I was lucky enough to finish a SourceCon preliminary challenge that some said was one of the toughest in recent years. With that qualifying challenge, I was able to take time, make mistakes, try new things, and go at my pace without a lot of pressure. The preliminary challenge overview and the steps involved are available for you to read about, if you would like to know more.

On the Thursday night of SourceCon, located in a conference room at Yahoo’s URL building, I sat at a table as the third and final qualifier for the SourceCon GrandMaster Challenge. I was sipping on a beer to keep the nerves at bay waiting for the unknown challenge. Opening every sourcing tool and website that I had available, I practiced for a few minutes with each. I also wanted to be sure all passwords and ID’s were correct, plus to see if there were any changes or updates. I sat down at the table and had ALL tools ready to go so I could flip to whatever was necessary if needed finding people. I had heard that we would be getting zip drives for the challenge which hinted that we would be sitting at the computers and not going on a physical running scavenger hunt type challenge. Why I had thoughts of the scene from “Social Network” with shots of liquor and the crowd around us in a hack-fest, I will never know, but it was sort of quiet in the room. The music from the SourceCon After Dark reception was in the next room and we were all ready to have a source-off.

Amybeth Hale came around and handed out zip drives. We all inserted them into our computers at the same time. Amybeth said, “Start the challenge. You each have 45 minutes.”

Suddenly everything started to go into a sort of surreal slow-motion… There were two items on the zip drive – a file with instructions and an Excel spreadsheet. 

click to enlarge

The first file

A PDF that said, “Find affiliates of WITI (an international network of women in technology) who currently work in non-technical roles”. The instructions continued with a bulleted list stating that we may use any tools at our disposal and would need to supply first name, last name, title, email address, the source, resume link, or webpage URL where we found this information and the method used to verify it was a valid and legitimate email address. We were also instructed that we may not use LinkedIn as a final source because we need to provide an email address (email addresses are not typically available on LinkedIn; and also, “that’s too easy!” the instructions said).

The second file

An Excel spreadsheet which basically had spaces for name, title, email address, source of information, and a column for how we validated and verified that it was correct email address.

Go Time!

After reading the instructions and panicking for about a minute (which seemed like about five minutes) the sourcing strategies started popping into my mind. Which one do I do?

• Do I x-ray the WITI website to try to find hidden files and try to flip and search to pull personal profiles? Will these have email addresses?
• Is there an event attendee list for a conference or member list?
• Do I just go to Monster and start downloading resumes that may have WITI on there is as keyword and then back into whether or not they are technical?
• SBWI – Or do I have enough time to use my favorite method of SBWI? SBWI stands for “Sourcing By Wandering Around” – a common method of sourcing that typically takes a lot more time than we were given for this Challenge. Would I be able to find large lists of emails?

I can find lists of names all day long, but the email piece really threw me off. I am a HEAVY user of LinkedIn Recruiter and have access to InMails. I typically do not have a need to really find email addresses, so this was definitely going to be a stretch assignment. Baseball analogy — Do I hit a bunch of singles to get the runs or do I step up like Sammy Sosa and swing for the fences while potentially striking out a lot?

So many ideas and additional strategies went through my mind. When you only have a total of 45 minutes to do something, you really have to be organized. With all the strategies going through my mind, the time limit, and stress of performing, I was anything but organized! I knew at a minimum I needed to get some points on the board quick. I needed email addresses.

The first thing I did was hit the search engines to check out the email patterns – @witi.org or @witi.com or @us.witi.org. This didn’t help my confidence since there were basically no email addresses available and no specific pattern. When I did find an email address, it was like the pattern was made up on the fly over a few years. I also checked out witi.org and witi.com to see if there were different materials on each. At the top of one of the pages was a spot to “JOIN” WITI for $250 and get access to their member directory. I was ready to pull out my Corporate AMEX and do this, but I had no knowledge if it would yield email addresses. I figured it would not, so I steered clear of doing this. Yes, I did try to hack in for a few minutes as Admin but I struck out. I also saw in various spots on the web pages that there was the ability to sign up to get WITI’s newsletter. I immediately did this and did not get a newsletter until the next week. Therefore no fruit from that tree, but I still get the email newsletter (that I need to turn off).

I went to LinkedIn and joined a couple of Groups to see if I could find some unique organizations that might get me some email addresses, but I mostly struck out there.

Brainstorm! Bam! I am involved with a not-for-profit called the Consortium for Graduate Study in Management. How would I get the email addresses of people that were associated with the organization but not actual members? It hit me. The employees of the not-for-profit organization! Okay…this could be a Sammy Sosa technique and pay off heavy. I went to Jigsaw and searched for “Company” of WITI and I got a good list of names, titles, email addresses. This technique netted some names and entered their information on the spreadsheet. I was putting points on the board!

Hitting a Few Singles

I starting thinking it was about time to “hit a few singles” and look for the individual names. I searched for a speaker at a conference and got one with an email address. I found a guy that was a speaker or member of a regional chapter with an email address. This was more difficult than expected because email addresses were not in or around the speaker’s bio. In hindsight, that would have been a hell of a tactic to leverage if I had more time — find all of the men who were associated with WITI, because they were targets.

This technique was taking too long — I just knew there had to be a mega-list somewhere. I shifted to some AIRS techniques of visiting local WITI chapter webpages and peeling back the URL’s. This is where you delete some of the URL text, to try to find information hidden on the page.

I took the URL of a person that I found as a speaker from a WITI event and peeled back the URL. This led me to the location that they were out of and if they were a member of a local chapter. What I found was that some of the local chapters had email addresses listed for leaders on their webpages. I added some of the men and attempted to determine if the women were non-technical. I also noticed that the webpage template was a little different from the national chapter on a few of the local chapter sites. I immediately went to work on these using the X-Ray and peeling back techniques. While looking for a file with Member Lists, I stumbled across a Listserv that somebody had not deleted.

