Welcome to SourceCon:
Do you love SourceCon? Check out what our Editor did to show her love!
See you next week in Washington, D.C. at the International Spy Museum for SourceCon Fall 2010!
Video: I Love #SourceCon, Part 2
by 
Amybeth Hale
on Sep. 23, 2010
Amybeth Hale
on Sep. 23, 2010
Sourcing Strategy: One Size Does Not Fit All
by Amybeth Hale
on Sep. 23, 2010
Amybeth Hale
on Sep. 23, 2010
Scott Pitasky, Corporate VP at Microsoft for Talent and Org. Capability, shared today at the SMA Staffing Symposium in Seattle that at Microsoft, he feels it is best for sourcing strategy to be devised at the business level and not at the corporate level. The reason, he said, is that different business units will search with different tools and in different locations due to the variable types of talent they seek. “One size does not fit all,” he said. He also said that goals do not equal strategy. Instead:
Strategy is goal + why + how. This tells you both what to do and what not to do.
Jobvite’s Recruiting Intelligence Puts Metrics in Their Place
by 
John Zappe
on Sep. 21, 2010
John Zappe
on Sep. 21, 2010
One of Jobvite’s strengths has always been its ability to track an “invited” candidate back from the application to see how they came to learn of an opening. Now, Jobvite is adding more depth and breadth to its tracking, giving recruiters data about their job postings and the effectiveness of their own career site.
Announced today, the real-time recruiting intelligence can tell you how many people saw an an ad or visited your career site, what they did and, if you have Jobvite Hire, which includes an ATS, what you did.
For instance, if you distributed a job through social sites, sent a Jobvite to your employees, and posted it to traditional job boards, the recruiter intelligence part of the Jobvite dashboard can give you the number of visitors to each page where the ad appeared; how many then opened it; how many of them applied, and how many were interviewed, and, finally, if a hire was made, from where.
I Am #SourceCon: from @dmanaster
by 
David Manaster
on Sep. 21, 2010
David Manaster
on Sep. 21, 2010
When I went skiing in Taos, NM, this past March, I showed my SourceCon love!
I Am #SourceCon: from @MikeNotaro
by 
Michael Notaro
on Sep. 21, 2010
Michael Notaro
on Sep. 21, 2010
When I attended Twestival NYC earlier this year, I showed my SourceCon love there! Check out the photos…
SourceCon Musings from @infosourcer
by 
Suzy Tonini
on Sep. 20, 2010
Suzy Tonini
on Sep. 20, 2010
As per the request put forth by Amybeth last Friday, I definitely wanted to share my personal experience with SourceCon because it was a special part of my previous career as a recruiting researcher!
My involvement with SourceCon officially began when I took on the first ever Sourcecon challenges back in the summer of 2007. This post sums up the challenges quite well: “48 hours into Challenge #2 and the feedback is that it is just too hard. The feedback we received from Challenge #1 was “too easy”.
Well, Challenge #1 was won by Mike Notaro, but again, it was too easy (hehe Mikey, sorry, I just had to say something about that). I had a whale of a time trying to figure out Challenge #2, but when I got the “final answer” and won, I was pretty pleased with myself. You can check out my step-by-step methodology here.
Last, but not least, Jeremy Langhans completed the Three Amigos team when he won Challenge #3. All of us were flown to Atlanta, GA for a chance to compete in the dreaded “Grand Master Challenge”. This was exciting for several reasons:
- I was going to compete in the first-ever Sourcing contest, live and directly in front of several hundred people
- I was going to meet my boss (at the time), Rob McIntosh, live, and in person, for the first time. I also got to meet quite a few of my recruiting colleagues face-to-face as well.
- I was going to meet so many of the online folks that helped shape my career path at that time, to include: Amybeth Hale, Shally Steckerl, Jim Stroud, Krista Bradford, Glenn Gutmacher, Eric Jaquith, Moises Lopez, Russ Moon, Tim O’Connor, Rithesh Nair and so many others that also became friends.
What I remember most was the excitement and buzz that was in the air. There seemed to be a mutual feeling of being a part of something cool, new, exciting and special. And indeed it was all those things. The presentations were all informative and engaging, the networking events were fun and mutually beneficial to all involved, and many of the friendships made have lasted to this day.
