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Carmen Hudson

Carmen Hudson wears several hats. She is currently Engagement Manager, Sourcing and Social Media Strategy for Recruiting Toolbox and Founder and CEO of Tweetajob, Inc. Carmen draws from over fifteen years of recruiting experience with a strong focus on helping organizations attract, source, and recruit top talent. Carmen’s expertise is in helping clients build the right sourcing and recruiting strategies, and then implementing them in the real world of limited budgets, competing priorities, and highly competitive recruiting environments. She consults and trains companies to help them leverage high ROI solutions for big sourcing, social media, and technology implementation initiatives. Carmen is a self-described “recruiting geek” who has spent years learning, creating, and sharing best practices around sourcing. She gets that technology – for all of its hype – is still a means to an end, not an end itself. Her corporate experience includes working at Yahoo!, where she was Senior Manager, Talent Acquisition. At Yahoo! she led the strategic sourcing team, revitalizing the employee referral program and Yahoo’s employer brand. The team was awarded a coveted Yahoo! Superstar Award, an ERE Excellence award, and advertising industry awards. Prior to joining Yahoo!, she was Manager, Global Strategic Sourcing for Starbucks Coffee Corporation, where she developed sourcing strategies and recommended resources and tactics to support U.S. retail management hiring. She has also held senior talent acquisition roles at Microsoft, Amazon.com, and Capital One. Carmen is a regular contributor to recruiting industry publications and is a frequent speaker at recruiting events. True to her passion, she blogs and tweets about the recruiting industry, social media, job search, and recruiting technology.

Articles by Carmen Hudson

SourceCon

SourceCon: The Ultimate Talent Community

by on Feb. 20, 2012

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Carmen and Elaine SCN12ATL

When I try to explain SourceCon (the conference) to the uninitiated, it sounds rather geeky and strange. A bunch of us recruiting types get together to discuss data, search technology, and deep candidate research. We impress each other by sharing LinkedIn hacks or discovering obscure mobile apps. We fired up our laptops at a bar to discuss candidate tracking software.

We check in a lot. And we tweet. A lot. We zap QR codes and trade search strings. And we talk about talent communities.

What’s a talent community? Like sourcing, the concept of talent communities defies definition. It is what you want it to be. I like to believe that a talent community, like sourcing, results in candidates and hires. Not everyone agrees with me.

I think that SourceCon, and the community that has developed around it, is a great example of a talent community. Perhaps the original intent was not to build a pipeline of sourcing professionals, but the end result is an active, real-time candidate pool. Doesn’t matter who owns it, or who uses it. If you’re looking to hire a sourcer, start with SourceCon.

The brilliant Chris Havrilla has already explored the territory of SourceCon and Talent Communities. But I will forge ahead, maybe extend the analogy. I’m stubborn like that.

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SourceCon

Pulling Boolean Strings: An Interview with Irina Shamaeva

by on Oct. 4, 2011

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Irina Shamaeva mosaic

Should SourceCon become the site of a British murder mystery, never fear. We have our own Hercule Poirot or Inspector Morse to solve the case. Irina Shamaeva, Partner and Chief Sourcer of Brain Gain Recruiting, is as persistent as a detective. We’ll get more evidence of Irina’s expertise during the paid resource panel discussion at the SourceCon conference on October 14.

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Metrics, SourceCon, Technology & Resources

Sourcing and CRMs — An Interview with Carl Kutsmode

by on Sep. 22, 2011

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Carl Kutsmode photo

Carl Kutsmode, one of the speakers for the upcoming SourceCon conference, has quietly influenced the sourcing profession since the mid ‘90s, when he founded the Tiburon Group, an RPO firm with a reputation for developing creative sourcing strategies. Since then, Carl has continued to consult with Fortune 500 companies in a variety of industries. Carl contributes to the sourcing and recruiting community as a volunteer board member of the Staffing Management Association of Greater Chicago and a non-profit organization that helps skilled immigrants find opportunities, Upwardly Global. Oh, and he writes a blog, and is working on a book for jobseekers. Where does he find the time?

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SourceCon

Hardcore Sourcing: An Interview with Mike Notaro

by on Aug. 29, 2011

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Mike Notaro mosaic

Some might say that Sourcing is the kind of profession that attracts the passionate; fanatics, devotees, and life-long learners.

Take Mike Notaro, for example.

He was winner of the AIRS Extreme Sourcing Challenge in 2007, and in 2007 and and 2008 he was crowned the Sourcecon Grandmaster.

“Hardcore” is the word that comes to mind. Mike is known for sourcing innovation, and feels strongly about exploring new ideas, tactics, and tools:

Things are changing and evolving so rapidly that it’s nearly impossible to stay with the curve, let alone get ahead of it. With so much going on, you should really have something new almost every day to talk about with your colleagues and co-workers. (SourceCon, April 2010)

Automation 201 is the theme of Mike’s SourceCon presentation – a follow-up to his 2010 SourceCon presentation. I’m pretty certain we will all benefit from his passion and learn something new in Silicon Valley.

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Leadership, SourceCon

Anatomy of a Sourcing Leader: Tito Magobet

by on Aug. 25, 2011

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Tito photo mosaic

On October 13, SourceCon will kick off with a keynote presentation from Tito Magobet. Tito was most recently Manager, Global Talent Sourcing for Research in Motion (RIM); I first met Tito at Microsoft in 2003 – we started the same day. Within months, Tito developed a reputation as a brilliant, hardworking sourcer. Since Microsoft, Tito has built a career as a sourcing leader at an enviable list of companies, including Google and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Tito’s keynote will focus on building actionable talent intelligence strategies. There are probably fewer than a dozen experts on this topic in the world. I asked Tito a few questions about his career and leadership style. His responses reveal a thoughtful, passionate, committed sourcing professional.

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SourceCon

We’ve Come a Long Way, Baby!

by on Aug. 9, 2011

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carmen_hudson

I began my recruiting career in 1996, the same year a couple of PhD students launched Google. I was a researcher at an executive search firm. It wasn’t until much later that I would use the infamous search engine. When I started using the Internet to find people and information, Netscape was my preferred browser. My primary source of information was the government SEC site. My search engine of choice? AltaVista.

Yahoo — coincidentally the co-host of the upcoming SourceCon — ultimately acquired AltaVista. At the time, Alta Vista was one of the few search engines that supported advanced search techniques.

Then came job boards. They were new, hip, and destined to change the way we recruit. Sound familiar? With job boards came the rise of sourcers, or Internet recruiters.

Telephone sourcers have existed for quite some time. And today, now there are Candidate Generators, Talent Scouts, Sourcing Leads, Sourcing Managers and Directors. Sourcing is a bona fide career. There are certifications and training courses and a conference devoted to the art and science of finding talent. Sourcing has come a long way.

I am honored – privileged – to be the conference chair of SourceCon this coming fall. In 1996, I could never have imagined such a thing. I am excited about the speaker lineup. There are new faces and familiar gurus on the agenda, and the session topics are testimony to the undeniable fact that sourcing is no longer the realm of “junior recruiters.”

Over the coming weeks, I’ll interview the speakers and presenters, so you’ll get a preview of the great minds that are driving sourcing innovation and sourcing effectiveness.

I hope to see you there – send me a shout out if you’re planning to attend.

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