How to Setup a Talent Sourcing Jam at your Company

Posted by Jonathan Kidder on December 21, 2018January 28, 2023

The talent sourcing industry is a small world and I have been fortunate enough to have had a long career in it. If you were to ask me if I know any Talent Sourcers who could be a great fit for a role, I could easily come up with a list of more than a dozen potential candidates.

Maybe you’ve heard of the Kevin Bacon effect? If you sat down with friends and choose an actor or actress odds are after 4-5 names that individual played a role with Kevin Bacon. You can use this same concept when you bring a team of professionals together and have them source through their own networks.

Say you’re looking for an FP&A Manager? – The team that you have at your company has many diverse backgrounds. They probably have a network of leads that you can certainly tap into – especially in a tight job market. The idea to crowd-source for leads has been around for many years and this practice is called a “Sourcing Jam.”

A Talent Sourcing Jam involves inviting a team together and having them go through their network for possible candidate leads. You can also use their expertise to help target passive leads on social media sites like LinkedIn or many others.

How to set up a Talent Sourcing Jam Session:

1. Use the data to figure on which roles have been a challenge for your company.

2. Invite hiring managers and other leaders within that department.

3. Try and have at least 3-6 members attend the event.

4. If you have a budget I recommend bringing snacks. Make it become a fun and engaging event.

5. Setting Expectations over email:

1. State the reasoning behind the email.
2. Have them bring their laptops and LinkedIn account login
3. If they’ve attended conferences or associations – have them bring an attendees list

6. Come the event day be prepared to write suggestions on a white board. It’s also nice to have someone write down those board suggestions in google docs and share that live document with the whole team.

7. Whether you’re focusing on skill-sets, job titles, companies, or universities to target. Use those areas to map out a network of referral suggestions. You can set a timer down and have them search through their network. Write down every suggestion on that white board.

8. Depending on privacy issues once you have the list created you can have the Talent Sourcers reach out to the lead suggestions or have those individuals reach out directly.

9. Turn this event into bi-monthly or quarterly event. Get them excited by turning it into a game. Have prizes for hires etc. Food and prizes are a great way to bring everyone together. For example, my manager treated the event almost like Jeopardy game. He play music and act like Alex Trebek when going through peoples networks and we had a blast.

Here’s an Email Template that you can send your Hiring Manager:

Hi (Name) – we have a lot of sourcing needs for this team and would like to have a sourcing lunch session.

Team Objective:

Spend an hour finding referrals & leads to reach out to for our openings.
Food will be provided. (Please give me suggestions).
During this hour we will have each of you login into LinkedIn and search for potential leads and add them into a google doc.
After the meeting me and Rachel would reach out to those leads and start them in our process.

Please let us know if you have any further questions!

Overall, there’s a HUGE benefit to bringing a team together to help them source within their own networks. On top of that it also helps improve your relationships with the talent acquisition teams and helps the Talent Sourcer(s) refocus and target on the right leads for job openings.

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Jonathan Kidder

With more than 12 years of recruitment experience, Jonathan has helped startups and small businesses find the talent they need. He runs the blog WizardSourcer, which explores the latest trends in talent sourcing, provides reviews of recruitment tools, and features interviews with prominent figures in the industry.