The Source Tracking function in Greenhouse Recruiting allows you to understand where candidates in your pipeline are coming from. Every Source in Greenhouse Recruiting is comprised of two parts: a Sourcing Strategy and a Source Name.

What is sourcing strategy?

In Greenhouse Recruiting, we classify sources into categories that we refer to as Sourcing Strategies. These are used in your own reporting, so your team will want to determine the best way to define each Sourcing Strategy based on your specific needs. To help give you some ideas on how you might use each Sourcing Strategy, we have included notes below.

There are eight available Sourcing Strategies:

  • Agencies: Third-party individuals or organizations paid to source candidates
  • Company Marketing: Talent marketing campaigns managed by your team
  • In Person Event: Meetups, career fairs, or any other real-world location where you might meet with candidates in person
  • Prospecting: Proactive outreach to candidates who have not applied to jobs at your organization
  • Social Media: Any job listings shared on various social media outlets
  • Third-party Boards: Any external board (free or paid) where candidates might discover your job posts
  • Referral: Personal acquaintances of employees, customers, or friends
  • Others: Any other source

Under each Sourcing Strategy are distinct methods that we refer to as a Source Name.

Custom sources

When creating a Custom Source, users will need to group their custom source into a predefined Sourcing Strategy and provide the unique Source Name. For more information on creating Custom Sources, click here.

Screenshot of new custom source

Some Sources are listed under multiple Sourcing Strategies because there are different ways you might find candidates on those platforms. In those instances, we have included clarification in the Source Name.

For example, LinkedIn is listed in the Source list under multiple Sourcing Strategies.

  • LinkedIn - Prospecting is the source for candidates found by proactive search and outreach on LinkedIn.
  • LinkedIn - Social Media is the source for candidates who saw a position advertised on a personal LinkedIn profile by someone in their network. For example, if a user posted a position to their personal profile using the Social Media dashboard in Greenhouse, any applicants coming from that post will have this source.
  • LinkedIn (Ad Posting) - Third-party Boards is the source for one-off ads purchased on LinkedIn
  • LinkedIn Limited Listing - Third-party Boards is the source for the free ads LinkedIn offers through their Limited Listing service

Sourcing Reports

By differentiating between a Source Strategy and a Source Name, your organization can better track the performance of individual sources as well as trends across an entire Sourcing Strategy, in a report like Candidate Quality by Source Report.

Find a specific candidate's source

You can find a candidate's or prospect's Source from their profile on any job. To assign or change the Source of a candidate for a particular job, navigate to the candidate's profile and click the edit.pngicon next to the Source field.

Screenshot of candidate source highlight

When reassigning a Source to a candidate, users can choose the Source Name (organized by Source Strategy) and assign Credit to an individual. Credits are used to identify the person responsible for referring the candidate.

Screenshot of who gets credit field