Gopi S
Independent Staffing and Recruiting Professional►◄LION►◄TopLinked.com►◄Open Networker►◄
What is the difference between Sourcer/Recruiter?.
Thanks in advance for your answer.
Tektree Gopi.
gopi@tektreesystems.com
Answers (17)
A sourcer is someone who utlilizes job-boards, networking sites, and job postings to collect a database of resumes.
A Recruiter sources resumes, but also connects with passive candidates and develops long-term relationships.
Hope this helps!
Clarification added April 25, 2008:
A sourcer might not have a specific focus but collects a wide arrange of resumes, where a recruiter has a specific position they are working on.
Robert L
Recruiter at Northwest Regional Primary Care Association
Best Answers in: Staffing and Recruiting (2), Purchasing (1)
Pretty easy -
sourcer uncovers paper resumes & contact info. The recruiter sreens & determines fit for position.
Links:
A sourcer just finds contacts - doesen't speak to the clients nor is involved with the hiring process.
Craig H
Principal, Hufford Associates - Specializing in Defense, Software Systems, Wireless, & Medical Device Executive Search
A soucer is usually someone who is dedicated to producing names and list generation for a particular job opening or search assignment. A sourcer may very well work directly for a recruiter. A recruiter on the other hand will usually have full life cycle responsibility. This of course can include sourcing as well as candidate development, salary negotiation and managing client expectations. Breaking down respsonsiblities simply by titles relative to your specific question, a recruiter could also be a sourcer, but it would be unusual for a sourcer to be a recruiter.
Tim C
Professional Layabout
Best Answers in: Staffing and Recruiting (14), Compensation and Benefits (2), Personnel Policies (1), Sales Techniques (1), Business Analytics (1), Futures Markets (1), Using LinkedIn (1)
Gopi,
Usually the best way to look at it is as a hierachy.
Sourcer -> Recruiter.
Most people start out in recruiter as a sourcer. They are put with a recruiter who will give them jobs to work on. The sourcer will then use all the resources they can to find CV's for the role. Whether this being job boards, linkedin, or whatever else they can do to think outside the box to find the CV.
In most recruitment companies these are the guys/gals who are expected to be on the phone constantly talking to candidates. This is all they do until they are ready to become a recruiter. This usually happens by them stumbling across a lead or realising their Dads, best mates, brothers sister, who used to babysit them is actually the Director of ABN Amro. Then they pick up some jobs, and the manager of the company tells them to run with it.
A Recruiter is someone who has taken the next step. They have clients they do look for candidates but spend more time cultivating relationships and building new business though business development calls and meetings. You would expect a good consultant to be out meeting clients atleast 2-3 times a week if not more. Unless they are already far to busy with the clients they have. If this is true... Hire more sourcers... You will be required to source for candidates still, but due to experience and knowledge you should find this much easier to do now, so should be working at 3x the speed of a sourcer.
The differences between a sourcer and a recruiter are different from organization to organization.
In some models the sourcer does just what others have answered, combs job boards and networking sites to build a database of resumes. However, this is not always the case. The sorcing role in some organizations is much different. It can be much like procurement vs sourcing in the finance relm, procurement being reactive and sourcing being proactive. In that type of organization the sourcing role actually reaches out to candidates and builds a passive pipeline to meet the future needs of the organization. At the same time the sourcer can be called upon to add extra horsepower to an existing search that a recruiter is working.
In some models both the recruiter and the sourcer are searching through the passive candidate pool. The recruiter brings candidates through the process of specific positions as well, while the sourcer is solely responsible for networking with outside talent.
Sometimes the sourcer is viewed as a lower position but this has also changed in some larger organizations. These organizations have realized the value of putting recruiters and sourcers on the same level and have found that the partnership between the two sides leads to a more successful business outcome.
The previous answers are not totally correct.
In my time as a sourcer... I locate people, through blogs, online resumes, conferences, networking sites, and yes job boards. I am the first point of contact. I sell the position, obtain interest, pre-qualify, and then forward them on to the recruiter, or hiring manager depending on the set up I have worked out with the team. For me to just send forward anything that I find, creates a situation where the recruiter, who already has a full plate, may not want to sift through much of the junk that gets through. I do the sifting and a send forward the gems. This creates a better hit rate, and confidence that what I do send forward will do well in the interview process.
Steve
Steve
Clarification added April 25, 2008:
I just saw Peter's answer and feel that it is very much in line with my answer. His got posted while I was typing up mine.
Obviously the translation of resourcer varies from firm to firm; I can only tell you the relationship I have with my resourcer.
My resourcer is tasked with lead generation, candidate generation and carrying out the initial screening of potential candidates. This may seem like a heavy work load but if allows me to concentrate fully on business development, and managing the recruitments process.
