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Sourcing News and Knowledge – Beyond the Obvious


Amybeth Hale

Amybeth Hale is currently a Sr. Talent Sourcer with Microsoft. Previously, she was the Editor for SourceCon.com. She has been a recruiting researcher since 2002, having worked on both the agency and corporate side of recruiting. Amybeth has been a speaker at several industry conferences, including SourceCon, The Fordyce Forum, and the Social Recruiting Summit. She has been quoted and published in such well-known publications as Mashable, AdAge, and The Fordyce Letter, and was featured in the Northwest Business Monthly magazine as a rising star in the Pacific Northwest business community. Amybeth is affectionately known in the sourcing world as the "Research Goddess" and blogs at www.researchgoddess.com.

Articles by Amybeth Hale

Editor's Corner

The Sourcing Body

by on Feb. 16, 2012

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human body

I am not #SourceCon. We all are.

As someone who has been in sourcing for nearly a decade now, I’ve watched the function ebb and flow through recessions and boom times. When I first started sourcing back in 2002, it was a boom time for sourcing. Everyone was excited about it and wanted a sourcer to add to their team. Around 2007, things started getting a little tight and by 2008 sourcing was one of those job functions to be cut first from company budgets because “it wasn’t a necessary function” to keep a company going. Now, sourcing is making another comeback — everyone wants to learn about sourcing; everyone wants the “secret sauce” for finding every single candidate in existence.

The problem with this is that there is no one “secret sauce” — yes, there are specific potions that will help in different industries, but when you boil it down to the basics, the “secret sauce” comes from community cohesion. And this can come in the form of your recruiting team which consists of recruiters, sourcers, and HR folks, or the sourcing community from which you can learn techniques, yes, but more importantly, from which you can learn the thought processes behind the magic of sourcing.

The whole collective effort of the community is greater than the sum of its individual parts. You — we — are all #SourceCon.

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SourceCon

Guess Where the Next SourceCon Will Be..

by on Feb. 10, 2012

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We just announced the location for the 2012 Fall SourceCon conference! Check out the following video to get a sneak peek and register early!

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Leadership, SourceCon

Sourcing Through Adversity

by on Feb. 9, 2012

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Life isn’t always rainbows and roses. And neither is sourcing, as attendees and livestream viewers learned today from Yahoo!’s Senior Manager, Talent Attraction, Aida La Chaux.

In case you’ve lived under a rock for the last couple of years, you know that Yahoo!’s been going through some tumultuous times. Between management changes and whisperings a couple years ago of buyouts, in addition to other search engines coming on strong into the search space, Yahoo! has had its share of challenges with both attracting and retaining talent.

The biggest lessons learned from La Chaux’s presentation is this: no company is immune from tough times — and it’s good management, a unique and personal approach to sourcing, and positive attitudes that will power your sourcing efforts through these inevitable road blocks.

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Metrics, The Sourcing Function

Sourcing Salary Survey: Results

by on Feb. 6, 2012

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The topic of sourcing compensation is a hotly contested one. It always has been, and I suspect that it always will be. There are some who feel that sourcers are glorified administrative assistants and thus should be making right at minimum wage levels (if not less). There are others who feel that sourcing is an integral part of the hiring process as well as a valuable asset to other parts of an organization, and thus should be rewarded with six-figure incomes.

The purpose in conducting this sourcing salary survey was to take a look at sourcer compensation levels using a variety of different filters. Some results were expected, such as the fact that corporate sourcers make significantly more annually than their agency counterparts. Others were a little surprising, as you’ll see below in the infographic.

Perhaps most surprising was this: by taking your responses and breaking down, approximating, and averaging comp ranges, we discover that the average annual compensation for a sourcer is $73,000. That’s more than what most would have predicted.

Below we present the findings of the 2011 Sourcing Salary Survey.