Jackpot (Though I Didn’t Know It)

Okay, now we’re talking! This is an email distribution list that goes to all of their members. Someone had hidden it from view, but it was a hidden page still live on the webpage. Some nice webmaster had not deleted the ability to sign up and send an email to their listserv subscribers. I clicked on this link, subscribed and sent a test email. I added the information that was returned to me and was getting ready to dive deeper and attempt to extract more names when Amybeth walked in and said “Time’s Up!”

All I could think at that moment was that I tried. I spent so much time shifting strategies and trying for the big lists, that I did not put as many names on the list as I had expected. I joked with Amybeth that I wanted a “Mulligan” and the ability to try again. I was up against two top sourcers who did this every day and probably were a lot better than me at finding email addresses. I knew I had needed to have more than what I produced to win this thing. I was crushed! You could see it on everyone else’s faces in the room that this was a tough assignment. We made small talk in the room and knew that from this point until tomorrow at noon, we all had to wait. I had to now wait over twelve hours to ultimately learn the outcome. Given my performance, I was already expecting that I would not win, so I shared a few of the things I did with the group in the room, but no one else really wanted to talk either. It was so tough knowing we had to wait.

Waiting…

I met a couple people at Bennigan’s to have a drink and put out the fires and drown the sorrows of a poor performance. Anyone that saw me knew I was not in a good spot and could read it on my face that I felt I had not done well. In conversations with people, I explained that this event had not played to my strengths, which are generating talent via LinkedIn and other methods, not generating email addresses. Also, I have not done any Information Tecnology type searches for about ten years. I was so bummed out that I think I described my performance to Tito Magobet from Expedia as about a 4 on a scale of 1-10 with 10 as the highest. I was glad I had the opportunity to be a part of the Challenge and I was getting ready to congratulate one of the other two participants on their victory.

Dejected and crushed at dropping the ball in a huge opportunity, I went back to the room and got online. I had to learn where I missed or figure out what I could have done better. I spent the next three hours reliving the terror, but researching what I did wrong because I couldn’t get it out of my mind. I did more research, looked up more people, tried to find more email addresses – basically, trying to second-guess everything that I did. I was trying to find more and I was little bit happy and that I didn’t find that thing that I have been looking for…that Holy Grail of names – the big list. It’s almost like WITI had a consultant come in and sweep their whole website for any holes, emails, or website back doors. While writing this article, it makes sense that they may have had someone from their organization do a sweep / security audit given they are a technical organization.

#Winning

The next morning was tough. We had to wait to find out what the results were. At the end of the conference around 12:30, it came time for the announcement to be made. I was wholeheartedly ready to stand up and clap for one of the other finalists since I knew one of them was going to win. I was already set and ready for the announcement and they said the winner is “Jim Schnyder.” I can’t begin to tell you how freaked out I was and anyone that was in the room saw it on my face.

I do not remember a lot of what happened next since I was so stunned, but Carmen Hudson mentioned that the judges (Amybeth and Carmen verified everyone’s work) were not only impressed with what I did in sheer numbers but also the techniques (some old-school stuff) that I used to find some of candidates.

In the end, I guess you sometimes have to realize that you may be doing a pretty good job even when you don’t think you are. A monstrous shout out goes to Amybeth – she created all of the 2011 SourceCon preliminary Challenges as well as the very difficult SourceCon GrandMaster Challenge. Thanks to you and all of the SourceCon staff.

I began my pursuit of solving the second SourceCon Challenge when I saw this Facebook posting on the SourceCon page on September 7:

As I had started late (the contest began on September 1), I missed out on some of the preliminary clues, including a mouse-over title for the countdown clock on the SourceCon page that said “CiteULike.org,” which was where I would have found clues leading to the Diigo group ( “similar source” and “sourcecon2011_challenge2”). Thankfully, though, no one had discovered these clues, and I sent an email to the SourceCon editor to ask if it was too late to join in. I guess I was under the impression that if you had not participated in the first SourceCon Challenge on building Google Custom Searches that you were not able to get in the hunt. I was delighted to learn that it was not too late. I clicked on the link from the Facebook posting which led to a Diigo.com site where you were invited to join a group. Little did I know that this would begin a 12-day journey (evenings and weekends) of hunting and gathering information to solve this quest!

Clue #1

Clue #1: look for a person who is tied to Toyota and the clue that led you here (JACS/XML). Think similar categorical terms, keywords, and phrases.

When you find that person, you must then find someone who was at the same school, but 5 years later and only for 1 year. Once you find them, you must send ONLY that person’s email address IN THE SUBJECT LINE to sourcecon2011@gmail.com.

Okay, so I started late. I did not know the first clue and information and had no idea where to start on this one. I quickly tried “toyota jacs xml” as search terms and netted 45,000 Google results. I definitely needed to narrow down this search. I needed more information, so I figured the best way would be to back in and look at the previous clues and hints that had been shared to date by SourceCon.

From the SourceCon announcement of the Challenge, Red Herrings and Hidden Gems:

Your starting clue is this: Glen Cathey has shared a lot of thoughtful search processes over the last couple of years. To begin Challenge #2, look into some of his recent lessons to find a clue for how to get going.

Helpful hint: don’t bother Glen for hints or assistance – he can’t help you with this Challenge. In fact, there isn’t a sourcer out there who will be able to help you. You must rely on your own research skills – and you’ll be using both Internet and telephone for this Challenge.

I am thinking to myself, ”Great…Red Herrings…fake clues? This will be tougher than expected. Which ones might be fake?”

There was a note from SourceCon that some additional clues would be delivered in the September 8 SourceCon Weekly Newsletter. Time to wait…

The newsletter was released and the two clues were:

• The company of the first person you need to find can be found using blekko. Seek out sourcecon there.
• One of the educational institutions of the second person you need to find is in North Carolina.

OK, time to get moving on blekko. I searched for SourceCon and found this:

I was able to find a Toyota and ALJ – Abdul Latif Jameel. ALJ seemed like a clue, but I was not sure.