In my opinion finding a good resourcer is the key to bringing in high revenue
Jeff S
Jefferson Group Consulting (search & recruiting training); Jefferson Group Search (IT Search); AskJeff@JeffersonInc.com
Best Answers in: Staffing and Recruiting (3), Personnel Policies (1)
Gopi,
I see a recruiter as a sales professional who is responsible for intelligently bringing a quailified candidate to a job opening. And regardless of being an in house recruiter or third party recruiter, your responsibility is to match talent to open search, and sell that potential talent on why they would want to move into that open job as the next step in their career. Being able to sell the company, it's benefits, and the job itself is critical. And like all good sales professionals, it is NOT a matter of "getting" someone to take the job, it is a matter of MATCHING an appropriate FIT so both the candiate and the company feel a great union of abilities and growth opportunities occurs.
Sourcing is a subset of what a great recruiter does and it is a funciton that can be seperated from the recruiting role. A sourcer is a researcher. They use whatever tools they have at their disposal, databases, on line sites, what ever, to develop a list of names of people who have similar responsibilities or know those with similar responsibilites, but they do none of the "selling," or "matching." They simply provide a recuiter with the raw materials for their "sales" job, the names and contact information of talent that COULD be interested or considered for the open job the recruiter is trying to fill.
So I see the recruiter as having a essentail "sales" function while the sourcer is a research function and a subset of what some recruiters do to full fill their job requirements, it is a function that can be outsourced or seperated from the recruiting job itself.
-jrrs
Jeff Skrentny, CPC/CTS
AskJeff@JeffersonInc.com
Ravi K
Sales and Marketing professional
Best Answers in: Using LinkedIn (5), Starting Up (3), Mentoring (2), Business Development (2), Ethics (2), Staffing and Recruiting (1), International Law (1), Treaties, Agreements and Organizations (1), Advertising (1), Public Relations (1), Customer Relationship Management (1), Corporate Governance (1), Retirement and Estate Planning (1), Web Development (1)
Sourcer--Passive, Pathfinder, Search engine,Locater of talent, paper hunter.
Recruiter--Meets the end of the candidate, profile and fuctional needs.I would call him an actual HR specialist.
Sourcer is the subset of recruiter and not vice versa.
Regards
Ravi
Gene L
Account Executive at LoganBritton, Inc.
Best Answers in: Staffing and Recruiting (6), Freelancing and Contracting (1), Job Search (1), Compensation and Benefits (1), Business Development (1)
It depends on your recruiting model.
In a small shop, a recruiter may be the sourcer/recruiter/sales guy, in a large firm the recruiter may be the person who closes the candidate.
I’ve worked with a sourcer before; unofficialy sourcing candidates for my recruiting agency and paying out of pocket for it because the firm did not see sourcers as a good investment.
Other then that, I have always worked the full life cycle from sourcing to recruiting. However, I can definitely see the advantage of having a good sourcer forwarding qualified resumes: research is a lot more time consuming then picking up the phone.
Maureen S
5000+connects TopLinked.com Telephone Name Sourcer/MagicMethod Trainer-Names Generator
Best Answers in: Staffing and Recruiting (6), Sales Techniques (1)
"...research is a lot more time consuming then picking up the phone."
It sure is!
The difference between a sourcer and a recruiter is that the sourcer is building a pipeline, relationships and networking with all types of candidates. A sourcer gets the candidates, screens them and then passes them on to the recruiter.
The recruiter then speaks with the candidate either on the phone or face to face and brings the candidate all the way to the offer/acceptance phase where they then typically pass the candidate on to HR for onboarding.
The job of a recruiter is to sell the candidates on the job and the company. The sourcer's job is to find the candidates (hunting) and bring them in to the company.
A full cycle recruiter does not have the time (in my opinion) to be hunting (cold calling into companies/competitors) building a pipeline of passive candidates (usually A candidates), phone screen, interview, negotiate salary, perform background checks/degree verifications etc, and handle 30-40 reqs.
In my experience, a Sourcer is someone who goes through the job boards and other sources reaching out to candidates to speak to candidates on behalf of recruiters.
They gather preliminary information from candidates who are actively looking and help judge if these are candidates the Recruiters will want to work with at a later point.
Sourcers can be a very valuable tool on the corporate side as recruiters may be juggling 50-60 openings (I did at Goldman Sachs) and have NO time to hit the boards or even their firm's internal database.
A sourcer is someone who is dedicated to building "pipelines". They network and use more time intenisve tools to meet and recruit talent that the employer will use either in the future or for an existing opening.
A recruiter is responsible for taking the "pipeline" candidate from someone who is interested in an opportunity to actually making them an active candidate in the process.
A sourcer is responsible for research, name generation, competive-intelligence
The recruiter responsiblies are relation building, candidate development,
closing the deal.
A sourcer or a resourcer as commonly referred is ususally a support person who works with a recruiter/recruitment consultant. The resourcer is responsible for identifying suitable candidates, pre screening, co-ordinating interviews and conducting ref checks. Very crucial that you hire the right candidate for this job as this person is responsible for good pre screening and identifying the perfect person - job fit.
Resourcers ususally do not have contact with the client but liaise frequently with candidates. Also, they are not responsible for salary negotiations,business development and the core consulting activities.
Hope this helps! Cheers!