While I did not win the Grand Master Challenge (Mikey did, and did so again the following year), it was a wonderful time to be in the Sourcing industry, and I will remember SourceCon 2007 as being kind of like that first blockbuster movie – though the sequels may be unique and awesome in their own right (and in some cases better!), the first one will always hold a special place in our hearts.
Cheers to all of you going to SourceCon 2010 and Source On!
Video: I Love #SourceCon
by Amybeth Hale
on Sep. 17, 2010
Amybeth Hale
on Sep. 17, 2010
Show your SourceCon love! Do you have photos from SourceCon? Do you have a pic of yourself wearing your “I Am #SourceCon” t-shirt? Take a photo, make a video, or write a blog post and share some of your SourceCon memories – or, if you’re going to your very first SourceCon, share what you’re excited about! Check out this video and then share!
Bullhorn UK Gets Mobile
by Amybeth Hale
on Sep. 17, 2010
Amybeth Hale
on Sep. 17, 2010
Bullhorn UK announced earlier this week a new application called SMS for Bullhorn, created by Dialogue Communications, a specialist in mobile messaging and mobile billing solutions. The solution allows UK users of Bullhorn’s recruitment software to communicate with candidates quickly and easily via text message to give jobseekers fast access to new employment opportunities. As a Bullhorn Alliance Partner, Dialogue will be the key mobile texting provider for the world-leading software.
SMS for Bullhorn enables recruiters to send text messages to individual candidates or via a broadcast facility to thousands of recipients simultaneously. Candidates can reply and all inbound and outbound messages are stored in the Bullhorn system. This allows recruiters to be in contact with candidates who do not have permanent access to email so they can gauge interest in new opportunities and receive quick responses for even faster placements.
“This development with Bullhorn has been an exciting opportunity to demonstrate our ability to work across continents. It’s a world-class solution delivered to a vertical market with a specific requirement for SMS technology”, said Dialogue Group CEO Hugh Spear. ”Providing plug-in SMS extensions to market-leading applications is at the very core of what Dialogue is about, and this new solution for Bullhorn integrates directly into the existing product. This means users can send and receive SMS messages seamlessly within Bullhorn. The development is part of Dialogue’s goal of providing SMS plug-ins to cloud computing solutions in key vertical markets.”
“From the moment a recruiter logs in to their Bullhorn account, they need immediate access to all the tools that enable them to make lasting placements quickly. Mobile communication is key to keeping candidates informed of developments or new opportunities that might be of interest. We are therefore delighted to welcome Dialogue as an Alliance Partner and be the first to offer this exciting new SMS for Bullhorn application”, commented Peter Linas, Bullhorn’s UK Managing Director.
Dialogue’s SMS for Bullhorn app is available through the Bullhorn Marketplace, the broadest cloud-based application and services marketplace available to the recruitment industry. The Marketplace provides leading solutions that are tightly integrated with Bullhorn, and offer organizations the ability to choose from a range of technology resources to help them meet their unique business needs.
SourceCon’s Semantic Search Series
by Amybeth Hale
on Sep. 16, 2010
Amybeth Hale
on Sep. 16, 2010
How’s that for an alliteration?
Back in 2007, Dave Copps introduced us to PureDiscovery at the very first SourceCon conference, and in doing so he opened the door to semantic search for many of us in the sourcing world. Semantic search is not a new concept, but it’s one that alludes many of us because it’s just one of those things that has a bit of a fuzzy definition.
Semantics, by its purest definition, is the study of the meaning of something, usually a language. This is not to be confused with syntax, which is the grammatical arrangement of words in sentences. Semantics is more about the words chosen to share a message, where syntax is more about how those words are arranged within the message. The two are interconnected, but they will take you in different directions when you search.
Seattle #SocialRecruiting Summit Highlights
by Amybeth Hale
on Sep. 15, 2010
Amybeth Hale
on Sep. 15, 2010
SourceCon’s parent company, ERE Media Inc., holds seven yearly conferences: two SourceCon conferences, two ERE Expos, the Fordyce Forum, and two yearly Social Recruiting Summits. The most recent conference, the Social Recruiting Summit, happened on Monday in the Seattle area. Microsoft graciously hosted the event at one of its many locations in Redmond, WA. The theme for this SRS seemed to center on metrics, ROI, and results. These are topics that, as sourcers, we often have to bring to our managers and the recruiters whom we support in order to justify our use of social tools and any time we spend on them. For those who were able to attend the conference, there was a lot of great information shared. For those unable to make it, here is a synopsis of what was covered.