Then another clue arrived from SourceCon, which was “Saudi Arabia.” I popped into Google and ran the following search.

BINGO! M. Zulgarnain Mahmood at Abdul Latif Jameel. He has to be person number one. He attended Michigan State University from 90-92. Now the tough part, finding someone that was at the same school, but 5 years later and only for 1 year.

How do I do that? I did get a clue from the SourceCon Challenge that one of the educational institutions of the second person is in North Carolina. I need more information.

I really spun out on this part. I was trying to find a person who had little to no relation to a person that was at Michigan State University five to seven years later and was only at the school for one year. Plus this person also was at another school in North Carolina. I did some web searches and LinkedIn searches trying to relate Toyota, Michigan State, and any of the schools in North Carolina.

CLUE from SourceCon in the Diigo group:

For part 2, the person you are looking for did not necessarily earn his education at the school in the State of Michigan. Perhaps he was an educator.

Duh! Now it was time to zero in on the faculty.

From there I began to cross-reference lists around Michigan. I focused on the Faculty at Michigan State and people that went to or worked at a school in North Carolina. After looking at who started at Michigan State between 1997 and 1999 and worked for one year, I amassed a list and started going through profiles. This took some time and effort. After filtering through a lot of people, I ended up finding a guy named Aneil Mishra that fit the search. I scanned his online resume and he had everything. Per the SourceCon directions, I sent in his email address. He was the correct answer!

Clue #2

This took me to the new clue:

Clue #2: To get to the next level, follow COLE Grant and find the author.

Immediately I read the clue and thought, Follow…Twitter! I quickly X-rayed Twitter.com for @colegrant, I located a profile and his information was a bunch of numbers. This looked like GPS coordinates, so I dropped them into GoogleMaps.

This led me to find the address near an airport in Canada. I then located the person that lived there – Michael Rouch – Chief Flight Instructor… The directions from SourceCon did not state what to do with this information when you found the author. I emailed the SourceCon editor and to my surprise, this was a wrong turn that I made.

I found a red herring. Back to the drawing board…

A new clue was sent from SourceCon to the Diigo group that stated,

This next step has everyone bogged down. Be sure to read every detail of this clue, and keep in mind that you were instructed you would need to use the things you find along the way. Perhaps there are things that can be found by looking into the profiles of those who’ve led you this far.

In looking at the clue very closely, I noticed that COLE was capitalized. I hadn’t thought about all the options. Also, I needed to look at the profiles that led me here. First stop: Aneil Mishra’s resume — BAM!! COLE was there. Aneil worked at Duke University and assisted with the “Center of Leadership and Ethics” (COLE) grant program.

I then Googled Duke, Cole, and “Center of Leadership and Ethics” and found more about the genesis of the COLE Grant.

COLE was started by Coach K (Duke’s legendary Basketball Coach – Mike Krzyzewski) and a Duke Professor Sim Sitkin. I totally wanted Coach K to be a part of this challenge! Unfortunately, after looking up information on his two New York Times best selling books, “Leading with the Heart” and “Beyond Basketball – Coach K’s Keywords to Success,” I hit a dead end. Nothing seemed right for Coach K as the author, so I looked up Sim Sitkin on Amazon and found a book that he wrote.

I noticed there was a Customer Review!! I checked it out.

YES!!!!! This was totally SourceCon Challenge material. A cool puzzle at the CIA-Headquarters that is written up on the SourceCon page?

It was now time to X-Ray the SourceCon website! 15 seconds later, I found a blog posting about the Kryptos – The Ultimate Challenge. I remember reading about this in Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol.

I was at the right webpage. I scrolled to the bottom and saw there was an anonymous comment:

I now started thinking that I had to solve the Kryptos, but it has not been solved in the last 20 years since it was built with the best in the world trying to decipher it. This had to be a red herring…

So I knew I was at the right spot and there was nothing here… I was so close, I just knew it! I thought for a few minutes and decided to check the HTML source code for the page to see if there were any hidden gems (text or messages). This hunch paid off!

Hidden Gem:

“email sourcecon2011@gmail.com with subject "NYPVTT" (minus quotes) and the first and last name of the author of the book that led you here in the body for your next clue.”

I sent Sim Sitkins and NYPVTT to the SourceCon email address. Am I finally done? Did I win???? Along came another clue.

Clue #3

Clue #3: JimSanborn. you musT find him.

Jim Sanborn? The creator of the Kryptos ciphers at the CIA-HQ? I had already been down wrong paths, so I definitely wanted to save time on this one. I noticed a capital “T” in musT. Could that mean Twitter?

I went to Twitter and searched for JimSanborn:

The SourceCon logo was a dead giveaway. He also had recently tweeted a link. I clicked on the link… Will it be over????

The link was to the Diigo site, and the never ending online journey continued…

Clue #4

Clue #4: you have all the information you need — you just need to find the location of the after dark. Look 4 BaSic clues.

I noticed “location,” the number 4, and the letters “L,” “B,” and “S” capitalized. My gut said find the location of the After Dark on Foursquare. First, I had to learn where the SourceCon After Dark was being held. In checking the SourceCon page, After Dark will be held at Yahoo!’s Building C / URL’s Café. Quickly taking this information to Foursquare, I tried to find the location, but it was not near me, so I was unable to view the information. I quickly turned to the X-Ray tactic and by typing in “Yahoo! Building C / URL’s Café site:foursquare.com” I found the location.

There it was!! The SourceCon logo, the date of After Dark and the thing I had been looking for from the beginning — the phone number! It was laid out in the beginning information about the Challenge that you would also need to use the phone. Finally! I will call and be done…

Not so fast — one more thing…

The voicemail said that I needed to send the name of the individual associated with Wake Forest University that I located earlier in the subject line of an email to the Challenge email address. I sent Aneil Mishra’s name to the SourceCon email and that was it!!!

I sent the final e-mail at 11:37 PM on September 19. It had been twelve days of crazy times for me – and nearly three weeks from the beginning of the contest! I was searching and doing all of the SourceCon Challenge tasks in the evenings after my wife and kids went to sleep. Needless to say, it made for some long nights.

