The Source Newsletter

Sara Chi, who along with Anthony Knierim and Andrea Mitchell is a former SourceCon Spotlight, is a Corporate Information Optimizer. She is a sought-after business intelligence provider, best known for harvesting knowledge to enable smart decisions for businesses. She has more than 15 years of business research and competitive intelligence experience in management consulting, financial services and technology sectors and has worked for PriceWaterhouseCoopers (Taipei, Taiwan), McKinsey & Company (Taipei and Toronto), and the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (leading bank in Canada). Some of the projects on which she has worked include helping clients enter different markets/countries, launching new products/services, and attracting new customers. Recently, Sara has expanded her horizon into recruiting research, including attracting new talent.

Sara is a firm believer that behind every good business decision is an Information Professional. It is her passion and mission that research serve more than just one function. Sara believes that the information must also be relevant to the business requirement and that it has to be easy to understood by end-users.

Sara is fluent in both English and Mandarin and is currently a freelancer. She resides in Toronto and helps clients globally.

We love Sara’s extensive background in our sister function of competitive intelligence. We are thrilled to have her perspective from business research as well as another international viewpoint on recruitment research and sourcing.

Anthony Knierim, also a former SourceCon Spotlight, began in the sourcing/recruitment world on the agency staffing side in 2004 where he worked for the Allegis Group. There, he sold Business Professional Services and IT Staffing Services. Anthony has always had an infatuation with Social Media and utilizing various channels for research/sourcing. He quickly found the potential of Social Media in business and felt it was going to drastically change the recruitment industry. He became very interested in working on the ‘other side’ (working in house for a larger corporation) in a place that had high volume hiring. In researching new opportunities he found that Accenture was hiring a new contract position as a Pipeline Generation Expert; they were looking to build out a more efficient and effective sourcing structure. Anthony played a key role in building out the onshore PGE team from 2 to about 15.  He was with Accenture for 2 ½ years working with various cross client teams and was heavily involved in leading efforts for researching and innovating ways to utilize Social Media for Employment Branding both internally as well as on the client side.

In November of 2009, Anthony left Accenture to work at Hewitt Associates as the Global Branding Manager. There, he is responsible for Employment Brand strategy focusing on building Talent Communities.

Anthony’s quick rise in our tight-knit community compelled us to ask him to be a regular contributor to The Source. He is still just in his mid-20s and therefore considered to be part of “GenY”, and we are excited to learn from his fresh perspective of the Corporate world.

guest post by Maureen Sharib…

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Last week someone forwarded me an email for a company that was looking for a phone sourcer.  I contacted the solicitor and offered to put it out to the network of 1600 members in the MagicMethod Phone Sourcing group and I received a grateful reply that included:

I’m really looking for a seasoned pro with 2+ years who needs minimal mentoring but can take project direction on a continuous basis – multiple times a day…for a full-time manufacturing and a part-time DoD position. Pay depends on experience – of course.

I asked what the pay was for an “old, salty sourcer” and it sounded reasonable.

I laughed ‘cause I’m an old sourcer but salty?  Yeah, I s’pose that, too.

Anyway, I put the missive out and he began to get some inquiries.  He had a pretty straightforward “test” he was sending to the applicants: identify the VP of Product & Process Development and the Director reports at a company and find the e-mail address of a person at another company.

He gave the info in an Excel spread sheet and it included the telephone numbers of the two specific companies he wanted penetrated.  At the top of the Excel spread sheet it said:

Product Marketing Sample
Looking for the VP Product Development and of his/her direct reports.
They should all have the title Director Product Development

I thought it looked like it might be an interesting “challenge” and being as rusty as I am these days with so little phone sourcing work to do on a daily basis I took a stab at it.  I wanted to know the answers anyway in case any of my MagicMethod network asked me about the challenge so I could “help” them with advice on how to proceed.  Besides that, it looked like fun.

Not being accustomed to working in Excel (I find it too “jumpy” for fast phone sourcing work), I eyeballed the document and picked up the phone.  Knowing what titles are used at a specific company is a huge leg-in on any search, Internet included.  But this was a phone search – he wanted phone sourcers specifically.

“XYZ Corporation.  Melinda speaking.”

“Hi Melinda, this is Maureen Sharib.  Can you give me the e-mail address of so-and-so?”

Piece of cake – she recited it easily to me.  I repeated it back to her – slowly – to make sure I had it right.  It took about half-a-minute.  That part of the challenge was finished – on to the next.  This is where I got into trouble.  I think I was feeling haughty.

“ABC Corporation.  Delores speaking.  May I help you?”

