Find Your Size, but Choose Stretch Fit: Building and Growing A Sourcing Team

Building a sourcing function from nothing takes more than hiring a few people and hoping for the best. A practical framework covers how to justify headcount, what to hire for, which tools actually matter, and how to keep adjusting once the team is up and running.

Key points covered include:

• Reframing sourcing as an investment rather than a cost center when asking leadership for headcount, using overtime pay, contract labor spend, agency fees, and lost revenue from unfilled roles as justification.
• Hiring sourcers for foundational skill but screening for passion and drive during interviews, rather than requiring a fixed number of years of experience.
• Including current team members in the interview process so new hires fit well with existing sourcers and recruiters.
• Starting with free or low-cost tools, including contact-finding platforms with free trials and Google Sheets as a makeshift candidate tracker, before investing in a CRM or text campaign platform.
• Choosing a sourcing model that fits the organization: pure lead generation, sourcing plus candidate engagement and pipelining, or a full source-engage-and-schedule model where sourcers work directly on hiring managers' calendars.
• Tracking metrics such as hours spent sourcing, prospects engaged, candidates pre-screened, submissions, and time-to-submission, while being careful not to judge sourcer performance solely on downstream outcomes like offers and hires.
• Giving a new process real time to work, generally a full quarter, rather than constantly changing course, and avoiding micromanagement of call and email counts in favor of measuring actual output.
• Using a critical-difficult-visible lens to prioritize which requisitions and cost areas the sourcing team should focus on.
• Collecting ongoing feedback from sourcers, recruiters, and hiring managers, and being willing to shift responsibilities, such as having sourcers engage candidates directly when recruiters can't respond quickly enough.
• Treating process improvement as constant and incremental, aiming for small gains each cycle rather than a perfect system from day one, and keeping a running list of ideas to test later.

The overall approach favors starting simple, measuring what matters, and staying flexible enough to reshape the team's structure and tools as the organization's hiring needs change.