In this complete guide we explain what outbound recruiting is and the steps needed to adopt outbound in your recruiting strategy and day-to-day activities.

We’ll cover the following topics:

1. What is outbound recruiting
2. Why outbound recruiting exists
3. What the outbound recruiting process looks like
4. Outbound recruiting: scalable or not? The case for automation
5. How to do outbound recruiting: your practical guide
6. Integrating data sources and synchronizing activities
7. Becoming an outbound pro: know your reach, and know your limitations

1. What is outbound recruiting

Outbound recruiting is the process of searching for potential candidates and reaching out to them proactively, rather than waiting for candidates to come to you.

Outbound recruiting is different from inbound recruiting, where candidates have found you and show interest using for example your job ads, content, online application forms and engaging with your employer brand on social media.

In inbound recruiting there is a prior relationship or interest of the candidate when you follow up with them.

In outbound recruiting there is no prior relationship with or interest from the candidate and therefore outbound recruiting is often referred to as ‘cold’ outreach.

Cold outreach is reaching out to a potential candidate without any sign of interest from the candidate in your specific job, you contact them and accept that there will be a fair chance that they are not interested in your offer.

Outbound recruiting is also sometimes referred to as outbound sourcing.

You can think of outbound recruiting as spearfishing, whereas inbound recruiting is more like casting a fishing net and using bait.

Outbound recruiting is about targeting individuals, finding them up to the profile level and then reaching out to them personally.

Outbound is push.

Inbound is pull.

Outbound is you going to candidates.

Inbound is candidates coming to you.

2. Why outbound recruiting exists

Because it works. Almost every company deploys some sort of outbound recruiting. Some companies even achieve most hires with an outbound recruiting approach.

Outbound recruiting is most popular in industries where recruiters have to engage hard to find talent. 

An example of such an industry is the tech industry. Software developers for example are not typically actively looking for a job, they already have enough job opportunities literally arriving in their mail or InMail. That’s why recruiters have to go after them themselves. 

That’s where outbound recruiting has proven to be a very successful approach. The biggest companies in the world are constantly reaching out to potential candidates with job offers to get them interested in applying or just having a casual conversation. Google, Meta, Tesla, they’re all using outbound recruiting.

As you can see in the below image, there are more potential candidates who are open to talking to a recruiter but not actively looking for a job (45%) than there are people actively looking for a job (12%).

‍85% of people are open to job opportunities. And the biggest part is not actively looking, so unless you expect to bump into them on the streets you need to go recruit them, that’s why outbound recruiting exists.