“Hi Delores, this is Maureen Sharib.  Can you please transfer me to product development?”

“Which division?  We have many different divisions.”

Blowback.  I didn’t expect that after the ease of my first call.

Glancing at the Excel document I noted it was asking for “Interiors & Exteriors” so I blurted that out.

“Which?” she pressed.

“Interiors,” I grabbed, thinking I would start somewhere.

“One moment, please,” and before I could collect my composure Delores had me on hold in a transfer process.  The phone rang and rang and finally a VoiceMail answered.  “Amanda” informed me that she was gone for the day and would be returning tomorrow and in the event I was trying to reach so-and-so (I had no idea who so-and-so was) I should call Sheila at x4567.  Eyeballing the original telephone number of the company on the Excel sheet I dialed 1 (this was long distance) and the first six numbers – the area code and the prefix – and then Sheila’s four digit extension.  It rang through and another Voicemail answered, identifying herself as “Sheila, the Coordinator in Engineering” and informing me she was on the telephone and would be happy to return my call shortly.

I hung up.

Feeling giddy as I so often do on these chases I pushed back in my chair and noted Sheila’s extension.  Thinking that maybe, just maybe as they sometimes do, if I dialed x4568 directly (now that I knew the easy internal dial key to the company’s employees) I might hit someone else in Engineering so that’s what I did.  It rang and rang and another VoiceMail answered.  I hung up.  I then dialed x4569.  Another VoiceMail.  I hung up and redialed x4570.  A male voice answered.

“Hello.”

“This is Maureen Sharib.  I am trying to reach so-and-so and Amanda is out for the day.  Can you give me his number?”

“Huh?”

“So-and-so.  I am trying to reach the Engineering department.  Is this Engineering?”

“Yeah, this is Engineering but you have the wrong number.”

“I am sorry to disturb you.  Can you give me so-and-so’s number?

“Uhhh – sure.  Wait a minute.”

I waited while he fumbled with some paper.  He then told me so-and-so was at x4561.  Huh.  Close enough in the phone tree to think this wasn’t a fluke – the fact that Engineering was close together in the phone tree.  I wasn’t finished.  I asked, “So-and-so – he’s the VP of Product Development – right?”

“Uh.  Yeah.  We do product development here.” I wasn’t listening.  My heart filled with glee that I had discovered:

…product development
…the internal dial system
…the fact that “engineering” (product development) was closely aligned in the company’s phone tree
… that I had the VP of “Product Development”

I was so happy that I was hearing all that I was hearing I wasn’t listening.

I pressed on.  “Can you tell me, in case I can’t reach so-and-so now that Amanda is gone for the day, can you tell me who else I can try?  Does he have a Director reporting to him that I might try?”

With this last I had pressed too far and he went south on me, curtly telling me he was busy and he had helped me as much as he could.  I thanked him and hung up and dialed the next extension 4571.

Another male voice answered.

“Matthews here.”

“Yes, this is Maureen Sharib.  I was trying to reach so-and-so and Amanda is out for the day” (as if that matters) “so I would like to reach one of his directors.  Do you know who that might be?”

“You mean Charlie? He’s not in today either.”

“Is there anyone else that reports to so-and-so I might try?”

“Well, Brian reports to him too but I don’t know Brian that well – he’s new.”

“Do you know Brian’s extension?” I asked.

“No, I don’t know his last name, either.  You might try Alfonzo though – I think he reports to Brian.  Alfonzo’s extension is 4582.”

“Is Brian one of the Product Development Managers?” I queried.

“He’s one of the Engineering Managers – yeah, we do product development here.”

I still wasn’t listening.  Or maybe better, I wasn’t hearing.

Sensing that this was going to take some time and needing some encouragement I emailed the Challenger and told him I had the email address requested and so-and-so’s name (I gave the initials JT) and he was the VP of Engineering and was I on the right track and did he know the size of the group I was after?

This came back: “No idea – where did that come from?”

My balloon deflated.

Another missive, as if he had an afterthought:

“Engineering is not the department we’re looking for.  The title on the sheet is a specific title at the company handling PD.  PD is a department that combines engineering and marketing and is responsible for product planning as opposed to brand and channel (traditional marketing).  I’m sure JT is a great guy, but the wrong branch for this project.  What’s the email address you found?”

My temper flared at this point and I had the thought that he could have told me this in the beginning.  I flashed off an irritated response that included the email address first before I started the willful lambasting:

Hint:  That piece of info below would help the sourcers who are working on this – Engineering keeps telling me THEY handle product development.

“…combines engineering and marketing…” —> that’s important!

