Introduction to Source attribution
Freshteam lets you keep complete track of the source of every candidate whose profile enters your recruitment system. Here is how the Source attribution information is typically helpful for the recruiters:
- Helps you analyze how your different recruitment channels (sources) are performing viz-a-viz one another.
- Enables easy attribution for third-party vendors by easily keeping a tab on the candidates each vendor brings into the system.
- Enables tracking of employee referrals to easily run a referral program to drive more applications.
Key terms to understand
- Candidate: A candidate refers to an individual candidate's profile in the context of its appearance for the first time in Freshteam.
- Source Owner type: Freshteam captures three types of source owners: Portal Owner, Referral Owner and Vendor Owner depending on how the candidate enters the system. In case the candidate enters into the system through a direct application by himself/herself, or is added by your hiring team, the source owner type is marked as Portal Owner. For cases where the candidate is referred by an employee, it is marked as Referral Owner and if the candidate is added by an external vendor, it is marked as Vendor Owner.
- Candidate Source: This parameter captures the exact source from which the candidate's profile came to your Freshteam account. Example values of Candidate Source could be the precise name of a Job board, say 'LinkedIn', or an employee name who would have referred the candidate, or even the name of a vendor or a recruitment consulting company.
- Candidate Source Category: Candidate Source category captures a higher level category of the Candidate Source. We have some categories predefined in Freshteam (Eg: Job Boards, Email, CareerSite etc) and the system also allows you to create your own categories.
- Applicant Source: Applicant Source capture the source through which the candidate came into the application pipeline for a specific job posting. This value can be different from the Candidate Source. In fact, the same candidate can have different Applicant Source values for different job applications, depending on how he/she came into the application pipeline for the respective jobs.
- Applicant Source Category: Applicant Source category captures a higher level category of the Applicant Source. We have some categories predefined in Freshteam (Eg: Job Boards, Email, CareerSite etc) and the system also allows you to create your own categories.
Different types of Sources in Freshteam
Freshteam contains different types of Sources by default.
- Internal - Referred by an employee internally either through the employee portal or email.
- Direct - Applied directly from the career site (typically from any other source) or sent an email regarding a job posting to the configured email address.
- Angellist, FB Page Tab, Glassdoor, Neuvoo, ZipRecruiter, Dribble, Facebook, Google Plus, Monster, Naukri, Twitter, Adzuna, Behance, Coderwall, Github, LinkedIn, Stack Overflow, Zing.
You can also add Custom Sources in your account through Settings > Source page by clicking on the Add New option in the Source tab.
Different types of Source Categories in Freshteam
Freshteam contains different types of Source Categories by default.
- Portal
- Referral
- Sourced
- Free Job boards
- Job boards
- Premium Job boards
- Referral Social
- CareerSite
- Job Target
- Social
You can also add Custom Source Categories in your account through Settings > Source page by clicking on the Add New option in the Source Category tab.
How to view Source data for a candidate
- Source information for a candidate is available in the Summary tab of the Candidate360 view of the candidate.
How to modify Source data for a candidate
- Go to 'Source' section in the Summary tab for the Candidate360 view of the candidate.
- Click on the Edit icon.
- Modify the required fields such as Source Owner type, Source (Candidate Source), Source Category (Candidate Source Category), Applicant Source and Applicant Source Category.
Managing refresh period for Source attribution
(Please note that this feature is not available in the free plan)
As an Admin you can also set refresh period for different source attributions. This is handy when you want to keep a finite period of attribution for Vendors or Employee Referrals. Once the defined period is over, the system automatically changes the Source owner to "Portal Owner". This helps in ensuring that the candidate source data in your system keeps getting cleaned up and stays relevant and up to date.
Let us know more about different types of attribution periods and how they work in Freshteam
Vendor attribution period: This period defines the duration for which a candidate added by a vendor stays attributed to a vendor. This duration is usually defined in your vendor contract guidelines or the hiring program guidelines.
Let's understand this with an example.
Say you define your vendor attribution period to be 1 year. When a vendor, say "Acme Consulting" adds a candidate, say Mark into the system, Mark's Source Owner Type will be "Vendor Owner" and Candidate Source will be "Acme Consulting". However, after 1 year of completion, the Source Owner Type will automatically change to "Portal Owner" and the Candidate Source will change to "Direct".
Referral attribution period: This period defines the duration for which a candidate referred by an employee stays attributed to the employee. This duration is usually defined in your hiring program guidelines.
Let's understand this with an example.
Say you define your referral attribution period to be 1 year. When an employee, say "Sam Henry" adds a candidate, say Mark into the system, Mark's Source Owner Type will be "Referral Owner" and Candidate Source will be "Sam Henry". However after 1 year of completion, the Source Owner Type will automatically change to "Portal Owner" and the Candidate Source will change to "Direct".
Portal attribution period: This period defines the duration for which a candidate defined under Portal ownership stays under Portal ownership despite being referred by a vendor or an employee (through referral). If you have candidates lying in your system for a long time and they belong to the company, i.e their Source owner is marked as Portal Owner", refreshing the portal source will encourage more referrals and vendor additions that will bring in latest profiles of candidates
Let's understand this with an example.
Let's assume that you define the Portal attribution period as 1 year. Say a candidate named Mark applies through LinkedIn, Mark's Source Owner type will be "Portal Owner" with Candidate Source as "LinkedIn" . Now suppose a vendor called "Acme Consulting" adds Mark for a specific job after 6 months (Lesser than the Portal attribution period). The Source Owner type in this case would continue to stay as "Portal Owner" with Candidate Source staying as "LinkedIn". However, if Acme consulting had referred Mark after 15 months (Greater than the Portal attribution period), the Source Owner would have changed to "Vendor Owner" and the Candidate Source would have changed to "Acme Consulting" .
Here is how to set the refresh period for different types of Source Attribution.
- Go to Settings > General Settings > General > Preferences
- Go to 'Recruit' tab.
- Scroll down to find the option called 'Source Attribution'
- Click on the Toggle button that says "Disabled" to enable the option.
- This will open up the window where you can setup different types of Refresh Periods for Source Attribution.
- Mention the relevant attribution periods and click on 'Save'.
Using Source Attribution parameters while generating reports
Freshteam allows you to derive deep insights around your candidate sources, thanks to different types of reports that you can create around Source Attribution.
Here are the attribute names to use in reporting for different types of sources and source categories:
- Candidate Source Owner
- Candidate Source
- Candidate Source Category
- Applicant Source
- Applicant Source Category