Disqus - Latest Comments for researchgoddess

Re: The Greatest Sourcing Advice I Ever Learned

ResearchGoddess — Thu, 14 Feb 2019 12:04:23 -0000

I love this. I, too, learned by sharing. I was part of a small group of Internet Researchers (IRs) when I was on the agency side and we shared with and learned from each other through an old-school listserv. When I left that company I no longer had access to that listserv so that's when I started blogging. Back then we commented more and called each other to talk about research :) I've met so many incredible people through this sourcing community and owe my success to the guidance and encouragement I've received from them and others.

Re: The Vision of Pipeline Sourcing – Part 1

ResearchGoddess — Tue, 22 May 2018 15:11:05 -0000

Matt, I look forward to further installations of your series to piece all of this together. I would challenge your statement that pipelining is a relatively new approach; I believe it's been around for a while but has simply been called different things by different people - much like sourcing!

Re: We’ve Created a Monster – Bad Recruiting

ResearchGoddess — Tue, 09 Jan 2018 14:52:48 -0000

Alan,you started off with the right question: "Why?" We don't ask it enough and it's what helps us get to the root cause. You mention a focus on quantity metrics which I would agree with. If all one measures is quantity, success will be short-lived because there is no quality litmus. While one can certainly find success in this business by throwing the most amount of sh** against the wall to see what sticks, there is the collateral damage that we see in crappy candidate experiences, as well as a recruiter who never really learns the art of quality recruiting. There's where I think the bulk of this root cause lies - "learning" and "quality." At the beginning of one's career, quantity is important for building good habits and discipline. But if learning doesn't take place in conjunction, quality will not be attained. At some point along the way, a sourcer or recruiter needs to learn how to analyze her/his quantity metrics and derive some insights. Where am I spinning my wheels? Where am I finding success? and then ask.... WHY. This simple activity I believe can help solve the "bad recruiting" issue. It needs to be encouraged and championed by TA leaders, however. And that's a whole other topic of discussion.

Re: What to Expect at the 2017 Fall #SourceCon Conference – Back to Reality

ResearchGoddess — Mon, 11 Sep 2017 13:18:02 -0000

Another thing to add here: don't be afraid to introduce yourself to 'famous' people at the conference. Every person who has made a significant mark in our community started from scratch at some point (just ask Glen Cathey about his first SourceCon). They're all human beings and want to see our industry elevated, and they know the best way to do that is to be accessible. If you're too nervous to introduce yourself to someone, drop by the Welcome Wagon and let us know who you want to meet - we'll make it happen. Excited to see everyone in Austin!

Re: Partnering with The Unorthodox Hiring Manager

ResearchGoddess — Wed, 06 Sep 2017 12:03:02 -0000

Love this. If you have hiring managers that ask to be involved earlier in the process, LET THEM. For heaven's sake - they know the time commitments. I have worked with recruiting partners in the past who would not allow that because it wasn't part of the 'established process' - seriously.

Re: Even LinkedIn Doesn’t Use LinkedIn for Tech Recruiting.

ResearchGoddess — Sat, 28 Jan 2017 19:56:51 -0000

I'm not sure I am reading about the same Reach program that you are, Jackye. From what I can see, it's like a bootcamp sponsored by the company, in which participants are LTE (limited term employees) who are in fact "eligible for health & medical benefits as well as the perks that our full time employees enjoy..." I see the program is "designed for candidates who have non-traditional career paths... [encouraging] applications from candidates without Computer Science degrees who are self-taught, re-entering the workforce, starting second careers, veterans, or those who have attended boot camp style programming courses." Most bootcamps I'm aware of see the same types of students, those who are looking to develop new skills, but are run by 3rd parties and carry I would argue a lesser chance of being awarded employment in tech upon completion. LinkedIn is ponying up LTE benefits, coaching and mentoring, and time commitment for this program, and the additional benefit to participants is a bootcamp where they get paid to learn new skills. LinkedIn's benefit is having some work done for that 6-month timeframe, and some potentially good talent to convert at the end. It reads to me like a fairly typical contractor situation, but with paid on-the-job training and medical benefits. I just don't see the issue here.