Someone in Engineering told me Process Development is handled by each of their manufacturing divisions.  You sure the title is VP Product & Process Development?

He gently answered:

The important thing is that YOU asked and others have not.  Most of my job as project manager is fielding questions from researchers to tighten the results and show folks the right path for client success.   We don’t always have that info going in.  The questions should be asked early on.  Most of the time it depends on the company where that function lives.  The leg work is done in this instance because the Title has been found.  The group size has been determined.

Once I had regained my composure I looked again at the Excel document.  You know what?  He had told me and I wasn’t listening from the get-go!  Clearly, at the top of the Excel document, as I have indicated previously, were the words:    Product Marketing Sample

I wasn’t listening because I had ignored my own NUMBER ONE CARDINAL RULE in phone sourcing – set up your document the same way each and every time you do a search.  I had rushed head-long into this thing without reading the particulars because I was working with a document I was not accustomed to working with.  I always do my research in a Word doc into which I enter all the particulars of a search:

Search Number/Name
Job Description
Notes from customer
Target Companies

I had not done this in this case because, being filled with hubris as the queen of phone sourcing I’d thought getting a VP and Director reports at one company would be a one or two call mission – a slam dunk wam/bam affair.  I over-confidently thought I could plug the procured names into the Excel doc and email it back in a few minutes and impress someone.

I was wrong.  This had turned into an ordeal.

To my credit, once I realized my stupidity, I answered:

Of course, it DOES say: Product Marketing Sample – That’s what I get for NOT paying attention!

Back to the drawing board; I called back into the main number.  Delores answered once again.

“Hi Delores, it’s me again – Maureen Sharib.  Product marketing, please.”

And once again she transferred me.  But before she did I quickly asked who she was transferring me to and what the person’s capacity was.  The administrative assistant for the marketing group answered and identified herself as Nichole.  I said to her, “Hi Nichole, this is Maureen Sharib.  Delores transferred me to you.  Can you tell me who the VP of Product and Process Development is?”

She did and then I stabbed at her.  “I understand he has six reports.  Can you tell me who they are?”

And she did.  And it was just that simple.

Can anyone tell me why they think it was so simple after all that I had been through?  I’d like to hear why you think Nichole was so helpful.

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About our guest author:

Maureen Sharib is a telephone names sourcer, names sourcing since 1997. She and her husband Bob own the names-sourcing firm TechTrak.com, Inc. , which helps companies fill their hard-to-place positions at a fraction of the cost of traditional recruiting venues. Maureen is the moderator for the MagicMethod business networking site, a professional site for sourcers with an emphasis on telephone sourcing. She is also the author of the only of its kind and very popular Magic In the Method telephone names sourcing training course and a continuous contributor to many online recruiting-related sites. You can connect with Maureen and TechTrak via Twitter.

It began with a conversation.  Perhaps more aptly, it began with two veteran recruiters dreaming about what might be possible.  We wondered—is it possible to leverage technology to put more of the human element back into the recruiting process.  We chose the Chinese word “Guanxi ([guan-shee]” as the metaphor for what we believed needed to be added back into recruiting—personal relationships.  So if you have been following the talent community development narrative about our work at Microsoft Entertainment & Devices, we have shared how these dreams are becoming reality.  And as we conclude the annual update to the recruiting and sourcing industry, I will describe how Being on the Cutting Edge Can Be Painful (Pun Intended).

To recap, we are discussing Microsoft’s approach building pipelines and talent communities in a three articles series.  The articles are entitled:

1. Being on the Cutting Edge Can Be Rewarding
2. Being on the Cutting Edge Can Be Challenging
3. Being on the Cutting Edge Can Be Painful

In the first article of this “Being on the Cutting Edge” series, I discussed our success (rewards) from the standpoint of the recruiting industry accolades, but also from success enjoyed by Web 2.0 Recruitment Marketing Platform within our division at Microsoft (which is the most important).   And we identified an “SEO (Search Engine Optimization) Gap”—the inherit tendency of SEO Platforms to primarily attract active prospects because it uses search engine key word searches to put jobs in front of the target audience (and miss 75-80% of the potential target audience).

In the second article of the “Being on the Cutting Edge” series, I discussed some of the challenges our talent community development and social recruiting initiative experienced.   The article examined “the challenges”—from the process, the technology and finally, the human perspective.

In this article, the final installment—“Being on the Cutting Edge Can Be Painful”-I will explore what one Microsoft staffing leader called—creating under the corporate microscope.  A second area of pain is the introduction of “another change” into change-ridden staffing environment.