Two things that I think helped me in this Challenge were asking questions and getting feedback of my progress. I continued to check in with SourceCon to ask if I was on the right track. New clues (many based on my inquiries) were posted publicly in the Diigo groups to help me as well as all the other participants. In past Challenges, there has been little to no interactivity throughout the Challenge. But as with our daily job function, checking in and asking if I was on the right track helped immensely with completing this project. The same can be said about work – when working on a sourcing project, checking in along the way ensures that you are pursuing the right paths to ultimately find exactly what you need.

A big thank you and round of virtual applause needs to go to SourceCon for designing and executing a hell of a tough challenge. It was very well organized and the technology flowed well.

I look forward to competing with Katharine and Julia to see which of us will win the Grand Master Sourcing Challenge next week during the SourceCon After Dark – and I hope to see you there as well!

*Editor’s note: Even though Jim technically won this Challenge on September 19, we decided to extend the contest to the first day of October to give the rest of the participants an opportunity to complete the Challenge. Jim was already scheduled to be a panelist for the conference, and while neither he nor any of the other presenters contributed to the development of this Challenge, we knew he would already be attending and wanted to give others a chance to come. The fact that he ended up winning the Challenge proved to us that we made a good choice in having him as a presenter!

Honorable mention goes to Lisa Offutt who completed the Challenge through Clue #2 and was hot on the trail to find Clue #3. This was a very difficult challenge and we commend each and every one of you who participated!

It’s here. You’ve waited for it, and it’s finally here.

I’m talking about football season! What, did you think I meant something else?

Just kidding. The 2nd SourceCon Challenge of 2011 commences today — right here, right now. And like the last one, you couldn’t predict what this Challenge would be like.

So get ready — this Challenge is going to stretch you to your limits.

Let’s first review what’s at stake.

The Reward:

The first person to successfully complete the following Challenge will receive one (1) free complimentary pass to attend SourceCon in Silicon Valley, October 12-14. He/she will also be provided travel and hotel accommodations and be eligible to participate in the SourceCon GrandMaster Sourcing Championship to take place during the conference.

The Small Print:

1. Travel includes one (1) round-trip coach airline ticket to be booked through our travel agency and valued at up to $400 including taxes and fees. Hotel accommodations include one night, room and tax, at the hotel where staff and speakers are staying for the event. Additional nights can be arranged, on your own, at a discounted rate.
2. Only one (1) person may win. You are welcome to tackle the Challenge in groups but only one individual from your group will be eligible to win. It is up to you to decide who that is.
3. Prizes are non-transferrable.

The Challenge:

This is a scavenger hunt. You are going to want to keep track of your steps along the way with this Challenge, because at crucial points, you’re going to have to provide evidence of your findings.

Your starting clue is this: Glen Cathey has shared a lot of thoughtful search processes over the last couple of years. To begin Challenge #2, look into some of his recent lessons to find a clue for how to get going.

Helpful hint: don’t bother Glen for hints or assistance – he can’t help you with this Challenge. In fact, there isn’t a sourcer out there who will be able to help you. You must rely on your own research skills – and you’ll be using both Internet and telephone for this Challenge.

Good luck!

The CSE Challenge is over! The finalists all gave us their best – but there can only be one winner…

This Challenge was different – unlike challenges of the past which sent participants on complex hunts for clues all across the Internet to see who could reach the finish line first, this assignment was simple and without an urgent timeline: create a Custom Search Engine to find candidate resumes, profiles, and directory lists. The execution, however, would prove to be more thought-provoking and, well, “Challenging,” than anyone could have imagined.

So who among our three finalists created the best Custom Search Engine?

First, let’s learn a little about each one:

Nitisha Gupta started her career as a sourcer in 2010 working for a U.S.-based RPO and currently works for Eaton Corporation as a Talent Sourcing Associate. She earned a Bachelors degree in Computer Application as well as an MBA in Human Resource and Industrial Relations. While she doesn’t have years of sourcing experience, she does have plenty of experience in research since getting her first PC in 10th standard.

Kameron Swinton is a full life cycle recruiter for Cymer, a global semiconductor equipment manufacturer based in San Diego, CA. He specializes in the recruitment of engineers and scientists but has sourced for a variety of challenging requirements. He’s passionate about using technology (especially your ATS!) to uncover leads and identify hidden talent.

Julia Tverskaya is an executive recruiter and sourcer. For the last six years she has been a partner with Brain Gain Recruiting, placing senior full-time employees in IT, ERP, strategy consulting, and finances. She has an MS in Applied Linguistics and a strong background in software engineering and management.

The judging criteria for the final round consisted of a point system that rewarded both quality and creativity. A grand total of 90 possible points could be earned: 60 points for quality results and 30 for source variety.

Based on the number of points awarded by each judge, totaled and averaged together, the winner of the SourceCon CSE Challenge, with a grand, averaged total of 77 points, is:

Julia Tverskaya!

Congratulations to Julia – she has won a trip to SourceCon in Silicon Valley in the fall and will be competing in the GrandMaster Sourcing Challenge. Well done!

How the judging was done

As with any sourcing project, the judging of this contest was not a cookie-cutter procedure. Let me tell you, sourcers, this was a difficult contest to evaluate — just ask any of the judges.

Why was it difficult, you may be asking? Here’s a small clue: choose your own adventure.

You may recall this post from last month in which I said,

…giving five researchers the same assignment will result in five different search results. It just depends on their techniques, resources, and thought processes while conducting the search.

Though we had objective criteria with which to evaluate the CSEs (contestants provided us with a search phrase, and we evaluated each refinement and awarded points for valid results as well as variety of sources), there were gray areas that each judge discovered. Do duplicates across refinements count? What about lists of LinkedIn profiles? What about resumes with no contact information? What if you can get to the contact information by clicking a link within the result? What if you can access contact information by signing up for/logging in to a free service? Do ‘headshops’ count for anything? What if the contact information is only a physical address? The list of questions could go on and on and on and on…

Sourcers – these are the same types of challenges you all run into daily while using your tools. And guaranteed if you work with a team of sourcers, if given the same search assignment you will all return with different results and a variety of potential candidates.

