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Shally Steckerl will kick off SourceCon NYC by welcoming attendees to NYC and to the conference. He will recap of what’s been going on in the sourcing world since the last SourceCon event and provide important information and tips for making the best of the conference and the information you will learn.

Megan will kick off the 2011 SourceCon conference by discussing the reconstruction the ADP researching team underwent and the goals, struggles, and successes realized in the process. Hear how they broke down a perfectly good team in order to take their sourcing function to the next level.

Prior to 2009, the ADP sourcing function was comprised of a decentralized support channel that segregated recruiting researchers by lines of business. Metrics and expectations across the sourcing teams were varied and inconsistent, making it difficult to measure a researcher’s success and leverage their expertise. As the hiring needs across the business grew, it was imperative that significant changes were made to the researching function. Megan will discuss how she and other members of the leadership team conducted in-depth research on the key success factors of each researcher and how to best realign their roles. She will talk about how redesigning sourcing role job descriptions created opportunities for growth and standardization of metrics and expectations. Finally, she will discuss how ADP held team members accountable for ADP branding, positive candidate experience initiatives, and pipeline development.

In this session, Katharine will look at how the Internet can be used to make you a more effective “Real World” sourcer.

The importance of taking the online offline really hit Katharine when she attended the first ever Twestival in September 2008 and then started to engage with local tweetups at the beginning of 2009. People are so much more likely to think of you, send you interesting things, and make recommendations once they have put a face to an avatar.

Real world events attract people who engage online and those who don’t. This makes them a great way to meet fresh new people and make valuable additions to your network.

Once you’re at an event, there is often far too much going on to learn, meet, and collect business cards from everyone. Those people who are engaging online can make this much easier – with event management sites, Linkedin and Facebook events, Twitter lists, hashtags, and Foursquare check-ins you can let social media tools take the pressure off.

…and it’s not possible to be everywhere, of course. We have day jobs and placements to make and some of the juiciest events are often on another continent. So these new tools also help us monitor for interesting names and nuggets of insight from afar.

Katharine will show, among other things, how one can source from events – starting first with information gathering online, and leading into warm, in-person meetings that can yield not only quality candidates but potentially long-term, quality networking relationships as well.

This presentation will help you think about and do your sourcing job in a different way.

Since your world is the external competitive talent market environment, it means ideally that you are also an intelligence officer for the company, serving as its eyes and ears and also using legal and ethical intelligence to be more effective in what you do.

Most large enterprises, and many smart medium-sized ones too, have Competitive Intelligence (CI) functions staffed by professionals. CI uses public, but not necessarily published, information that is fused together from all sources, either secondary or primary, to create insight and competitive advantage.

As a phone sourcer you can improve your effectiveness significantly by tapping into these CI activities and knowledge bases, both as a user and a provider of intelligence.

Here are some specific questions that will be answered in this interactive session:

• What is the difference between CI and Industrial Espionage?

• What is ‘all source intelligence’ and how does it relate to your activities?
  
  
• What are some specific examples of all source intelligence that you can use to be a more effective sourcer?
  
  
• Why are the Recruiting (Sourcing) and CI functions natural allies, or should be if they aren’t already?
  
  
• How can you increase your value to your organization or clients by becoming an all source intelligence sourcer?
  
  
• Is your company as easy a target for sourcing as your competitors are?
  
  
• If it is, what can you do to tighten up ‘loose lips’ and gain valuable intelligence in the process?
  
  
• What are some additional resources you can use in becoming an all source intelligence sourcer?

The audience will be divided into groups for a short exercise and briefings of best ideas. Participants will leave the presentation their own list of ‘action items’ to implement when they return to their workplaces. They will also be invited to continue the discussions electronically after the conference to share their ‘lessons learned’ in implementing all source intelligence sourcing.

What is the most effective way to learn and/or teach the art and science of candidate sourcing?

The ultimate measure of any training method’s effectiveness is the extent to which trainees can reliably and properly execute the techniques, tactics, and strategies that they were exposed to during the training. The reality is that most people do not absorb and retain information effectively by watching and listening to a trainer – this applies to web-based training as well as live classroom training.

Research in occupational training shows that people retain about:

• 10% of what they read
• 20% of what they hear
• 30% of what they see
• 50% of what they hear and use
• 70% of that they say
• 90% of what they say and do

Any training that only involves reading, listening, and watching has about a 30% retention rate. Would you say that’s a good return on investment?

Expecting to master sourcing techniques and strategies from web-based or live training that doesn’t involve interactive assessment and evaluation of your understanding of the content is like expecting to master golf by watching a golf video or by taking golf lessons where the instructor doesn’t let you actually swing the club in their presence and offer guidance and advice.

In this session, we’ll explore the current state of candidate sourcing training available and discuss many of the aspects involved in creating and selecting an effective sourcing training program.