Creating Under the Corporate Microscope

The first years of this talent community development pilot project went unnoticed from a Microsoft perspective.  The initiative was funded by a business group at a divisional level with a handful of stakeholders.  Then we were discovered and our world changed.  (It wasn’t like we were really “in hiding” as I chronicled our story in Sourcecon and presented at Sourcecon 2008).  But somehow we were below the corporate radar.  And with discovery came visibility.   And with visibility came additional stakeholders.  And then the questions began.  Microsoft is successful because of a diversity of thought and perspective.  One tends to lose sight of that during periods of scrutiny, vetting, and review.  Let’s just say, the work on the pilot program slowed while internal conversations transpired.

On a personal note, it was difficult to share the work with others.  Intellectually, I understood that this was not “my project,” but releasing the workstream to people that did not have the same emotional investment was challenging. It is said, “What isn’t fatal, makes one stronger;” in that context, I am still standing.

The upshot of the “corporate microscope” was very positive.  My boss was promoted as a reward for his great work.  I have a new boss who is engaged and passionate about the social recruiting and talent communities.  I have a new teammate, who will focus on managing our target audiences for the communities we are building.  Our recruitment marketing platform vendor was selected to roll out the platform Microsoft-wide.  Some great minds at Microsoft will add valuable input to the workstream and the final version of the platform will reflect their influence.

“Another Change”

One of the initial concerns for the talent community workstream was the introduction of personal relationships into a recruiting process comprised of a series of transactions.  And Microsoft Staffing is very effective at those transactions.  I need to add that we reward recruiters on the basis of the quantity and the quality of those transactions.  But the obstacles to introducing a change doesn’t stop with transactional process, there are other significant barriers.

Microsoft Staffing is already in a state of change.  First, it was OFCCP (Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs) and a goal to be “best in class” of that process.  Second, Microsoft was migrating to a new ATS (applicant tracking systems) platform and rolling out a global solution.  And with the ATS came to a multitude of process changes.   Third, Microsoft downsizing was impacting the staffing organization, as we became a “do much more with a lot less” environment.   So you can imagine how welcoming any suggestion of a new process that enhanced personal relationships was in this bandwidth constrained atmosphere.  Our initiative was just seen as another change.

What is interesting about resistance to change is that it shifts from the analytical to the emotional very quickly.  Even the most well documented facts are discounted and we revert to the way things have always been done.  Please let me explain.

There are two major changes that impact talent identification and the success of a recruiting program.  The first change is that there is a trend for job seekers to use search engines (key word searches) to find new jobs and move away from job boards.  And the second is a shortage of top talent that is actively seeking a new job.  Simply from a qualitative and quantitative standpoint, there are not enough prospects to meet Microsoft’s demand.

Armed with this new paradigm shift, I can show numerically the trend over the past few years is that job seekers have moved from job boards to search engines to conduct their job searches.  Further, 95% of our jobs are on the first page of Google (the Holy Grail in SEO), so they are being seen by prospects.  In spite of the imperial evidence and persuasive research, a recruiter under pressure to fill a job will still request permission to use a job board posting instead of trying something new.

In the instance of the shortage of talent, I note the trend of the past 3 years of the millions of people flocking to online social networking sites and congregating in communities.  Based on the available research, the target audiences that we covet have congregated into online communities.  Seems simple and compelling-engage the target audience online and find the additional talent that is needed to meet Microsoft’s demand.  Again, a recruiter under pressure will revert back to a comfort zone of running ads (aka “posting and praying) and waiting for someone to appear.

Perhaps, there is a more complex underlying issue. Dan Pink in Drive writes:

“Behavioral scientists often divide what we do on the job….into two categories: “algorithmic and heuristic.” An algorithmic task is one in which you follow a set of establish instructions down a single pathway to one conclusion.  That is, there’s an algorithm for solving it.   A heuristic task is just the opposite.  Precisely because no algorithm exists for it, you have to experiment with possibilities and devise a novel solution.”

So in Pink’s thinking, the algorithmic solution of a job board outweighs the more heuristic solution presented by a recruitment marketing platform where options are numerous and creativity is rewarded.  We are still working on a heuristic solution that appears algorithmic (sorry, I couldn’t resist).

Perhaps, there is a third method of dealing with change the 21^st Century—we just need to let go of the banana. The moral of the well know story of the monkey trap fits well into the dilemma that we face when accepting change.

It is said that when you want to catch a monkey one effective method is to anchor a bottle on the ground.  The neck of the bottle needs to be just large enough to a monkey’s hand to fit through.  Then, all you need is to put a small banana in the bottle and wait for a monkey to pass by.