Each of the questions above would probably be answered differently by each of you. One of the judges told me, “I counted the results that only had physical addresses; I could do a reverse address search to find other contact info. Heck, I would even send a postcard! Everyone in the world is a potential candidate to me.”

It takes teamwork

At the end of the day, our point totals, while not identical, were all within the same ballpark as one another. Each of us graded the CSEs individually, frequently corresponding, asking questions, clarifying, re-examining our own results, and making sure we were on the same page with our assessments. We worked well together to make sure we were awarding points in the appropriate places.

Teamwork is what enabled us to fairly and objectively evaluate each CSE. Teamwork is what makes for cohesive, effective, and ultimately successful sourcing teams. We took each other’s suggestions into consideration and worked as one to choose the appropriate paths to take to determine our overall winner.

#Winning

While each judge’s point totals may have varied slightly, Julia’s CSE was the clear, unanimous winner – all five of us had her scored on top. What caused her CSE to win was the simple fact that it returned the least amount of non-quality results and had the greatest variety of sources. Her CSE earned a whopping 53 (rounded up from the 52.6 average) of 60 possible quality result points and she earned 25 (rounded up from the 24.8 average) of a possible 30 points for variety of sources.

The really awesome thing about this contest is that all who participated came away with a prize – their CSE! Now, each contestant will be able to use their CSE to source and find potential candidates for their companies and clients. Everybody wins!

What can be learned from this Challenge

Valuable lessons were abundant throughout this Challenge. I believe I learned a lot from this experience, as did each of the judges as well as all of you who participated in varying degrees. Here are a few of my own takeaways I can share with you:

• When changing a Challenge format, it’s good to give a head’s up to the community. This Challenge was a 180 from the previous ones. Many of you may have been expecting a scavenger hunt of sorts and were surprised by this new Challenge. I heard that there were some people who had created CSEs but decided not to compete for fear of exposing their names publicly with something that they did not feel was perfect, they didn’t want their boss to see, or that might be considered their company’s intellectual property. These are all understandable and valid concerns, and certainly will be taken into consideration in the future.
• Adding a crowd-sourcing element allows anyone who wants one to have a voice in the contest. I really believe that having the first round of competition as a peer evaluation and vote was a great way to get many more people involved. Anyone who wanted an opportunity to have their voice count toward the overall winner was able to cast a vote and be heard.
• Judging something that can be customized so much is difficult. Each of our participants’ CSEs were unique – ranging from location-specific searches to alumni directories contained within the refinements. It is nearly impossible to compare search engines that can vary so much with fool-proof objectivity. Think of the show America’s Got Talent – participants display skills from dancing to singing to juggling and everything in between. How do you compare singing to dancing? And even if you compare singing to singing, how do you compare opera to country to pop to rock? When it comes down to it, there are a million ways the CSEs could have been judged, and no matter how we designed it, it would never be perfect. We set out to develop criteria that would provide the greatest potential for objective evaluation through quality and variety.

Congratulations to all of our finalists – the judges (thank-you to you as well!) all agreed that all three CSEs were high quality and returned excellent results. And big congrats to Julia – we look forward to having her at SourceCon this fall and seeing what she brings to the GrandMaster Sourcing Challenge.

We hope all of you who participated had a great time and that those of you who followed this Challenge will consider joining in the next one!

We’ve tallied up the results of Round 1 of the SourceCon CSE Challenge. You voted for your favorite contestants, and based on your votes, the three finalists who will be going on to Round 2 are…

• Kameron Swinton — Sr. Talent Acquisition Partner at Cymer, Inc. (171 votes)
• Nitisha Gupta — Talent Sourcing Associate at Eaton Corporation (151 votes)
• Julia Tverskaya — Partner at Brain Gain Recruiting (144 votes)

Now that your collective voice has been heard, we are set for Round 2 — the final round of this Challenge. In this round a panel of judges will be evaluating the quality and creativity of the contestants’ CSEs. Our five judges, who until today didn’t even know who each other was, are regular contributors to the sourcing community:

• Glen Cathey: no one can question Glen’s contributions to the function of sourcing — he has provided us with some of the most in-depth analysis of technical sourcing through his various articles and presentations.
• Mike Notaro: as one of the panelists in the recent webinar on creating Google CSEs, Mike was a natural selection to judge. His complex CSEs have won him awards and notoriety in the sourcing community.
• Shally Steckerl: Shally has been a notable figure in the sourcing community for over a decade and has provided countless trainings, webinars, and resources to the community.
• Julia Stone: Julia is one of the creators of previous SourceCon Challenges, a presenter at past SourceCons, and a former Challenge contestant herself.
• Amybeth Hale: what… did you really think that as the Editor of SourceCon I wouldn’t get involved?

The judges have been tasked with objectively sampling each CSE to determine who among our contestants created the best candidate resume/profile/directory Google Custom Search Engine. Below, we are providing you with the criteria that will be used to determine this. You’re welcome to test our finalists yourself, but the judges’ assessments are the only ones that will count in this round of judging.

Rules for the final round of the SourceCon CSE Challenge

The CSE that earns the most points will be declared the winner. Plain and simple.

Judging will be based on the CSE’s quality and variety. Our distinguished panel of judges will evaluate each contestant’s CSE and award points based on the following criteria:

Quality of Results

Quality always rules. The first three (3) pages of results will be examined to determine how well the CSE filtered out irrelevant search results:

• 2 points will be awarded for results that are verified resumes, profile/bios (with or without contact information), or directory lists (must have at least one form of immediate contact information [phone number or email address]). Sample resumes will not count and will be awarded no points.
• 1 point will be awarded for directory lists that do NOT contain contact information but contain first and last names, or result pages that do not contain any of the above but that contain contact information (must have a name and at least one form of immediate contact information [phone number or email address]).
• 0 points will be awarded for all other results.