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Editor's Corner, Leadership, The Sourcing Function

How Sourcing Fits Into the Sales Funnel

by on Jan. 27, 2012

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sales funnel

The sales process is a step-by-step layout of what actions must be taken to turn prospects into customers. Regardless of how you look at it, recruiting is pretty much the same as product or service sales. The only difference is that our ‘product’ is a job opportunity and our ‘customer’ is a prospect (who hopefully turns into a candidate). As such, we approach the sales cycle in much the same way: targeting prospects, selling them on feature/benefits, closing a deal, and (hopefully) follow-up and account maintenance.

If you look at it through a recruiting lens, substitute sourcing for all the pre-sales activities, recruiting for sales and closing, and HR for account management.

It’s really that simple.

Depending on who/what you reference, a sales funnel will typically look something like the image above.

Just move a couple of these things around and – voila! – you’ve got a hiring funnel that includes sourcing, recruiting, and HR.

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Industry News, Technology & Resources

Search Updates: Amazon Cloud Search and Google “Plus Your World”

by on Jan. 23, 2012

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A couple of things have happened in the word of search in recent weeks that were overshadowed by some of the legislature going through the US House of Representatives as well as the US Senate: speculation of an Amazon cloud search, and announcement of major changes to Google’s search functionality, otherwise known as Google ‘Plus Your World.’

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Industry News

First PIPA, then SOPA — Now OPEN?

by on Jan. 23, 2012

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Boy, the Internet itself sure has created a lot of buzz in the last week, hasn’t it?

With protests of  SOPA and PIPA last Wednesday ultimately leading to the shelving of SOPA by its original creator, House Judiciary Committee Chair Representative Lamar Smith, you’d think that the collective “we” had won.

Well, not necessarily.

Though this was seen as a major victory, the very same day these two bills were vehementy protested, a new bill was introduced called OPEN.

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Industry News, Technology & Resources

A Sourcer’s Guide to Understanding SOPA and PIPA

by on Jan. 18, 2012

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Today, many Internet websites are participating in a “blackout” protest against two bills that have been making headlines recently due to their controversial nature. SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIPA (PROTECT IP [Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property] Act) discussions have taken online communities by storm over the last several weeks — but do you really understand either of them, or how they may affect sourcing?

Let’s start with PIPA, because it was introduced first and it’s really the only bill that’s still an immediate issue since President Obama shelved SOPA on Monday (why people are still protesting it today confuses me, but that’s another story…).

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The Sourcing Function

Breaking Down the Sourcing Function, Part 5: Common Myths About Sourcing

by on Jan. 13, 2012

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myth

Over the last several weeks, we’ve talked about what a sourcer does and doesn’t do. I’ve given you some of my thoughts on where to look for a sourcer for your team, some suggestions on how to interview potential sourcers, and what qualities in an individual might lead them to be a good sourcer. I’ve also given you some insight into the day in the life of a sourcer. So what’s left?

How about some fun things: some common misconceptions of what sourcing is. Yes, I believe every sourcer has beaten this topic to death at some point or another. But now, it’s my turn.

The goal of this is not to make light of these misconceptions, but rather to re-educate everyone on some of the things that are incorrectly associated with research and sourcing, and hopefully offer some suggestions on the correct way to view this very vital part of a recruiting operation.

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SourceCon

I Wanna Go to SourceCon! How To Persuade Your Boss

by on Jan. 9, 2012

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Last fall, one of the attendees at the conference in Santa Clara told me that a document we posted to provide some tangible evidence of the benefit of attending SourceCon had worked for her: she printed up the document and gave it to her manager, who read it and said, “Looks like something you should go to!”

I was recently asked by someone interested in sending a small team of recruiters to SourceCon in Atlanta to share some further information about the conference and answer some questions. While responding, I really started getting excited about the event and all it represents, and my response ended up being quite long-winded.

The answers I provided, however, are truly a reflection of why I feel this event is singularly the most important event for sourcers and those who desire to learn more about sourcing to attend this year. Below are the questions as well as my responses — I hope these will help you make a decision to come to SourceCon or give you the tools you need to ask your manager to send you!

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