When a passing monkey sees the banana reaches his hand into the bottle, and grabs the banana.  But then the monkey discovers that she cannot get her hand out of the bottle while holding the banana.

The person that set the monkey trap can walk up to the monkey, put a burlap sack over her head and capture the monkey.

Before getting caught, the monkey could release the banana and escape.  But most monkeys hang onto the banana until the sack goes over their heads.  Why?  It is because the banana has value to the monkeys and the monkey is unwilling to let go of that value.  Basically the banana is worth more than their freedom or their life.

I think people do the same thing.  People are much the same – we hold many “bananas” that keep us trapped – because we just won’t let go.  While the job boards held value in the past, their usefulness in attracting active job seekers has passed.  Instead of the banana, it appears engaging prospects in online communities would hold more value.

As we enter the third year of this talent community pilot, I am still more convinced than ever that our original thesis that a “technology touch” needed to be augmented by a “human touch” that is so valued by the target audiences has proved accurate.  Our recruitment marketing platform is doing its job—managing the distribution of jobs to a web of social networking and micro-segmented talent pools.  The final phase of the talent community rollout will focus on the “human touch.” The “human touch” will allow us to maintain contact and cultivate ambient relationships that will allow Microsoft to be part of a target prospect’s employment conversation when the time is right for them.

The “human touch” involves integrating talent community workstream into the lives of the recruiters that I support. At Sourcecon 2010, I am going to discuss how Microsoft is  Employing Talent Communities to Rehumanize the Recruiting Process. I hope to see you in San Diego.

Author: Marvin Smith

Kristen Fife is a health care sourcing recruiter in the greater Seattle area. She has been in recruiting since 2004, when she was hired as a contract Researcher for the Microsoft Strategic Recruiting Group, the technical executive recruiting team. From there, she moved into full lifecycle agency recruiting for Volt Technical Services working on the Microsoft account hiring contract software test professionals. After her agency stint, she returned as a contractor to Microsoft. Kristen was involved in both technical and legal sourcing, and she also completed a contract as a full life-cycle Staffing Consultant for Microsoft Research.

In addition to Microsoft, Kristen has worked for smaller Seattle technical companies such as Varolii and bSquare. She moved into healthcare in 2009 and is responsible for sourcing strategies for all medical positions with the exception of physicians. Her current focus is leveraging Social Media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn etc. to connect with the Millennial (GenY) group. She also volunteers her time as a moderator for the Human Resources Professional Network on Yahoo Groups (over 3700 members worldwide) and has blogs on the Electronic Recruiting Exchange and one for job seekers on issues such as resume construction, job hunting, and understanding the role of recruiting in the job hunting process.

Kristen has been interviewed for several national publications as an SME on issues related to recruiting including ABCNews, AOL, and The Wall Street Journal. She was the keynote speaker for the Gonzaga Alumni Mentoring Program for three years and often gives presentations to SIG’s and job seeker groups.

Sourcing, for Kristen, is like a puzzle. Competitive Intelligence and passive candidate generation are fun activities for her, and she enjoys connecting with the candidates as a first contact and setting the stage for establishing and nurturing long-term relationships. In today’s economy, Kristen tries to help as many people out as possible to understand best practices for job seeking and resume construction. Her basic philosophy is that building communities and networking are the keys to recruiting in the next five years.

We are so pleased to have Australia represented in our Contributors roster for The Source. Andrea Mitchell, a former SourceCon Spotlight, is the functional lead for the sourcing team at HRX, a Sydney, Australia based RPO that has clients across a wide range of industries, ranging from banking and finance to FMCG. In this role she is responsible for the training and certification of new researchers, as well as encouraging innovation and collaboration, and most importantly, keeping an eye on the trends and goings on in the sourcing and recruitment world. Andrea was previously a sourcing specialist with HRX before leaving to help set up a research function within an IT recruitment agency, but was tempted back to HRX in April 2008 and is now enjoying her dream role.

Before moving to Australia from New Zealand four years ago Andrea worked in the events industry, identifying events, groups and people that could hold conferences with the convention center she worked with. This was the first role where Andrea was challenged by hard-to-find information and where she became hooked on Internet research, the thrill of the hunt, and that feeling you get when you finally manage to track down that special tidbit of information.

Andrea is also the founder and one of the organizers of the Australasian Researchers Network. Sourcing and dedicated Internet research techniques, especially within recruitment, are growing areas in Australia and Andrea hopes that this group will not only be a meeting place for people to learn and collaborate, but will also work to promote research as a viable career option.

