TL;DR

• AI recruitment software is transforming outbound recruitment, making it more efficient and effective.
• Candidate AI sourcing involves using AI to identify, attract, and engage top talent quickly.
• AI sourcing with Kula AI leads to an increase in response rates by 4X and hires by 6X.
• AI sourcing tools should enable multi-channel personalized outreach, integrate seamlessly with existing systems, manage referrals efficiently, and prioritize data privacy.
• AI sourcing is suitable for companies of all sizes, complementing recruiters rather than replacing them.

Candidate sourcing involves a lot of repetitive steps–finding, screening, and engaging passive candidates–that are performed manually. 

AI sourcing tools and technologies help you deal with this “problem of plenty” by automating manual processes and bringing a data-driven approach to outbound recruitment. 

With an AI-driven recruitment platform like Kula, you can:

• Send hyper-personalized emails to good-fit candidates.
• Create a multi-channel engagement flow to keep candidates in the loop.
• Use pre-created reports to visualize the hiring process.

Most firms use AI for screening candidates and scheduling interviews, but it can also be used to automate the longest step in your workflow–candidate research and drafting tailored emails or messages.   

What is candidate AI sourcing?

Candidate AI sourcing is leveraging AI to help you identify, attract, and engage desired top talent. You spend hours selecting and pitching to individual candidates, but with AI, the same process takes mere seconds. 

Candidate sourcing includes three elements: identifying, screening, and engaging. 

If you were to automate candidate engagement with Kula, the process would look like this:

• You find a profile on LinkedIn or GitHub that is a good match for a job role in your company.
• You use Kula AI Blocks to perform candidate research based on their experience, skills, or background in seconds.
• Then you send a hyper-personalized email focusing on the candidate’s skills, professional experience, or background via the GPT-3 AI integration. You also choose the appropriate tone for the recipient.
• You receive 4X more responses than if you were to send emails manually!

Why use AI in sourcing?

Take a look at these recruitment statistics:

• During 2022, 68% of companies faced a shortage of applicants, and 64.5% found the candidates unqualified. 

• Nearly 84% of companies consider employee referrals the most cost-effective talent acquisition method. 

• Almost 92% of employers rely on social and professional networks as their primary method for recruiting top talent, surpassing traditional methods such as employee referrals, job boards, and job ads.  

This is why you should proactively engage passive candidates to maintain a warm top-of-funnel for when they start looking out for a new role or you need to hire someone quickly.

By deploying Kula Circles to manage employee referrals, the process becomes simplified in this way:

• Effortless networking: Employees connect their networks to Kula Circles, creating a vast talent pool with all their combined connections. Introductions happen in a few clicks, making the process quick and efficient for both the referrer and the recruiter. 

• Smart candidate mining: Kula Circles mines the network for the best-fit candidates providing filters for companies, locations, industries, and more. You can create a larger talent pool and enhance predictability over the talent pipeline. 

• Complete visibility: Both the referrer and the recruiter have complete visibility throughout the hiring process for each referred candidate, eliminating awkward follow-ups. 

• Real-time tracking: You can access real-time tracking of referral funnels, replacing spreadsheets with dynamic dashboards and pre-created reports to measure ROI.

In a nutshell, AI can automate your hiring process at scale with personalization. 

Best practices to follow in AI talent sourcing

Some best practices to follow in AI talent sourcing are:

1. Define clear job requirements: Determine the technical and soft skills, educational background, and experience required for the role. This allows the AI algorithm to craft a top-notch outreach email that sets clear expectations, which increases the likelihood of a response. 

2. Use a multi-channel approach: Platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, GitHub, and Stack Overflow host a vast audience of potential candidates. Take advantage of multi-channel engagement workflows with Kula Flows to keep passive candidates engaged throughout the stages of sourcing. With a single click, you can handpick and pitch to high-quality candidates and thus build a database of desired profiles.

3. Personalize outreach: Maximize engagement with AI-generated messages designed to increase response rates by capturing the attention and interest of candidates. These messages are tailored around the candidate's unique skills, experiences, and interests for a hyper-personalized experience.