Variety of Sources

The instructions for creating a CSE were to make sure the results contained a variety of sources. Contestants will be rewarded for this:

• 1 point will be awarded for each unique site that returns valid results (see above). Example: if in 3 pages of results there are 16 LinkedIn profile results, 7 Twitter results, and 2 ZoomInfo results, the point total for these sources would be 3.
• Additional unique sources, including individual resume pages and so forth, will be awarded 1 point each.

Since each CSE is different and unique, contestants will have the opportunity to put their best foot forward for their individual CSE and provide one example search word or phrase for judging; they have each been given criteria. To ensure panel accuracy, points awarded by each judge will be totaled, combined, and averaged for each contestant’s CSE. The contestant with the most total points will be declared the winner.

We will announce the overall Challenge winner next Friday! The winner will be receiving a free pass to SourceCon in Silicon Valley this coming October, as well as travel and accommodations to attend the conference and a coveted spot in the final GrandMaster Sourcing Challenge.

Good luck to our contestants — and have a fantastic holiday weekend!

Last Friday was the last day for submissions to participate SourceCon’s first Challenge of 2011 — to create a Google Custom Search Engine that would return results with profiles, resumes, and contact information. Today, we announce to you our five contestants who will each be competing for three finalist slots in the quest to win a trip to SourceCon this fall in Silicon Valley.

First, let’s answer a couple of questions you may have at this point:

1. Why create a Google CSE? This isn’t like other Challenges in the past. True, it’s not. Google CSEs are pretty powerful tools for sourcers to use to help narrow down  and filter out unwanted search results. Because of this, we thought it would be a great way for sourcers to not only demonstrate their ability to create complex yet accurate search strings, but also to have a very useful tool as a result of their participation in the contest. So even if  contestants don’t win the Challenge, they still “win” because they now have a handy resource with which to do their job.
2. Why two rounds of ‘competition?’ Why are we voting first? The reason for having two rounds of voting is to give you, the sourcing community, the opportunity to evaluate your peers’ work first. By voting for the CSEs that you think are great, you are putting your stamp of approval on the work they’ve done. Think about it this way: when you are conducting candidate searches, don’t you normally run some of your search process by recruiting partners or other sourcers to see if they have any thoughts on how you can make it better or more efficient? This is really no different — by letting the community first decide which CSEs they  like best, we are letting you have the first word. And by having two rounds of judging, we can ensure that this does not just become a popularity contest or a vote of who has the biggest network.
3. What’s the final judging criteria? Patience, young grasshoppers. Let’s get through round 1 first!

And now, without any further ado, I present your five Challenge participants, in random order:

• Kameron Swinton — Sr. Talent Acquisition Partner at Cymer, Inc.
• Nitisha Gupta — Talent Sourcing Associate at Eaton Corporation
• Chris Cruz — Technical Recruiter at Decorus
• Irina Shamaeva — Partner/Chief Sourcer at Brain Gain Recruiting
• Julia Tverskaya — Partner at Brain Gain Recruiting

Congratulations to these individuals for taking the time to craft a CSE and for getting it submitted on time.

For the first round of competition, the sourcing community — that’s you! — will be voting for the best custom search engine. Here’s how this will work:

• Each participant’s custom search engine is embedded on a page here on SourceCon.com (hint: click a name above). There is a brief description of the search engine along with a ‘thumbs-up’ icon just below the search.
• Take the CSEs for a test-drive. Ask questions of its creator for best use. If you like a search engine, give it a thumbs-up. (There is also a thumbs-down but we will not be counting those) You can vote for any and all of the CSEs; however, you will only be able to vote once for each.
  
• At the end of the day on June 30 we will tally up the votes and determine the three finalists. Following that, we will begin round 2 of judging to determine the overall winner.

We wish all of our participants good luck! Promote your CSE to your networks, have your peers check them out, and we hope to see you in the Final Three!

The webinar on how to create Google Custom Search Engines last week was well-received and has left lots of you hungry for more! As promised, below we’ve taken most of the questions asked by you in the chat during the webinar and answered them below. The questions have been divided up into four sections: General Questions, Inclusions/Exclusions, Refinements, and Additional Resources. We hope you find these references helpful, and if you have further questions, leave them in the comments section!

Below also is the recording of the webinar for you to check out and review. Just a reminder: if you’re planning to participate in the SourceCon Challenge that’s currently underway, you’ve got only a few days left! Friday, June 17 is the deadline to submit your entry for the first round of judging. So get your CSE pulled together, because the prize is certainly worth it!

GENERAL

• Do you have to have a Google email account to create a Google custom search engine?

Yes, you will have to log in to a Google user account in order to create a Custom Search Engine.




• I just created a custom search engine but it does not save or list my search keywords. I like to retrieve my standard search words every time I log into my CSE. How do I do that?

(Mike) That’s in the refinements.  When you save a refinement and go to the engine itself, you’ll see the refinement/link at the top which when clicked will apply the refinement/string to it.




• Someone mentioned that by removing a line of XML, we could view the “ad free” version. Would he mind sharing which line it is?

(Mike) Where it says:  <LookAndFeel nonprofit=”***”>, it will say “false” when there are ads. Change it to “true” and re-upload it; you’ll remove your ads.




• Is there a way in the control panel to give specific weights to different keywords?

(Irina) Keywords are equal in fact; the order doesn’t matter and there really isn’t a way to give specific keywords more weight than others.

 

• Are CSEs different if created through google.com.au as opposed to google.com?

(Mike) No, it appears to re-direct you to google.com if you are working outside of the U.S.

• Can we make our CSE private?

(Dan) You can make it private in terms of who has admin access and can make edit changes within, but in terms of making it private (hidden from others), I don’t believe so.

INCLUSIONS/EXCLUSIONS

• Is there a list of good things to include or exclude?

