What you can learn from Bupa’s proactive talent sourcing

Why wait for candidates to come to you, when you can go to them? This is the question more hiring managers are asking as the quest for talent gets more competitive.

A great job ad can help you attract high-quality candidates, but there are times when you need a more proactive method to secure the best talent. Bupa is just one employer taking a custom approach to each vacancy—proactive sourcing via SEEK’s Premium Talent Search is proving a worthy addition to its recruitment strategy.

Most hiring managers are familiar with the process of recruiting for an open role—identifying the required skills and experience, posting a job ad and reviewing the resumes and applications to create a short list. Proactive sourcing, however, involves identifying and building relationships with your ideal candidate—even before they’re in the market for a new role.

Ryan Biggs, Resourcing Manager Corporate Services at Bupa Australia and New Zealand, says his team leaves no stone unturned when it comes to hiring the best talent. This involves a multi-pronged approach to recruitment.

“We take a bespoke approach to each role,” Biggs says. “We’re committed to fostering and growing our talent internally, but we always want the best person for the role and will search outside our business for candidates. This involves posting on our careers site, looking at our applicant tracking system, talent pools, referrals and posting on  job boards including SEEK.

We also think about what the passive market is doing and this usually involves a proactive search using SEEK’s Premium Talent Search tool or other search tools.”

SEEK’s Premium Talent Search lets employers search across its entire pool of 9 million active and passive SEEK Profiles. Searching can be narrowed down to factors such as a candidate’s current job title, skills, company name, salary expectations and even their approachability.

“The Premium Talent Search tool lets us tap in to those potential candidates with a SEEK Profile and tailor our recruitment approach on a per-role basis,” Biggs says. “Rather than a transactional ‘post & pray’ approach to recruitment, it’s about true talent acquisition.

It also creates a more organic connection because the candidate feels that they have been approached rather than having to take the time to search for their next role. It’s great for the candidate experience.”

Bupa recently tapped into SEEK’s Premium Talent Search to assist in the recruitment of two hard-to-fill roles. The first was a Sales Consultant role based in a call centre, which Biggs says is one of Bupa’s high-volume roles. Biggs’ colleague approached 12 people for an interview and soon offered the role to their ideal candidate.

The second hard-to-fill role involved searching for what Biggs describes as “a glittery unicorn”. “It was a role in cyber security which is notoriously difficult to recruit for; these sorts of candidates aren’t always found via typical job portals,” he says. “In addition to our traditional methods, we searched via Premium Talent Search and identified a brilliant prospect. This allowed us to tap into the talent before the rest of the market.  We turned this around in less than two weeks, interview to offer!”

Proactive sourcing takes a targeted approach, and Biggs says it’s time well spent—even for the most time-poor recruitment managers. Tools such as SEEK’s Premium Talent Search can help you uncover the ideal candidate while also gauging the talent market.

“What you invest in the front end of recruitment you get back at the back end,” he says. “If recruiters are really serious about finding the best talent, I think they need to broaden their approach rather than posting an ad and waiting for candidates to come to them.

“Proactive search is about talent acquisition and really hustling and working for it,” Biggs adds. “Take a bit of time to explore what the market is doing and then tailor your recruitment approach to suit. You may find that you actually save valuable time in the end and it’s a much more rewarding experience for both parties.”