Andrea’s heavy involvement in furthering the function of research in recruitment organizations in Australia is a big reason why she was asked to be a regular contributor to The Source. We are looking forward to learning similarities and differences in the way sourcing is done ‘down under’!

Big congrats go out to all of you who participated in our second challenge. This one was a toughy, but we have a winner to announce.

And the winner of Challenge #2 is….

The Sourceress aka Katharine Robinson!

A little bit about Katharine:

Katharine started sourcing in April 2008. She is primarily an Internet Sourcer; to date she has mainly worked on sourcing senior and technical professionals in the energy industry. Katharine is evangelical about the use of Social Media in recruitment and sourcing. Her ambitions include attending SourceCon and helping sourcing to become a common profession in the UK. When she’s not sourcing, Katharine likes watching Star Trek, drinking tea, eating cheese and attending tweetups.

We have never seen such a photo finish in a contest before. So many talented people made for an exciting race and awesome competition this time. Honorable mentions go out to both Shannon Myers and Irina Shamaeva who both solved the challenge just for fun! Talk about dedicated sourcers, all of them.

Read on to see how Katharine solved the challenge. Come meet her at SourceCon in March to hear about it first hand.

Congratulations on a job well done. The competition will be fierce this year at the GrandMaster Sourcing Challenge in San Diego in March.

From the beginning it was clear that this challenge wasn’t going to be the same as the others. For a start, it looked like it belonged with the internet, not in the worn briefcase of a spy from the 1960’s.

The initial clue wasn’t the key either. Essentially it told me that I was looking for someone called Sue and that I should follow the link to a Survey Monkey Page. Always keen to be making some kind of progress, I didn’t linger long on the first clue. Although I did save the image to my desktop so that I could open up, zoom in and read it a little better.

Arriving at Survey Monkey, the first thing I noticed was a picture of a fish and The Village People. Whoever had put this challenge together must have a sense of humour. Again it was reiterated that I was ultimately looking for one recruiter called Sue but I would have to find five names in total.

Video Killed The Radio Star

It was quite refreshing to actually be told I was looking for a video. Quite different than the previous challenges. I did feel a little frustrated to begin with though. Surly those that had been on the US recruitment conference circuit for the last few years would have a distinct advantage over a relative newbie from the UK. After a few hours of poking about on YouTube and trying to mine conference websites for videos, I decided to click through to the next page on the survey, after all  there wasn’t anything to stop me.

I was greeted by the questions I would have to fill in once I found the video and also a picture of a man I didn’t recognise, and I still don’t know who he is even now (I hope that doesn’t offend anyone). The picture caption asked if he was the man behind the conference. I thought it might help if I found out who he was. I did manage to find another picture of him in a google image search, but it didn’t help – the page it came from on recruitingblogs.com seemed to no longer exist.

I decided to systematically go through all the names in the multiple choice section below, he might be one of those. I first eliminated all the women and then all the male names that I recognised and knew what they looked like. I started plugging their names into search engines. I was lucky as the first name I entered – Alan Lee – was one of the names in the notes on the video I was looking for. The Video came up on a Google search under “Video Results for Alan Lee”. The moment I clicked through I knew it must be the right video. The word REALLY was capitalised in the description. The video was titled “A brief moment inside the head of Jason Davis…” The clue had told me to take a brief moment, and the video ticked all the other boxes. I watched it end to end and filled out the answers to the questions as I went. I was utterly amazed that I had managed to find it. It just goes to show that a systematic approach is worth as much as any moment of inspiration.

While looking through the names in the last two questions I had noticed that there were some inconsistencies in the lists. Most notably that the top list has some additional names that were derivatives of ‘Sue’, I only recognised one – Suzi Tonini – but as I was looking for real people at this stage, I couldn’t rule any of them out. Any of the seven names could be the one I was looking for – or they could all be red herrings. I wrote the names down and carried on…

Pandora’s Box Discovered

I probably spent the most time on this clue. I was put off from clicking through to the next page by the ominous warning in the rhyme. I got really hung up on the list of strange objects. Was it some kind of code? Was it something to do with the rhyme about girls and boys? Did none of these things really exist? I shouldn’t have been so afraid to click through as I solved it fairly quickly once I did. Talking to @Sourcecon1 on Twitter on Sunday evening (for me he came online at 6pm GMT) gave me the confidence to just click through and see what I found. Of course, it was the questions that I would have to answer. Very helpful.

@Sourcecon1 had also made me think that the ‘geek’ element of the person I was looking for was important. I started to search with keywords like Geek, Sourcer and Recruiter. I found a couple but none seemed to fit the bill.