Not specific to sourcing, but there are lots of guidelines and recommendations for creating inclusions and exclusions in the Google CSE FAQ.





• Can you delimit extensions as in -inurl:.gov?

(Mike)  yes, you chose to exclude gov sites by adding it the exclude list; for example,  *.gov

REFINEMENTS

• Please explain the refinements section. How do they work?

You can look at the Google CSE FAQ on refinements to get a ton of detailed information on how they work.




• Is there a limit to the number of refinements you can use with the more command?

(Mike) You can stack as many as twelve at a time. Each of those counts as one keyword.  If you use all twelve, then that’s 32-12 = 20 keywords.

• Can you restrict the engine to only a filetype?

(Mike) Yes. In order to do that, you just need to add a filetype: search to one of your refinements, such as filetype:doc, filetype:pdf, or filetype:xls.

• Regarding location – where in the CSE can u add locations? For ex: when searching or builiding a search engine for LI profiles? How do u narrow down to location?

(Irina) CSEs are based on the existing Google’s index. (There’s no additional search performed.) So any ways to search for a location on Google (such as area codes, zip codes, international URL’s in LinkedIn, etc.) will work. If you want to make it part of the engine, you could include substrings specific to locations in refinements.

 

• Can you add specific requirements to your refinements?

You can add anything you want to your refinements — just make sure you test them for quality!




• If you wanted to search a state licensing list (ex: Registered Nurses) – is this possible?

Yes, just make sure you word it so that the search engine will have the best chance to recognize what you’re looking for. For example, look at this list of nursing credentials, pick the ones you desire, and make a specific refinement for nursing credentials.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

• Is there a mobile version of the CSE on my BlackBerry I can view on the go?

Not at this time; though Google’s pages are all mobile-friendly and relatively easy to navigate on mobile devices.




• Are there any resources available going over Google’s Custom Search Engines that you can recommend?

You should read Irina Shamaeva’s follow-up article on SourceCon.com, How To Build a Google Custom Search Engine. There is a ton of great information there to help get you started. Also, read the Google Custom Search Engine FAQs — lots of technical tidbits there for difficult refinements, inclusions/exclusions, and various other customizations. And — here are some search results that can help you as well.





• How do I get my Corporate Careers page listed on peoples’ CSEs?

(Irina) If Google finds your page, CSEs will find it too. You can create your own CSE that would promote your corporate pages to have a higher rank, or include it as a special “subscribed” link.




• Are there public CSE’s out there? Pre-made?

(Irina) Search on Google for “* * is a google custom search engine” and you will find quite a few.

(Tyler Cushing) Put site:google.com/cse/home into a search, and click the link to include omitted results. Then you can refine your search by adding keywords.

You can also look at some example CSEs here: http://google.com/coop/cse/examples, test out Irina’s CSEs that she recently shared in the Boolean Strings Network, or check out this CSE that searches CSEs, courtesy of Shally Steckerl.


 

Hope this helps you on your quest to create great Google Custom Search Engines! And remember: you’ve only got until Friday, June 17 to submit your CSE to participate in the first SourceCon Challenge. Why not give it a chance? The prize — a FREE trip to SourceCon in Silicon Valley this fall — is totally worth it.

Happy Sourcing!

Custom search engines (CSE’s) may seem like a tool for advanced users — but in fact anyone can build one, even not knowing much about advanced Boolean operators. If you have never built a CSE, start with this: Create a Custom Search Engine on the fly. All you need is to input a site you’d like to search, such as your own website, or any site you like.

Let’s try zoominfo.com, for example. You can ignore the “code” section on the left – just go ahead and use your engine. Let’s try a search for “Vice president of business development.”

…This feels like magic, doesn’t it?

The Control Panel

Now let’s try to create something a bit more sophisticated. The start page allows you to specify the name of your engine, a description, and sites to search. Interestingly, you can include a template for your search using the asterisk *. (Note that the use of the asterisk in Google’s search engine is totally unrelated.)

Here’s an example: you can use the site templates *.gov and *.com – and your custom engine will search only in those domains. Or, you can use www.linkedin.com/in and www.linkedin.com/pub (sound familiar?). After you’ve added some sites, skip the “code” and the look-and-feel editing for now, and get back to the basics/control panel to add even more adjustments.

Keywords

On the basics page you can provide the “search engine keywords.” These will guide your CSE to bring pages with these words higher up in the list of results; pages without the words will be included, too.

Sites

The Control panel/Sites section lets you add and remove sites that will show up in the search results. To continue our exercise, let’s build a LinkedIn/USA profile search engine. This list of sites will give us a good start:

(Click on the image to try the engine)

By now we have learned how to include and to exclude sites, and to add keywords to help rank relevant pages higher. One last power hint for beginners is to define the “refinements.”

Refinements

A refinement makes your CSE automatically add your specified search substring to the search string that your user types.

As an example, create refinements with the strings filetype:pdf and filetype:doc, and your search engine will have options to search for files with the given type:

…These are the core capabilities of CSE’s, as I see them. Using the lists of sites and the refinements you can create truly powerful custom search engines. In fact, I’d say that with careful and creative use of these CSE building tips you should be able to build a super-CSE — and win the SourceCon Challenge!

Hints for CSE Users

To make your CSE’s easier and nicer to use, here are a couple of hints for both CSE creators and users.

1. Add &num=100 to the search URL to see 100 results per page.
2. Add &tbs=qdr:y to the search URL and your CSE will show a date range; as an example, try my Document Finder with the date range added.

Beyond the Basics

If you are still hungry for more technical stuff, here is a brief description of a few additional ways to enhance your CSE’s. To learn even more, read the documentation and experiment.

(By the way the mysterious “code” section that we’ve ignored for now is the HTML code for including the CSE on your own site. You don’t need it to share the engine with others — simply providing its URL will work.)

