The Source Newsletter

A cool new technology that has gained popularity over the last year is the QR code. A QR, or “Quick Response”, code is a matrix barcode (or two-dimensional code), readable by QR scanners, mobile phones with camera, and smartphones. The code consists of black modules arranged in a square pattern on white background. The information encoded can be text, URL or other data. Some ways you can read QR codes include:

• Downloading a QR reader app to your mobile phone
  • Some free apps for the iPhone
    • QR Reader for iPhone
    • QR Scanner
    • UpCode
    • Semacode (the one I use)
  • Some free apps for Android
  • Some free apps for Blackberry
• Taking a photo of a QR code with your mobile, or printing it out, and using your webcam to read the code with a desktop code reader (like bcWebCam or QReader)

Obviously, the mobile option for reading QR codes is the easiest, hence its appeal to mobile marketing. Lots of companies are starting to use these QR codes to promote their brands, share specials, and basically just heighten awareness of their products and services. But can this be leveraged for recruiting, and more importantly for us, to bolster sourcing efforts?

Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday I received a notification from Jobvite that the results to their 2010 Social Recruiting Survey were available. This is a topic of great interest to me, as it is to many of you, so I couldn’t wait to take a look at it. Sure enough, not much surprised me – more companies are embracing the use of social networks like LinkedIn, more money is being put into the purchase of social technologies, and more companies are claiming that greater percentages of their hires are starting to come from social networks and other online resources.

Big shocker! But there is a message that we, as sourcing professionals, need to find between the lines here…

Social recruiting is changing the scope of our job.

Let’s face it sourcers, we used to be able to get away with hiding in the corners of our offices, nose glued to our monitor(s), feverishly typing away on our keyboards drumming up complex Boolean search strings to scour the Internet for our diamond in the rough. In the words of Fergie, “That’s so two-thousand-and-late” these days. Gone are the days of total introversion and zero interaction with potential candidates. Read the rest of this entry »

Regular Contributor post from Kristen Fife

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I recently had a phone conversation with someone I’ve crossed paths with in the local Seattle recruiting community but  have never met personally.

This is a question a good sourcer gets asked fairly frequently. My skill set, which like any good recruiter includes agency/corporate full lifecycle recruiting, has a strong Sourcing component. And by sourcing, I’m not talking about a junior recruiter doing a keyword search based on a profile or generic job description.

A good Sourcer enjoys research, marketing, and building long-term relationships with people. As I said in my conversation earlier this week, Sourcing as a separate specialty in Recruiting is a fairly recent “job title” as a senior recruiting role. Before the advent of major Applicant Tracking Systems, almost *all* recruiters had to be strong in both sourcing and account management. My Mom was a nurse recruiter back in the 80’s and her eyes glaze over when I talk about Boolean search strings and the various ATS’s I’ve mastered over the years. It’s only when I talk about posting a job or attending a live networking event that she actually has a frame of reference. For her it was about picking up the phone, reaching out to her professional colleagues for referrals and recommendations, and meeting with both campus and industry candidates.

In the 90’s, technology took much of the human element *out* of recruiting, while streamlining the recruiting process and allowing recruiters to handle much higher requisition loads in the process. I believe that search technology (thank you Google) has brought about the advent of “Sourcing”. Now that we can run targeted searches on large numbers of candidates, “sourcing” has become even more valued as a skill.

But Sourcing is more than just being able to run a Boolean search query. Much, much more. Sourcing is also about employment branding. As the first line in a *proactive* recruiting process, we are the initial representative of our organization. A large part of our success depends on creating long-term relationships, keeping them warm, and building trust and reliability. On top of that, we need to know the state of the industry both locally and nationally so we are aware of employment trends. Strong research and analytic skills are key to our profession.

And of course there is the very real human element. Like any good recruiter, we must be comfortable picking up the phone and talking to people. One of the best parts about being a senior sourcing professional, for me, is the luxury of forming strong professional relationships and gaining a reputation as someone to “send” trusted friends and colleagues to.

And last but not least, as the forerunner of the recruiting arm of an organization, candidates and potential candidates are almost *always* happy to hear from me.  I am calling them to talk to them about their professional expertise. To get to know them, what motivates them, and to make them feel valuable and to be interested in their careers. Who doesn’t like that?