5 reasons why talent acquisition teams should identify the total addressable market before sourcing

More and more talent leaders are seeing the benefits of widening the job requisition requirements. It not only provides more opportunities to hire talent but also elevates the position of sourcers and enables them to advise and be more strategic in their roles. Identifying the total addressable market (TAM) was once a nice-to-have but is now imperative. Why? Because pulling necessary data to gain ideal hiring profiles results in expedited hiring. Having the ability to advise selectiveness for hiring managers, especially in a talent-driven market, means the right talent is attracted, requisitions are filled, and talent is retained. 

Overlooking this step often results in positions going unfilled for long periods of time.  

Learn more about how to find the total addressable market here. 

On that note, here are five reasons why recruiters should analyze the total addressable market before sourcing talent: 

#1: You’ll gain a wider pool of diverse talent 

Diversity hiring is a board-level agenda item for stakeholders due to its proven benefits in innovation, collaboration and profit (plus, it’s the right thing to do!). Candidates are also asking about diversity within and organization during the interview process, and rightfully so. You should be actively trying to minimize unconscious bias in your data pools to ensure diverse talent gets into the pipeline and makes it through your hiring stages.   

The total addressable market functions as an added layer of inclusion so you always pull together a comprehensive, diverse talent pool with your initial data. By altering search terms upfront, you can source inclusively from the outset, then segment your market by primary and secondary targets to further narrow the qualifications needed. This will often lead to finding a coveted talent pool. It will help you think outside of qualifications, universities, certifications and prior work history. 

#2: Higher quality candidates move through the funnel faster 

Segmenting your talent pool early and understanding their needs, such as career changes and other patterns on their resumes, ensures less ad hoc searching and filtering later. 

For example, you may see an influx of registered nurses seeking a career change by applying or entering your talent community. Initially, you may not understand how their transferable skills would work for an admin requisition, but when you objectively look at their proven abilities — processing patient history, liaising with multiple stakeholders and directing and supervising other nurses — they have the skillsets to flourish in office manager and other administrative positions. That may not be the choice a hiring manager would’ve initially made but showing them the potential through these skills ensures a smooth interview process and higher quality candidates with the skills needed to do the work. 

#3: Data can help drive change 

Setting yourself up for success happens when you’re empowered to set expectations to the hiring managers about where the talent is, what they’re looking for and how to widen that pool with things they may not have considered before with hard facts and numbers (numbers don’t lie, after all, and neither does the TAM!). 

Pulling a data set before you source helps to establish these points so you can better pinpoint talent for what’s needed at any given time. Accomplishing this through a combination of tools, software and analysis is the best way to aggregate and gain insights. 

Learn how Claro Analytics scrapes the internet in real time to provide billions of candidate data points. 

#4: Targeted outreach creates more engagement 

As mentioned before, segmenting lists into primary and secondary targets from the TAM gives you a competitive edge to better engage with interested candidates. You’re already going in with knowledge of why these candidates are attracted to the opportunity. You’ve done the upfront research, and when you arrive at this step, you’ll be far better equipped to schedule candidates interested in interviewing that fulfill the skills needed for the role.

Pro tip: Be sure to craft a follow-up strategy, as reaching out to the same contact multiple times leads to 2x the responses according to an email study by backlinko. 

#5: You’ll become the expert  

There’s a long-standing desire for talent acquisition professionals to position themselves as experts and we’re finally seeing that coming to fruition. The pandemic opened many executives’ eyes to the importance of recruitment to an organization’s overall strategy and goals. The total addressable market gives you the tools needed to paint a holistic picture of all available talent so you can tap into hidden talent pools and consult on strategic decisions alongside hiring managers.

It also helps sourcers elevate their positions as strategic consultants to guide hiring managers and use data to make suggestions. This includes the need to relocate roles if talent isn’t available in a specific area, for instance, or whether to make the position remote or increase salary requirements to draw more talent to the requisition.

The total addressable market gives you the tools needed to paint a holistic picture of all available talent so you can tap into hidden talent pools and consult on strategic decisions alongside hiring managers. 

This collaboration and teamwork with onboarding teams and recruitment are sure to be strongly positioned moving forward even before sourcing starts.