4. Engage passive candidates: Not all good candidates are actively looking for jobs. To secure their interest before others do, strategic engagement is essential. Kula AI helps you write personalized messages and implement a multi-channel engagement workflow. 

5. Employ data-driven decision-making: Improve visibility into your hiring process, identify bottlenecks, and optimize recruitment efforts with AI-powered data analytics. Kula gives you access to pre-created reports, including graphs and metrics such as open rate, reply rate, and interest rate. 

6. Leverage referrals: Employee referrals can dramatically expand the talent pipeline by 10X. Kula Circles helps you to tap into the networks of your employees and identify potential candidates. Then you reach out to them using personalized messages, and facilitate introductions without any awkward follow-ups. 

7. Ensure data privacy compliance: Make sure that your sourcing tools and processes are in compliance with data privacy regulations. Kula never sells or shares your data with any third party without your explicit consent.

Finding the right tool: features to consider while evaluating AI sourcing tools

Not all AI sourcing tools are created equal. Some help with day-to-day tasks like data scraping and sending bulk emails, whereas others help you manage the entire hiring process from start to end. 

Here are the top 7 features to consider before selecting your AI sourcing tool: 

1. Personalization: Hundreds of recruiters like you are vying for the attention of top candidates. Look for a tool that can automate candidate research and craft hyper-personalized outreach emails and messages. 

2. Outreach automation: Drafting and sending hundreds of pitches daily is tedious. Select an AI tool that automates outreach on multiple channels and increases the likelihood of candidate responses.  

3. Database and sources: Select an AI tool with a large and diverse database that continuously improves and increases the chances of finding the best-fit candidates for your organization.

4. Integration: The right AI recruitment tool should integrate with your existing systems, such as your ATS and CRM. This ensures data syncing and streamlined workflows. 

5. Scalability: For high-volume hiring needs, choose an AI tool that can manage multiple outreach channels and data sources to handle the inflow of candidate information. 

6. Collaboration and sharing: The AI tool should manage referrals and provide complete visibility to each stakeholder, allowing them to track and monitor the progress of referred candidates at every step. 

7. Data privacy and compliance: Make sure the AI sourcing tool complies with data protection regulations and employs robust security measures to safeguard candidate data.

The best AI-powered sourcing tool to leverage in recruitment

Move aside traditional methods and recruitment OS: Kula automates outbound recruiting and does it better than the rest. The platform helps you achieve hyper-personalization at scale at the highest quality.

Here is how you can use Kula to transform your talent acquisition efforts: 

1. Crafting Irresistible Pitches 

Bid farewell to writer's block and time-consuming candidate research. With Kula AI Blocks, you can generate personalized pitches that resonate with candidates and their specific motivators. 

Whether it's a first nudge or a follow-up, Kula AI Blocks offer tailor-made messaging based on candidate profile and skills in the desired tone via its GPT-3 AI integration.

2. Seamless Multi-Channel Engagement 

Kula Flows enables you to create dynamic engagement workflows across various channels. With a single click, you can source diverse talents from platforms like LinkedIn and GitHub and automate email sequences, InMails, and LinkedIn requests to nurture candidate relationships.
You also have real-time tracking to help you optimize engagement strategies and predict talent pipeline dynamics.

3. Unleashing the Power of Referrals 

Use Kula Circles to mine your employees' networks for the best-fit candidates and initiate introductions. Gain visibility, streamline the process, and foster a collaborative candidate referral experience.

4. Informed Decision-Making 

Kula Recruitment Analytics gives you insights into the operational efficiency of your outbound efforts. Thus, you can uncover bottlenecks, enhance strategies, and elevate team performance.

Final thoughts: AI in outbound recruitment

Recruitment has undergone an HR digital transformation with candidates demanding top-notch experience as they are actively sought after.

In fact, a striking 49% of job seekers decline job offers due to poor candidate experiences. 

AI makes the challenge of finding the ideal candidate simpler from the first outreach to multi-channel engagement. Kula takes the lead with its personalized outreach and automated multi-channel engagement, empowering you to create exceptional experiences for desired candidates. 

We deeply understand the effort and resources invested in hiring for a single role. After all, Kula was made by recruiters for recruiters!