In the past, this blog has discussed the traits that make up a good recruiter, but until now, we have left out some of the best recruiting and sourcing tools that are available out there. With the global staffing market in 2013 topping $416 billion, and the United States claiming $124 billion of that, the amount of applications through which to find quality employees is greater than ever before.

Unfortunately, it takes time to wade through the muck and the mire to find the truly great services. Recruiters should spend as much of their time as possible connecting with candidates and trying to make placements, not testing applications through trial and error. Thus, it’s hard to know which services are worth paying for, which services are worth looking into, and which services you should avoid like the plague.

Here at RecruitiFi, however, we know recruiters. We know that every second wasted on a worthless tool is time that could have been spent finding a candidate his dream job. There are applications out there that are absolute necessities, ones that need to have a permanent place on any recruiter’s tool belt, and ones that aren’t worth the time it takes to search for them on Google. Below, you will find the best of the bunch – the 3 most essential tools that will either help recruiters find higher quality candidates or assist them in honing their sourcing skills so that they can become experts in their field.

LinkedIn Recruiter

If you’re a recruiter, and you or your firm is not using LinkedIn Recruiter, I’m really not sure how you’ve been doing your job all these years. That’s like playing center field without a glove. Granted, it’s pretty expensive, with a price tag of $8,000 per account, but it’s a worthwhile investment for small recruiting agencies. LinkedIn Recruiter lets you peruse the 300 million profiles on LinkedIn and see all of their information without even connecting with them. As Wired put it, LinkedIn Recruiter offers you “a giant data set of more than 300 million users and growing, a way to engage passive employees, and the ability to build career branding around a company.” Currently, over 16,000 companies and clients pay to use LinkedIn Recruiter, including Google, Facebook, BP and L’Oreal.

But there are some pros and cons to using the LinkedIn, as we’ve detailed in the past. Writing the perfect InMail can be a bit of an art. And if you’re an independent sourcer, LinkedIn Recruiter may be too pricey depending on your budget. If that’s the case, you should check out…

Webinars and Certifications

Since recruiting is an industry with important, real-world implications, there are a plethora of webinars available online that teach best practices. Recruiting Webinars is a great resource and offers helpful insights into the world of recruiting, with many being authored by major players in the HR world. Social Talent is another service that offers weekly Wednesday webinars on the nuances of social recruiting.

Irena Shamaeva, who runs Boolean Strings, also gives webinars that teach people to be better sourcers. Her CPSP (Certified People Sourcing Professional) credential that she offers through her site is widely considered to be the international industry standard for demonstrating proficiency in sourcing skills. Certifications and the rigorous training recruiters go through to earn them can go a long way towards boosting credibility and skillsets.

RecruitiFi

While these services are phenomenal resources, recruiters who use them may soon find themselves with an excess of quality candidates. If that is the case, they should always check out RecruitiFi for the latest and most relevant JobCasts. Having a surplus of candidates can certainly be considered a positive, but if there are no jobs in which to place them, recruiters are doing a disservice to themselves and their candidates.