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Sourcing News and Knowledge – Beyond the Obvious


Lance Haun

Lance Haun is the Editor of SourceCon. After spending seven years in the recruiting and HR business, he moved over to ERE Media in 2010 where he started as Community Director for ERE and then as a Contributing Editor for HR publication TLNT. You can follow him on Twitter, check out his rarely updated blog or contact him directly at lance@ere.net.

Articles by Lance Haun

Industry News

TalentBin Moves From Private Beta To Public; Launches Chrome Plugin, API Access

by 1 day ago

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TalentBin officially launched from private beta to public yesterday. The service, which bills itself as a talent search engine, announced via press release that it “just turned the entire professional web into the largest talent sourcing database known to mankind with its public launch.”

If you’ll excuse the bravado, what TalentBin is trying to do is actually quite impressive and has leaped forward since I saw the beginnings of their private beta at the HR Technology Conference last October.

What they are trying to do is fairly simple: create a searchable database that merges information about a person from all over the web into a single profile so that sourcers can get all of the information about them in one, digestible place.

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Industry News

Report: One Of Monster’s Latest Suitors Is LinkedIn

by 5 days ago

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A report in Reuters has indicated that LinkedIn is among a handful of potential companies expressing interest in purchasing all or some of Monster Worldwide. According to sources close to the situation, LinkedIn and Silver Lake Partners are two of “a broad range of strategic and financial buyers” who are weighing Monster as a potential acquisition target.

According to the report, the company plans to send out more detailed financial information by the end of next week to potential buyers.

Monster Worldwide shares are up over 15% in late day trading in reaction to the report.

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Social Media

When Should You Be Posting On Social Networks?

by 6 days ago

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So when are the best times to post content to social networks (especially content you want clicked on)? It seems like a big question that should have a fairly straightforward answer.

Maybe you’ve done the click tracking on your own. You’ve found the sweet spot for when you post that gets the maximum level of engagement and impressions. But many people haven’t (or they have the data but have a hard time analyzing it and understanding it over the aggregate).

Well link sharing service bitly has some answers over a fairly huge data set that they recently shared.

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Social Media

Why Blame Social Media? Employee “Poaching” Has Been Going On Forever

by 8 days ago

1 comment

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I said it often over at our sister publication TLNT: social media is an extension of the way we build relationships. Sure, it might change a few of the dynamics or the ease of which those relationships can be had. But many of the same principles that make people successful at building relationships and getting things done in real life are the same ones that are successful online.

Social media is a game changer in many ways but it is still hard to game human nature and ability. And when it is blamed for something that was going on before its time, there’s usually a counter-story there.

That’s why I was a bit amused when I saw an article saying that social media has enabled the poaching of employees.

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Technology & Resources

Google Search Changes: Bigger Index And Search Diversity

by 9 days ago

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Google continues to make changes to the way it searches the web. Every month, they release a search quality highlights post that explains the changes in more general terms. That’s better than the alternative. Previously, sourcers would just stumble upon a new feature that was rolled out and never announced. That being said, it isn’t always exactly clear how much of a change was made or how to utilize the new search function.

We’ll try to pick the updates that are most applicable to sourcers and, when possible, let you know how to best utilize the new changes.

First up, Google’s index is a lot bigger now.

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Editor's Corner

The Importance Of Sourcing Mr. Irrelevant

by 2 weeks ago

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Even if you don’t pay close attention to NFL football, you might have heard that Stanford quarterback Andrew Luck was drafted by the Indianapolis Colts with the first pick of the 2012 draft last week.

What you probably didn’t realize is the 252 picks later, the Colts selected another quarterback (this time from Northern Illinois University) named Chandler Harnish. As the last pick in the seven round draft, Harnish is dubbed “Mr. Irrelevant.” Since those selected in the later rounds get little press coverage, being the last pick of the bunch surely feels fairly irrelevant.

The more important lesson is actually how very relevant sourcing and choosing the right person for that position can be.

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Contract Sourcing

Marketing And Sourcing: A Marketing Mix Approach To Sourcing

by 2 weeks ago

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When Seven Step RPO sourcing manager Sal Loukos starts on a new requisition, she doesn’t fire up her web browser and go to a search engine, LinkedIn, Twitter or a job board. She also doesn’t pick up her phone and start calling potential candidates.

Instead, she sits down and thinks about the way in which she’ll market that job opening.

“It’s a more academic approach,” she says. “But it is very simple.”

The framework, while more lengthy, is better at attracting high-need positions than the alternatives. And using her background in marketing, Loukos uses her background in marketing and the four P’s to develop a winning strategy.

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Technology & Resources

MillionShort: The Search Engine That Removes Top Sites From Its Index On Purpose

by 2 weeks ago

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Imagine going to your search engine of choice, typing in your search and getting results that don’t include major news sites, Wikipedia, or all of your favorite social networks?

You might think it was broken or that something was wrong. You might try a different search, just to make sure.

In MillionShort‘s case though, that’s the way it is intended. And there’s a good chance that this goes beyond the “neat” factor and into something useful for sourcers.

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Editor's Corner

Should Sourcers Be Using Personalized Search? And Before You Say No….

by 2 weeks ago

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Sometimes best practices get flipped on their head. I remember putting together affirmative action program plans and how many of the so-called best practices were defensible but never resulted in any real change. It was a perfect opportunity to flip a best practice around and remind ourselves what was really important: getting the result you want, not simply following what everyone else did.

That’s why I was intrigued by this idea of how using personalized search (something a good sourcer supposedly turns off) could actually be good for certain searches if you approach it the right way.

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Social Media

How Techies Are Using Social Media And How That Can Help You Find Them

by 3 weeks ago

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There seems to be this overarching assumption that the way the general populace uses social media is the same way that technical talent will use social media. And while that might be true on a larger scale (for example, social networks as a whole are gaining more members and more professional members at the same time), is it really true on a more tactical and operational level?

The folks over at GlobalSpec put out a report recently on the “industrial use” of social networks. And while the report is geared more towards marketers and sales professionals, you can bet there is a lot of dirt in the report that sourcers can take away. First of all, let’s touch on LinkedIn.

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