Why good people sourcers are like pure gold dust [including a superb Prezzi]
If you think you know anything about recruitment, could you tell me about the art of sourcing? I mean, do you actually know how (good) recruitment sourcers do their job to find all those great candidates that you (as the recruiter) could only dream of finding?
I like to think that I have pretty good at candidate sourcing over the years, filling many assignments with 'how did you find them?' candidates. But when I see the level of detail that some of the true experts go into on searching, I am sometimes left open-mouthed!
There is a role in the recruitment life cycle that is one of the most important, yet massively undervalued. Without good candidates, any recruitment process would be fundamentally flawed, wouldn't it? So why is it then the majority of companies - agency and client side - fail to recognise the skills of sourcers?
My simple response is that most people (recruiters included) don't understand the complexity of finding people through different methods - some simple searches, many complicated searches and lateral thinking and logic searches.
If that is you, then take a few minutes out and watch this Prezzi presentation by top recruiter Julia Stone. To say it is brilliant, is really a massive understatement. She takes you through the types of mindset and thinking that good sourcers use to find people. [If you haven't seen a prezzi before, you are in for a surprise ]
Sourcing Solo on Prezi
If you want to make sure you are following some of the best sourcers in the business, then you won't get much better than following these three:
- Glen Cathey - aka @GlenCathey - he writes a blog called Boolean Blackbelt, which has candidate searching tips and tricks that will blow your mind away. A sourcing genius who is happy to share his skill (Heck, even LinkedIn read his blog!)
- Irina Shamaeva - aka @braingain - she is a previous sourcecon pre-conference challenge winner, and is truly an expert on everything boolean. Like Glen she shares many of her tricks and knowledge with everyone on her blog Boolean Strings.
- Katharine Robinson - aka @thesourceress - she is the current Grand Master Sourcer - no easy feat, I have to say! Like Glen and Irina, Katharine is a boolean expert, but has the uncanny skill of being super lateral in her work, who looks at different web sites and tools in a different way to source candidates. She blogs at Sourcerss.co.uk, and as above she shares some great tips.
Side Note on the Sourcecon GrandMaster Challenge: The first contest happened in 2007 and consisted of three pre-conference challenges and an on-site challenge. Mike Notaro is technically the very first challenge winner, followed by Suzy Tonini and Jeremy Langhans. Mike won the first Grand Master Sourcing Challenge. He also won the on-site challenge the next year. Other participants in 2008 were Julia Stone, Shannon Myers, and Joshua Kahn. In 2010, the participants were Lisa Offutt, Irina Shamaeva, Katharine Robinson, and Mike Notaro. Katharine won that challenge.
There are of course loads of other good sourcers out there in the recruitment world, and many are part of Sourcecon - the sourcers 'magic circle' (only joking about the magic part - although it does seem like magic sometimes). Maybe you have even got one or two working for your company >> if you have, look after them, they are like gold dust!
If you are happy top share some other top sourcers you know, feel free - it is great to recognise others.
Image credit: Treehugger.com.
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