Crowdsourcing
has been gaining a lot of buzz lately; but what exactly is it? Crowdsourcing is basically the
outsourcing of a task to a large group of people that would be normally done by
one person. Think “Wikipedia” and
you basically have the basic idea of how crowdsourcing works. But can crowdsourcing work for
recruiters? If so, what are some of the best practices recruiters should engage
in when using crowdsourcing campaigns?
1.
Quality
is the number one issue that recruiters need to watch out for when using
crowdsourcing to find candidates.
Quality is always an issue when assigning the task of one to a crowd of
many. Already recruiters receive a
large amount of candidate resumes that are not appropriate; but this could
increase ten-fold if a recruiter uses crowdsourcing to find candidates.
2.
One
way to increase quality when using crowdsourcing as one of your recruiting
strategies is to make sure you are targeting the right crowd. The more closely the target audience
matches the profile of your ideal candidate, the more likely you are to receive
quality referrals from your crowdsourcing campaign.
3.
Recruiters
should also offer rewards to those who participate in their crowdsourcing campaign. Rewards don’t have to be expensive or
complex but they should be valuable to your audience and reward participants
who provide high quality referrals even when those referrals do not end in a
hiring.