How one talent team unlocked millions of candidates with Sourcing Analytics Essentials

With more than 1 million resumes sitting in the ATS and no way to tap into their warm talent, one software company’s recruiting team settled on external sourcing to fill open requisitions. Recruiters spent hours chasing cold prospects, only to see response and interest rates lag behind the benchmarks for their ambitious hiring goals.

The talent they needed — past applicants, referrals, and those who had already expressed interest — remained hidden in their own systems, and they knew it. But how could their recruiters break old habits to better manage inbound applications and surface top candidates from the millions of potential profiles in the ATS?

A shift in strategy comes with recruiter growing pains

Recognizing the challenge, the company’s VP of Global Talent Acquisition invested in Findem. By equipping the team with the right technology and instilling a multichannel mindset, the shift should’ve been seamless. But behavior lagged behind.

Despite a shared goal — to move to a smarter sourcing strategy that prioritized the warmest candidates — recruiters struggled to embrace the change. New workflows went unused, adoption was uneven, and the team continued to rely on outbound channels. Without clear visibility into which tactics were actually working, it was difficult for anyone to justify the new direction.

Beyond encouragement, the team needed proof that their new investments would help them meet their hiring goals.

Sourcing analytics lead to an aha moment

That proof came in the form of Findem’s Analytics Essentials dashboards. With the support of Findem’s Value Consultants and product experts, recruiting managers identified the underutilized workflows that could drive the biggest returns — especially inbound applicant review and candidate rediscovery campaigns. 

The dashboards offer a detailed view of sourcing activity at both the team and individual level. Leaders can see exactly which channels recruiters are using, how effectively they're using them, and where their efforts are driving results. That includes reply and interest rates by source, time-to-engage metrics, and even a breakdown of individual recruiter workflows. With this level of visibility, it becomes clear which strategies are working and where there's room for improvement.

The story the data told was impossible to ignore. External sourcing was underperforming, while warm channels were already generating stronger reply rates, faster engagement, and higher candidate interest.

• Reply rates from rediscovered candidates were 79% higher than from external sourcing
• Contact-to-interest rates rose by 121% in warm channels (14% to 31%)
• The average interest rate across all channels hit an impressive 56%

Visibility turns into recruiting momentum

What had once been an instincts-driven strategy was now backed by clear, compelling metrics. And for the first time, the team had visibility into how individual recruiters were experimenting with different tactics — and what was working best. These insights turned individual wins into team-wide best practice, and as recruiters leaned into warm channels, results improved fast.

They no longer had to guess which channels worked best, or hope that new workflows would catch on. Analytics Essentials showed them the data. And Copilot for Sourcing made it easy to activate those channels in their day-to-day sourcing. They had everything they needed to make smarter decisions, faster.

Within just a few months, the team achieved:

• A 33% drop in reliance on external sourcing
  
• A 4x increase in Findem-influenced inbound applications
  
• A complete shift from sentiment-driven hiring to a scalable, data-first model

Building a transformative sourcing strategy that scales

What started as a challenge of adoption became a story of transformation. Today, the recruiting team is making better hires by leveraging the talent they already know — unlocking value from their ATS and CRM, while putting their sourcing strategy on a path that can scale.

With the right infrastructure in place — from seamless integrations to analytics to automation — recruiters now operate with confidence, efficiency, and speed. And leadership has a clear line of sight into what’s driving results and where to invest next.

It’s a story of more than just sourcing. It’s about empowering recruiters, elevating team performance, and aligning an entire organization around the power of data.