That being said, what you've described in the section "LinkedIn Is For Luddites" is on point. "It is naive to believe that all, or even most, IT talent will have a profile on LinkedIn, much less one that’s actually up to date" is something every sourcer and recruiter needs to take to heart. Leaders also need to read this and be extremely proactive in ensuring their teams do not become one-trick ponies. Having a diversified sourcing skill foundation is imperative if you want to survive the next tech bubble burst (which is coming soon). Those who cannot source without LI, and/or who cannot close, will not last. Thank you for continuing to drive that message.

Re: We are NOT Cool Kids, and There is NO Special Circle

ResearchGoddess — Thu, 02 Jun 2016 10:58:51 -0000

Thanks for posting this Derek. I think part of the challenge is that a good bunch of folks who are within the sourcing community are introverted at various levels, so it's not second nature to proactively walk up to someone, especially a person whose name is perceived to be 'famous,' and strike up a conversation. Couple that with those recognizable individuals also often being on the introverted side and we have a room full of people who are not super comfortable in social settings, desperately wanting to connect with one another but feeling too shy to do so :) I suffer from this as well (I actually really dislike large social settings unless I have a task for which I am responsible) and so often we perceive shyness or introversion wrongly as snobbery. The best we can all do is try to include people in conversations if we see them hanging on around the perimeter of a discussion, ask them to introduce themselves, and be warm and welcoming even if it feels a little uncomfortable. And if you're able, take someone 'under your wing' and make it a point to help facilitate introductions to people with similar professional backgrounds or interests. I will be forever grateful to Jim Stroud for being that person for me ten years ago. Remember where you came from, and always reach back.

Re: Sourcing’s Tipping Point: a Race to the Bottom or to Strategic Business Partner?

ResearchGoddess — Mon, 16 Nov 2015 15:38:21 -0000

Thank you for sharing your thoughts here Toby. If I may, I'd like to dig a little deeper into some of the ideas you've begun here...

Firstly, I'm not convinced that we as sourcers should be "reducing" all of the things you outlined - some of the things described are for recruiting, like time to hire and hiring manager satisfaction, for example. Things like hiring manager satisfaction, as far as sourcing is concerned, is measured by how many prospects they say "yes" to whereas from an overall hiring perspective, a recruiter's achievement of HM satisfaction will include a number of things like process, overall talent pool quality, and of course if a hire-able individual was uncovered. Frankly - these things are a manager's job though an astute sourcer will be keeping tabs on their value to the business on their own.

Secondly, while I fully agree with your observation of strategic insight being a cornerstone of sourcing, I believe it alone is the feeder activity by which the business needs to own the rest of the items you've outlined. In my team, our sole responsibility is going after non-applicant, non-referral prospects which requires us to have eyes and ears in our functional communities. The things we have the opportunity to learn and piece together are invaluable to our businesses, and... can help feed the remainder of the items you've listed that we should be doing (benchmarking, organizational design, and organizational design). I fear having sourcers' responsibilities dive too deeply into these areas, and the reason for this is that internal recruiters are supposed to be the business' consultants, not sourcers.

I would argue that a recruiter (along with a hands-on HRBP) should be the one driving conversation around benchmarking salaries and making recommendations on organizational design and overall strategy. Should sourcers be part of the conversation? Absolutely - sourcers are in the market every day gathering the data with which the businesses should be making decisions for their hiring activities. But I think putting that responsibility on a sourcer's plate as a KPI is incorrect and will take them away from the activities for which they were hired.

At the end of the day, I fully believe that the best way to allow sourcing to change its internal perception from cost center to value center is to make each TA function's KPI complementary to one another. I feel the best way to do this is to measure sourcing based upon quality of presentation/submittal (are you giving the business what it is asking for [in our case via non-applicant/non-referral funnel expansion]); measuring recruiting based upon filling its business' hiring needs in a timely manner (are you successful in eliminating lost opportunity cost for your business), and holding the business accountable for a lower ratio of interview-to-offer (do you truly know what you need to hire for and are you able to articulate that to your TA partners). Each group is accountable to a portion of the hiring process and thus must find a way to partner with each other in order to meet the collective goals.

Re: What it Takes to Become a World Class Sourcer or Recruiter by @GlenCathey

ResearchGoddess — Tue, 13 Oct 2015 11:54:25 -0000

Quite possibly the best thing you've written to date, Glen. And that's saying a lot :) I think repetition is what strikes most people. I have a hiring manager who has a particular interest in interviewing people who've achieved certain levels of musical mastery, and he says it's because practice and repetition of the basics (like scales) are the way to achieve greatness as a musician, and he likes that characteristic in his development team members.