Here are some advanced hints:

1. Use the synonyms to pick similar words as you see them fit. You can even create secret phrases or letter combinations to trigger special searches. Mike Notaro was able to force a CSE to look for the @ sign in some cases; you can’t expect to do a whole lot on this path though.
2. Use the site templates to include sites defined by a pattern that are not possible to specify with the Google’s “site:” operator. This is a rich area to explore! I was experimenting and included some special characters in the template, forcing my CSE to (partially) search the Deep Web:
   
3. Advanced users can save, edit, and upload XML files with lists of sites and the CSE parameters. You can edit these files to apply “weights” to sites to search, taking control of ranking. (You can make your site appear first in any search, for example, if you are so inclined).

Have fun building your CSE’s!

In conjunction with the first SourceCon Challenge of 2011 that is currently underway, we are pleased to present to you a training webinar to learn about Google Custom Search Engines – what they are, how to create them, and how to use them in your sourcing function. Join us Thursday, June 9 from 1pm – 2pm Eastern time as we bring you expert knowledge from three sourcers who have created some amazing Custom Search Engines: Dan Harris, Mike Notaro, and Irina Shamaeva.

In this 60-minute webinar, you will learn the basics of Google Custom Search Engines as our panelists show examples of CSEs they’ve created as well as take you step-by-step through how to make your own. If you plan to participate in the SourceCon Challenge, this is a must-attend; but even if you’re not, this will be a great educational opportunity for you with some of the best sourcers in the business.

Register for this free webinar…

About the panelists:

Dan Harris is a talent acquisition sourcer at Yahoo! He has previously sourced for Ebay, NetApp, VeriSign, Hyperion Solutions, and BEA Systems. Dan loves to source and proactively find new tools to help all of us.

Michael Notaro is a sourcing specialist currently working for Accenture. He’s a two-time winner of the SourceCon GrandMaster Sourcing Challenge (2007, 2008) and in 2006 he took first place in the AIRS Extreme Sourcing Competition, winning the event with a Google Custom Search Engine he created.

Irina Shamaeva is a sourcer, a recruiter, an Internet researcher, and an active member of the sourcing community. She searches on Google a lot but is not quite satisfied with its capabilities – she feels that creating Custom Search Engines is a good way to boost Google’s search capabilities and have more fun sourcing at the same time.

We are excited to announce our very first Challenge of the summer, sourcers! This is your opportunity to flex your sourcing muscles and prove that you are among the elite – and also win a trip to SourceCon this fall in Silicon Valley!

The Challenge:

Create an effective Google Custom Search Engine (CSE) that will find profiles, resumes, and contact directories online.

Yes… it really is that simple. Or so you thought… Mwahahaha! 

Because we want to assist you in the development of a really cool CSE, we have arranged a training webinar with three sourcers who have created some amazing CSEs already. Join us next week on Thursday, June 9 from 1pm – 2pm Eastern time to learn more about Google Custom Search Engines from Dan Harris, Mike Notaro, and Irina Shamaeva. They will go over the basics of what Google Custom Search Engines are all about and show you some examples of CSEs they’ve created as well as take you step-by-step through how to make your own. Even if you’re not planning to participate in the Challenge, this will be a great educational opportunity for you with some of the best in the business. Click here to register for the webinar.

The Rules:

1. You must create an original CSE (no copying other people’s work!!) that can be used to source people profiles, resumes, and contact lists online.
2. You may submit a CSE that you have already created – but it must be YOUR OWN WORK.
3. The Challenge will begin today (June 1) and will end at midnight on June 17. You may submit your entry at any time between now and then.
4. Once you submit your CSE, you may NOT make changes to it. Trust us: we will know if you do — so don’t do it!
5. The title of your CSE must be formatted in the following manner: [SourceCon 2011 Challenge #1 ] — [First name] [Last name]
   Example: SourceCon 2011 Challenge #1  — Amybeth Hale
6. Your CSE may contain no more than four (4) refinements.
7. Your CSE must “search the entire web but emphasize included sites.”
8. Your CSE MUST have a variety of results — no LinkedIn/ZoomInfo/Jigsaw only CSEs. Variety is the spice of life!
9. The top three (3) CSEs will be selected by popular vote, with the final winner selected by quantitative analysis. The final selection parameters will be announced once the three finalists are chosen.
10. If you are selected as a finalist, you will need to submit your CSE’s XML code.
11. Did we mention that your CSE must be created by you and not be a knock-off of anyone else’s work? Be original. We know you’re capable.

On June 20, we will share all of the entries to the Challenge on SourceCon.com. The first round of judging will come from your peers – so put your promotion hats on! You will have until June 30 to market your CSE to your networks and beg, grovel, plead, etc. for votes. Of course, we hope that you’ll simply create the most amazing CSE out there and that the sourcing community will vote for your CSE because of its sheer awesomeness. But how you choose to grub for votes is up to you. By the way, voting must be done on the official challenge site — votes anywhere else will not count.

On July 1, we will tally up the votes and announce the top three CSE finalists along with the final selection criteria. Make your CSE effective and efficient… the final selection criteria will put your CSE to the test.This will include point rankings based on variety of results as well as quality.

The overall winner will be announced on July 8.

The Rewards:

Of the three popular vote finalists, the overall winner will receive one (1) free complimentary pass to attend SourceCon in Silicon Valley, October 13-14. He/she will also be provided travel and hotel accommodations and be eligible to participate in the SourceCon GrandMaster Sourcing Championship to take place during the conference.

The Small Print:

1. Travel includes one (1) round-trip coach airline ticket to be booked through our travel agency and valued at up to $400 including taxes and fees. Hotel accommodations include one night, room and tax, at the hotel where staff and speakers are staying for the event. Additional nights can be arranged, on your own, at a discounted rate.
2. Only one (1) person may win. You are welcome to create a CSE as a group but only one individual from your group will be eligible to win. It is up to you to decide who that is.
3. Prizes are non-transferrable.
4. Failure to follow any and all of the directions will result in disqualification. No exceptions — pay attention to the Challenge details.

You have your mission… should you choose to accept it. Good luck, sourcers! We look forward to seeing what you come up with.