Is Your Sourcing Tone Deaf?

Candidates today have every tool available to check out a recruiter before ever responding to a message, and most of what they find works against the person trying to hire them. The content looks at why a well-written outreach message is often not enough to get a reply, and what happens before, during, and after that message lands.

People default to Google for almost everything, including checking out the person and company reaching out to them. That means a recruiter's search results, LinkedIn profile, and Twitter activity are doing the talking long before any conversation happens. Company reviews on Glassdoor, Google Maps, and similar sites carry real weight too, since a candidate can see exactly what current and former employees think before deciding whether a role is worth their time.

Specific points covered include:

• Why searching your own name matters, since LinkedIn and Twitter typically rank just below a personal website, and a neglected or dormant Twitter account can do more harm than good
• How a LinkedIn setting can hide profile photos from second-level connections, and why checking for this is worth doing since visible photos increase response rates
• Using a tool like Photofeeler to test whether a profile photo reads as approachable, competent, and likable, with an example of how a single photo change shifted perception dramatically
• Filling out bios completely across LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram, including the About section and experience, rather than leaving gaps that make candidates work to understand who they're talking to
• Checking how a profile displays on mobile versus desktop, since a large share of candidates are viewing on their phones
• Using banner images and bios to give candidates something personal to talk about rather than corporate filler or recruiting jargon that means nothing outside the industry

The underlying point is that competition for attention online is intense, phones and notifications have trained people to ignore constant interruptions, and candidates in demand have plenty of choice about who they respond to. A message can be well-crafted and still fail if everything surrounding it, the photo, the bio, the reviews, the search results, tells a candidate not to bother.