I read two recent articles about how Oracle and PNC Financial Services have restructured their recruiting departments and segregated the roles within their departments into screeners, sourcers and recruiters.

Resourcing Sourcers are individuals who specialise in the ability to find passive applicants. Many are developing the skills to source passive applicants through networking, CV databases, referrals andthrough the internet (LinkedIn and so on). For organisations who want the best in talent and have very high recruitment volumes such as Salesforce, LinkedIn, Facebook, Oracle etc in Ireland this is an essential function. 

These organisations cannot simply wait for applicants to come to them as there is so much competition and the “active” applicant base may only represent 20% of the available talent. In addition to this, well known brands will attract very high volumes of unsuitable applicants so it makes sense to target and use a “pull” strategy to invite the suitable type of person to apply rathere than spray and pray.

Screeners are the individuals who have the responsibility of screening applicants whether they have been presented by a sourcer, responded to advertisement or have come through another means. Their specialty lies in their ability to assess the suitability of these applicants to the position in question. It will normally involve a first level of screening either by means of telephone interview or other assessment, Applicant Tracking Systems are an essential tool in their daily work lives. Only when they have screened applicants will they be presented to the “recruiter” or hiring managers. This eliminates a lot of wasted time spent by hiring managers in having to meet with people whom they can tell within minutes are not suitable for the position

Read more here….