It was only when I included the phrase “development alliance” (from the page with the questions on) that I got somewhere. I had found a result from the SourceCon website that had been picked up on Dave Copps’ pipl profile. It mentioned his company PureDiscovery forming an alliance with somone else. I had noted on the previous page that only someone whose research was pure would discover what was really inside the box.

I went in search of PureDiscovery. Their website was enough to convince me I had hit the nail on the head with references to ‘The Manifesto’ and ‘collective intelligence’. I also found an article on the alliance titled “LexisNexis opens the black box with powerful semantic search technology”. I had it!

Finding Dave’s profile on ZoomInfo seemed unduly difficult though. The profile was under the name ‘Mr Dave Copps’, but why that made it so tricky to find, I’ll never know.

When I clicked through to the next clue I went straight to the questions – thank goodness there was to be no cryptic nonsence this time. I was asked about a Sourcer’s Apprentice. I had seen something like this already in my travels… Could it really be that easy?

The Sourcer’s Apprentice

Of course not!

Spurred on by the thought that I might solve this one easily, I kept plugging away rather than go to bed. It wasn’t like I had to be up early Monday morning now that I work freelance. I had seen something about a sourcer’s apprentice before, but i couldn’t make it relate to the questions. I had found a lady called Teresa Bustamante, a cybersleuth apprentice of Shally Steckerl. I would go on to find a man called Bret Hollander via Jim Stroud’s History of Sourcing document on Scribd. Shally described himself as Bret’s apprentice. None seemed to fit the bill though. I went back to the questions.

I spent ages looking through various people’s pipl profiles trying to find one that had even made a recent video. Even when I found the right one, it wasn’t on her pipl profile.

If I’m perfectly honest, I don’t know how I found Marie Journey’s interview on RecruitingBlogs.com. I did though and the first question I answerd for this clue was the last one on the page. I worked my way up from the bottom.

I originally thought that the video about predictions was made by the Sourcer, not the apprentice. So I tried to enter the time of Jim Stroud’s video made for Bill Boorman’s HR Carnival. That didn’t work. I looked to see if Marie had also done a video for Bill, but he hadn’t posted one from her. It was only when I checked out her YouTube channel that I realised she had made one, it just hadn’t gone up on Bill’s blog yet.

Another one down and now I seemed to be onto the final leg.

I went to bed, not having the energy to think about the gigantic Microsoft Word logo and all the other strange pictures.

I then spent all the next day looking for someone named Sue that had been serenaded or sent flowers. Plugging all the Sues I had found on the first clue into Pipl and getting nowhere. Looking for cakes in the shape of a roast hog (lots more people make these than I would have thought – seriously weird!). I thought about rain, the only place I know that it rains all the time is Seattle (thanks to watching so many Frasier reruns on Comedy Central) … and England!

I got frustrated and a bit bored. I was getting nowhere. I waited for @SourceCon1 to start tweeting again. He talked about Yankee doodle, I was utterly confused, I’d seen nothing like this. Was he having us all on? Trying to confuse us? I got nowhere on Monday at all.

On Tuesday I got up and returned to staring at the giant Word logo.

At some point I decided to flick back through and look at the wording about Sue on the first page. On my way back through the challenge, there were new pages…

Yankee Doodle

I expressed my initial distaste at finding extra pages on Twitter. I felt like I had wasted a day and a half. Once I got over it though, I managed to knuckle down and get sourcing.

There was such a blatant reference to ERE Expo in the clue that I went straight to Dave Manaster’s LinkedIn profile to see where he went to University. Binghamton – that could not be wrong. I couldn’t find a blog post by Dave that mentioned the challenges of finding seasonal workers though.

I went back to google and started to look for that again. I came across a post by Alan Whitford of RCEURO – it had to be the right one, one of the pictures in the post was the same as one tweeted be @Sourcecon1 the evening before. I went to Alan’s LinkedIn profile to check where he had studied. Binghamton! Alan was my man!

When I clicked on through the survey I discovered that there had been more pictorial and cryptic clues for finding Marie Journey. I don’t think they would have helped me find her any quicker, she had been the easiest part of the puzzle for me.

I was now back at the last hurdle and looking for Sue…

To Market, To Market

So, Marie Journey was one degree away from Sue. I invited Marie to connect on LinkedIn, I thought I might be able to spot Sue in her connections.

I started to plug Marie’s name into searches along with the surnames of the Sues I had found on the first clue. That’s how I found Susan Pike’s profile on RecruitingBlogs.com. It was definitely her. The information was too perfect – she was clearly a made up person. I had my five names – but where should I email them to? I sent a friend request to the fictitious Susan Pike and then went back to the first clue. It was Sourcecon Dude that needed the info, he was the one that had forgotten Sue’s surname. I sent my 5 names to the email addressed on the first clue and went to cook some dinner.