Re: The Sales That is Involved in Sourcing by @WillRecruits

ResearchGoddess — Mon, 17 Aug 2015 17:08:35 -0000

The message of your article is fantastic - know your business first and foremost, and know how to differentiate yourself from the rest of the recruiting folks trying desperately to grab candidates' attention. Set yourself apart by having a compelling message, and be diligent about following up. It's a huge bummer that Charlie only works with Google calendars right now. Also that Crystal Knows is still lining folks up for test-drives (edit: I was just approved so that was a nice quick turn-around!) For those who are queued up for Crystal Knows and/or who use Outlook or don't use an iPhone and can't make use of Charlie yet, I would recommend making use of Archively for helping either you, your team, or your hiring teams get more comprehensive digital footprints of prospects before you speak with them.

Re: Three Source Quality Metrics You’re Probably Not Tracking by @BarbraGago

ResearchGoddess — Thu, 02 Jul 2015 10:45:50 -0000

Now these are success metrics I can get behind! Barbara, I'm curious if you have any thoughts on how to apply these source metrics to individual and/or team success metrics and establishing goals for strategic sourcing?

Re: Think Like a Marketer When Packaging Your Candidate by @bethmctheo

ResearchGoddess — Tue, 23 Jun 2015 12:44:55 -0000

Wonderful article. Our 'product' is the most difficult to work with because it has thoughts, feelings, and opinions :) Being able to package prospects beautifully to our hiring managers so they get a feel for the great conversations we've had already with them will help to warm them up where they might just look at a resume and say, 'no thanks!' with no context. This is a fantastic break-down!

Re: How to Set Goals for Sourcers – Part 2 by @TravisWindling

ResearchGoddess — Wed, 17 Jun 2015 20:29:35 -0000

Hi Travis, please don't take this the wrong way but I don't come away from this post or this document with any clearer idea of how to set goals for sourcers. To me, this document is better designed for an intake meeting for a recruiter, or for a recruiter to help be more consultative and learn more about a particular business' industry focus. I don't see the connection to it in helping to determine sourcer goals.

Re: How to Set Goals for Sourcers – Part 1 by @TravisWindling

ResearchGoddess — Thu, 11 Jun 2015 13:34:12 -0000

In theory, quality sourcing submittals SHOULD lead to less time to hire good people, which tackles the issue of $$ and business impact. I am looking forward to your part 2.

Re: How to Set Goals for Sourcers – Part 1 by @TravisWindling

ResearchGoddess — Thu, 11 Jun 2015 13:33:07 -0000

Baby steps :) It's the responsibility of the talent attraction leadership to help steer that discussion and ultimately the mental shift. Unfortunately, so many have never sourced before therefore they don't have a PoV to understand the differences. Education!

Re: How to Set Goals for Sourcers – Part 1 by @TravisWindling

ResearchGoddess — Thu, 11 Jun 2015 00:03:07 -0000

I am greatly looking forward to the second part of this article, hoping that there will be more focus on metrics for goals around quality submittals rather than hires, since a sourcer does not typically have any control over what happens to their proactively sourced non-applicant prospect once it is handed off to a recruiting partner.

Re: So You Want to Be the Head of Talent Acquisition?

ResearchGoddess — Mon, 20 Apr 2015 11:19:21 -0000

Rob, I think you can start noticing these characteristics pretty early in a person's career. I like your disclaimer too that not everyone has to aspire to be a leader :) Thanks for sharing this - you've probably inspire and pushed more people in this industry than you realize.

Re: Sourcing Noir: The Case of The Missing Stroller by @kamoswin

ResearchGoddess — Thu, 05 Mar 2015 11:41:12 -0000

Cameron, next time we see each other please remind me to tell you the story of how I tracked down the drunk driver who side swiped me and made him pay for the $2200 in damage to my car as well as the rental car I had to drive while mine was in the shop :) Your story just warms my heart, and I second your final statement: DO NOT MESS WITH A SOURCER. WE *WILL* FIND YOU.

Re: Resolve to Read More Books With the SourceCon Book Club in 2015

ResearchGoddess — Mon, 05 Jan 2015 16:41:16 -0000

I love that this is the first book :) May I also recommend Trust, by Francis Fukuyama... a great global look into how people do business with one another across multiple cultures and countries. It's an economics book but has many applications to what we do in sourcing!