We know that some of your favorite moments from past SourceCon events happen after hours. We invite you to enjoy drinks and appetizers with fellow attendees and speakers after the first day of sessions at 5 Ninth Avenue. A few blocks away from Comix, 5 Ninth has set aside its 3rd floor cocktail lounge for attendees of SourceCon NYC to relax and network after the day’s great sessions. Look forward to seeing you there!

Shally Steckerl will get Day 2 of SourceCon NYC rolling by reviewing what we all learned on Day 1 and getting attendees excited for the next round of sourcing knowledge to be shared. Be prepared for a power-packed day – get your laptops and phones charged and prepare your brains for lots of great information!

Learn how Dell Inc. built a sustainable sourcing organization that has evolved into a function that is critical to the success of Dell’s business and its recruiters. You will hear about the evolution of a team that is proud to be where they are today. Hear about how they gained buy-in and respect from their recruitment team and how they won over business leaders one project at a time: from building out customized sourcing strategies, to conducting talent pool market research, to saving the company millions in search firm fees.

Julia Stone thinks that sourcing is fun and people are fascinating. Join her as she guides you through the basics of sourcing in an all-inclusive session designed for those who work alone or in a small office environment. Julia’s unique perspective of being a Sourcer, a Recruiter and a CEO provides a steady stream of humor and life experience that will leave you wondering where the hour went.

In this session, Julia will share from her own personal experiences how to organize a search, where to look, how to find information that isn’t readily available, and how to communicate with candidates in a way that generates enthusiastic responses from them every time. She will also provide helpful information on how to manage your time, how to organize the vast quantities of information that will soon be at your fingertips, and how to sell yourself as a knowledge expert either to your clients or within your own organization. Anyone who is faced with the task of sourcing for themselves will get a great deal out of this session!

View Julia’s presentation on Prezi.

Ever find yourself challenged to make critical sourcing decisions, yet overwhelmed by your metrics? You’re not alone. As the economy evolves and sourcing becomes more complex, our community must rely upon metrics more than ever to make the right decisions to support our businesses. Through this session, you’ll understand how Crowe has embraced and leveraged metrics to make best-in-class recruitment decisions to advance their business model. Michele will illustrate ways to develop a strategic approach that will tackle the complex metrics puzzle to complement a variety of sourcing scenarios. Through her valuable insight, Michele will walk you through why metrics complement the process of defining goals, best practices, solutions, and execution. Additionally, you’ll understand how to leverage current metrics while utilizing historical data to create and manage repeatable, measurable, and consistent plans.

HootSuite, a social media collaboration dashboard launched in late 2008, helps organizations use the social web to launch marketing campaigns, identify and grow audience, and distribute targeted messages across multiple channels. Using HootSuite’s unique social media dashboard, teams can collaboratively schedule updates to Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, Wordpress and other social networks via web, desktop or mobile platforms plus track campaign results and industry trends to rapidly adjust tactics.

We are excited and pleased to have HootSuite’s CEO, Ryan Holmes, come to SourceCon and talk about social media search, tracking, analytics, and return-on-investment tools that can be used while sourcing potential candidates via Twitter and other social networks. Proving that social media is not a “time-waste” is one of the most common issues facing sourcers today, and as HootSuite offers such a variety of resources for search and tracking (and since so many in our community use HootSuite!) we are thrilled to have them come and talk about some best practices and secret tricks and tips when searching Twitter.

Stay tuned for further information…

View Ryan’s presentation here.

Many of you may be asking: what is social engineering, and what in the world does it have to do with sourcing? Chris Hadnagy is one of the best at his craft to answer this question. As a cyber-security professional, social engineer, and self-proclaimed ‘human hacker’, Chris knows how to get important information from people as well as technology. In his session, he will explain what social engineering is as well as why it is an essential component in a sourcer’s toolkit. He will also provide some mind-blowing demonstrations of how social engineering works. You will NOT want to miss this session.

Many of the recent discussions around sourcing have been predominantly about candidate attraction, but locating the candidate prospect is only half of the battle. We need to place equal emphasis on “making the conversion” – crafting targeted, role-based messages that will compel these prospects to take action and become active in our pipeline.

In Adam’s session, he will equip the audience with a practical approach and details to build winning messages to make the conversion, which will include:

• Profiling the candidate

• Identifying “the pain” – what keeps them up at night

• Creating a solution (or anti-pain) by crafting a positioning statement that is a “pain reliever” for the candidate

Adam’s experience is unique in that he leads a global sourcing organization; on any given day he is having conversations with teams in twenty different countries. As such, he knows first-hand the importance of understanding cultural nuances that may affect the reception of the message you send.

In addition to sharing some tactical pointers for making the conversion, Adam will also discuss the importance of recognizing that there are very different motivators for professionals within different disciplines, career levels, and geographies, and that a strong corporate brand and willingness to offer big salaries are simply not enough any more. You will definitely not want to miss this final session of the conference!