At 6pm @Sourcecon1 tweeted that the names needed to be emailed to Sue, not to the email addresses in the first clue. I frantically started trying to track Sue down elsewhere. She wasn’t on Linkedin! WordPress had to be the key – that was what the Word logo and the printing press was all about – Sue even mentioned it in her profile. I tried x-raying wordpress for Sue’s name and her company name with no success. I searched through WordPress itself, nothing there either. I thought I was going mad. I went back to Sue’s profile on RecruitingBlogs.com. There she listed recommended blogs, including her own (pikemarket). I typed pikemarket.wordpress.com into my browser and there it was – Sue’s blog! I clicked through to her About page and there was the email address. I quickly copied the email I had already sent to the wrong email address.

Then all I had to do was wait…

I’d like to thank:

• Lisa Offutt – she was very sweet and supportive on twitter when I had a tantrum about finding extra pages in the survey
• Amybeth Hale for introducing me to SourceCon in the first place
• Geoff Webb for giving me such great encouragement when we met at #TRULondon back in November
• and my husband for putting up with my SourceCon-Insanity!

We at The Source are proud to introduce you to one of our new regular contributors, Marvin Smith. Marvin currently works for Microsoft in Redmond, WA as a Talent Community Evangelist.

Marvin’s career in recruiting has spanned nearly four decades and represents both executive and third party recruiting with the last ten years in corporate recruiting. He founded or was a principal in four different firms. The external recruiting experience prepared him well for corporate recruiting roles in that he learned the value of research, sourcing, relationships and adjusting to changes mandated by technological advancements.

Prior to Microsoft, his corporate recruiting roles were with early stage technology oriented businesses that required finding and recruiting talent that were game changers. The startups allowed him to field test some third party recruiting strategies and tactics with respect to their efficacy in a corporate environment.

The experience of building a recruiting function from scratch has served Marvin well in the pioneering talent community development pilot at Microsoft. This initiative is to evangelize/market the respective “brands” of E&D (Zune, Xbox, Auto Sync, Windows Mobile, Surface, Microsoft Game Studios, etc.) to the appropriate target talent audience. Their approach to talent community relies heavily on Web 2.0 technologies and social communities to create a unique experience for the prospect/candidate that is interested in exploring a career with Microsoft, either currently or in the future. And the experiences necessary to accomplish these goals were based on foundational experiences in external recruiting, tested in the laboratories of startups, and integrated into the complex Microsoft staffing environment.

Things that Marvin finds intriguing or fascinating in the world of sourcing today:

• The intersection of technology and human touch as well as using technology to enhance the human experience in recruiting. He is committed to research and competitive intelligence as a method of selecting a target audience and then using technology to develop a relationship with that target audience.
• He feels convicted that at this time in the 21st Century, there is a talent community imperative that needs to be addressed if we are to connect with the talent migration to social networking sites (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Ning, et al).
• Segmentation of target audiences and mapping them to the type of talent that businesses require.
• The automation of sourcing (as much as possible)

“I believe that an end to end recruiting process can be developed that will do away with ‘apply and goodbye’. It begins with research/competitive intelligence, handing off to prequalification team, and then moves to recruiters to manage the remainder of the process. At each point of the process when a “no” is given, that group of audience can be engage on a longer term basis using social networking.”

Marvin has already contributed several articles to The Source so he was a natural fit as a regular contributor. Please keep an eye out later this month as we will run the last article in his latest series, Being On The Cutting Edge. You can also view his bio on our Contributors page.

Happy 2010 everyone! The start of a new year leads many to make resolutions, to draw a line in the sand, and to restart or renew. 2009 was a year of big changes for SourceCon. With new ownership, The Source decided to take a break and re-evaluate how we’re planning to move forward with content. Starting this month, we are going to be doing things a little differently. We taken the last few months to draw our line in the sand and start fresh.

We have invited a few people to become regular contributors to The Source. Over the next month, we’ll be introducing you to these folks who will become familiar faces on the newsletter. Make sure to check out our Contributors page to get to know them, and we’ll be posting little featurettes on these people in the coming weeks. These individuals were hand-selected because of their unique knowledge of sourcing and research, as well as their varying professional backgrounds and the respect they’ve earned through our community. We really feel we’ve created an eclectic group of authors who will bring great information and thought process to The Source for our readers.

Thank you for your support, and we hope to see you in a couple of months in San Diego at SourceCon 2010!