Re: My Take On ‘The Fallacy of Sourcing’

ResearchGoddess — Tue, 18 Nov 2014 15:03:24 -0000

I just posted my thoughts on the ERE article and will share them here as well :)

I will agree with the following statement: It does not take more than a few minutes to learn Boolean search. I will also agree with the idea that the issue is no longer finding people (finding the RIGHT people is another story...). However, to master anything - be it sourcing, recruiting, coding, nursing, sales, etc. - requires time, continual education, and experience, far beyond one training class.

The fallacy, in my opinion, is saying that sourcing doesn't work when you don't properly invest in it - with time, continual training, and appropriate tracking. The biggest disservice anyone could do, IMHO, is to toss a tool at a sourcer, provide them with a training video or some kind of online tutorial, and expect them to instantly become an expert; and if that does not happen quickly enough to dismiss the effort as a waste of time and the individual as a fool. Teaching someone is the starting point - experience, trial-and-error, and practice is what leads to mastery.

You do not hire new recruiters and leave them solely to their own devices - no, you give them coaching, training materials, and you work with them to help them get better. This is where I think sourcing gets a bad rap quite often - there are so few sourcing leaders out there who have actually done it themselves, and therefore very few people who have the ability to really develop great sourcing skills in others. Usually it's just some recruiter or HR person who's been moved into that role because no one else wants it, who doesn't know how to measure sourcing success, and ultimately dismisses the sourcing function as a #fail because they couldn't figure out how to make it successful.

The vicious cycle, to me, is when you have sourcers who've unfortunately been subjected to the tool-toss or to management that doesn't 'get' the functional value, and in whom there was never any real skill investment from their employers, so they move from contract to contract, or company to company, picking up bits and pieces on their own to try to become better. Kudos to those sourcers for taking responsibility for their own career development.

Training is only the beginning of the process.

Re: The Fallacy of Sourcing

ResearchGoddess — Tue, 18 Nov 2014 15:02:03 -0000

You do not hire new recruiters and leave them solely to their own devices - no, you give them coaching, training materials, and you work with them to help them get better. This is where I think sourcing gets a bad rap quite often - there are so few sourcing leaders out there who have actually done it themselves, and therefore very few people who have the ability to really develop great sourcing skills in others. Usually it's just some recruiter or HR person who's been moved into that role, who doesn't know how to measure sourcing success, and ultimately dismisses the sourcing function as a #fail because they couldn't figure out how to make it successful.

Training is only the beginning of the process.

Re: You Can’t Be an Effective Sourcer if You Don’t Do THIS First

ResearchGoddess — Fri, 12 Sep 2014 11:42:01 -0000

One of my favorite Honest Abe quotes :) I've really become a fan of intake meetings because it sets the stage of the rest of your search process, it solidifies your relationship with your hiring manager as well as any other partners involved in the process, and it provides a documentation of accountability for each person involved in the hiring process that can be referenced along the way if there are questions, discrepancies, or challenges. Thanks for sharing this, Stacy!

Re: Experience Is Overrated — Arguments for Hiring Talented Individuals Without Perfect Credentials

ResearchGoddess — Mon, 08 Sep 2014 14:18:30 -0000

My feeling on this: for functions that clearly NEED appropriate credentials, like a medical doctor, a nurse, an attorney, etc. - yes absolutely the right credentials matter. For for roles like, say, recruiting, where there aren't even any formalized degree programs one can pursue, there are no 'perfect credentials' and therefore there really isn't any basis for ruling someone in or out based on credentials :) My own situation is a perfect case for this: my degree is in exercise and sport science - clearly I was suited for a career in talent acquisition!? Nope - but it was because someone gave me the chance to prove myself that I discovered it was a great path to take, and when I think about where I'm at now vs. where I've come from (and hopefully where I'll be heading in the future!) I can't help but wonder what might have happened if my unrelated credentials had knocked me out of consideration at any step along the way...

Thanks for this article, John and Trena :)

Re: Are You a Dork?

ResearchGoddess — Wed, 03 Sep 2014 12:35:43 -0000

What we do is not malicious, though. I'd hate to associate our function with malicious cyber-stalking.

Re: Properly Equipping a Future Generation of Excellent Sourcers

ResearchGoddess — Tue, 19 Aug 2014 11:45:36 -0000

Thanks Andy, it's stuff that's been swimming around in my brain for awhile, and I had a decent flight last week to finally organize my thoughts.