 5 – You cannot Prompt Applicants to respond to the questions favourably

Sometimes it helps a great deal to prompt as it helps them to develop a rapport that gives them confidence to ponder further and give you a straight answer. This will tell a lot more about the person as compared to the first impression you had of them.

If you can relate to any of these Myths or recognise the ones that you practice, it’s probably a good time to take a step back and evaluate the other Myths that have gone unnoticed so that you can then unlearn what doesn’t apply. Besides if you are practicing any of these Myths the individuals that you hire aren’t probably the right ones. So go ahead and evaluate them without these misconceptions affecting your decision to hire the Candidate.

We’ve been hearing and talking about all things related to Talent Acquisition and Human Resource in are favourite Wednesday’s discussions that are all taken in good stride by all our members. Being a part of these discussions and an active one at that, if it has taught us anything it has definitely added to our learning.

Therefore we decided to look into our hat of ideas to find out what our next discussion topic should be and before we knew it our member Manish from Pune WhatsApp Group suggested we talk about what changed in Recruitment in the last 10yrs and what’s next? We decided to go with it as it was a challenge to test our knowledge and find out the changes that the Recruitment Industry went under and what we can expect next as future developments. And here’s what we discovered…

From the nature of the conversation above we can state that this discussion was quite interesting with lots of inputs put forth by our WhatsApp members. We can even conclude that we’ve learnt a lot and most definitely we have all added to our knowledge at least to those of us who’ve attended it. If you’d like to be a part of these conversations and participate in our upcoming activities then follow @SourcingAdda and don’t forget to join us at #TASCON16 to interact with Thought Leaders of the Industry.