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Articles tagged 'Challenges'

Challenges, SourceCon

SourceCon Musings from @infosourcer

by on Sep. 20, 2010

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photo courtesy of Shally

As per the request put forth by Amybeth last Friday, I definitely wanted to share my personal experience with SourceCon because it was a special part of my previous career as a recruiting researcher!

My involvement with SourceCon officially began when I took on the first ever Sourcecon challenges back in the summer of 2007. This post sums up the challenges quite well: “48 hours into Challenge #2 and the feedback is that it is just too hard. The feedback we received from Challenge #1 was “too easy”.

Well, Challenge #1 was won by Mike Notaro, but again, it was too easy (hehe Mikey, sorry, I just had to say something about that). I had a whale of a time trying to figure out Challenge #2, but when I got the “final answer” and won, I was pretty pleased with myself. You can check out my step-by-step methodology here.

Last, but not least, Jeremy Langhans completed the Three Amigos team when he won Challenge #3. All of us were flown to Atlanta, GA for a chance to compete in the dreaded “Grand Master Challenge”. This was exciting for several reasons:

What I remember most was the excitement and buzz that was in the air. There seemed to be a mutual feeling of being a part of something cool, new, exciting and special. And indeed it was all those things. The presentations were all informative and engaging, the networking events were fun and mutually beneficial to all involved, and many of the friendships made have lasted to this day.

While I did not win the Grand Master Challenge (Mikey did, and did so again the following year), it was a wonderful time to be in the Sourcing industry, and I will remember SourceCon 2007 as being kind of like that first blockbuster movie – though the sequels may be unique and awesome in their own right (and in some cases better!), the first one will always hold a special place in our hearts.

Cheers to all of you going to SourceCon 2010 and Source On!

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Challenges, SourceCon

The #SourceCon Contest Winner is…

by on Sep. 3, 2010

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Shamaeva-Irina

…Irina Shamaeva - Executive Recruiter, Expert Sourcer, and Partner at Brain Gain Recruiting, an executive search firm that specializes in placing senior level software development, IT, and strategy consulting candidates nationwide.  Irina is no stranger to the SourceCon challenges – last year she won one of the preliminary challenges leading up to the Grandmaster Challenge.  You can find her at any of her community sites which include the Boolean Strings Group and Network as well as the Twitter for Sourcing and Recruiting Group. You can also connect with Irina via her Boolean Strings blog,  LinkedIn, or via Twitter at @braingain.

We asked Irina to share with us how she solved the contest puzzle:

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Challenges, SourceCon

The #SourceCon Contest: Round 2, Baby!

by on Aug. 31, 2010

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We showed you how Round 1 went down last week. On September 1st at noon Eastern, we’ll begin Round 2.

Eight people made themselves eligible to win a complimentary pass to SourceCon Fall 2010 by solving the QR code puzzle last week:

Several others I heard got close but didn’t complete the puzzle all the way. Details were crucial in Round 1 of the contest, as is true with our jobs as sourcers!

While only these eight will be competing for the complimentary pass, everyone else is invited to participate in the contest. It is open to anyone who wants to ‘play’ so put on your thinking cap and see if you can solve the puzzle. You’re welcome to cheer each other on and help each other out (including the contestants) but part of the fun of the contest will be seeing who can make sense of the clues. Are you good enough to make it all the way through?

Good luck to the eight contestants above, and keep your eyes peeled at noon on Wednesday!

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Challenges, SourceCon

The #SourceCon Contest: How It All Went Down

by on Aug. 27, 2010

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We quietly ran a contest this week on sourcecon.com to gather a small group of individuals who will be competing against each other online for a complimentary event pass to SourceCon Fall 2010. By quietly, I mean we made no official announcements of running any contest – we just wanted to see who was paying attention to the little hints that we left here and there! If you weren’t aware of it, it’s because part of the contest was actually finding it.
Sneaky, huh!?

Well, eight bright sourcing professionals were able to decipher the clues to enter themselves into the contest. And since the first round of competition is over, we want to show you how we did it.

  1. An article was run on Tuesday discussing the use of QR codes in sourcing and recruiting campaigns. In that post, there was an image of a QR code – shown here.
  2. By scanning that code with a QR reader, the following text appeared: ‘Want to win a FREE pass to SourceCon Fall 2010 in Washington, D.C.? Go to http://www.sourcecon.com/2010dc/QR and enter the passcode: dmsb09ahtr06′
  3. After going to the contest website and entering in the code, further instructions were detailed on how to enter, including emailing some information to a specified account, following @TheSourceNews on Twitter, and DMing that account with a unique passcode that was provided.
  4. Over the course of the week, I dropped subtle hints about the contest via tweets, hints to “scan” the website, and even a note at the top of the email subscription page alerting readers that there was a contest going on.

The goal of this contest was to get your attention and challenge you to look for clues and use your sourcing brain to figure out how to enter.

Congratulations to our seven participants! The next round of competition will begin very soon – keep your eyes peeled.

Sidenote: today is the last day to take advantage of the $895 pricing for attending SourceCon Fall 2010! After today, the price goes up. If you want to get in on the savings, register today!

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Challenges, Technology & Resources, The Sourcing Function

Find Your Target Audience Where They Gather

by on Aug. 27, 2010

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Last week, I looked out the window in my home office and noticed a spider had spun a web just outside my window. I found this interesting since it obviously took a lot of work for her to set up her web in that spot – there is a significant distance between the wall that juts out on the left side of the window and the landing area to my front door that is way to the right of my window. I started wondering, “Why on earth would this spider go to all that trouble of spinning a web there?” As I pondered this, I began to put together the pieces of the puzzle:

  • Spiders eat insects (duh) – including moths
  • Moths are drawn to light (another duh)
  • I work in the evening quite often, after it gets dark (lightbulb moment!)

I live in a pretty woodsy area, and when it gets dark here, it gets DARK. When I work at night, there aren’t any other lights on other than the one in my office, which shines brightly through my window. The spider set up her web in front of my window because when I work late at night, it is a beacon for all types of insects, which she can then easily catch.

She set up her web where her target audience would gather.

Over the last few days, I’ve noticed the web has moved a little bit – probably due to repairs needing to be made after catching a meal – but it has remained right there in front of my window. She obviously has been doing well having set up shop in that location. My window spider is an out-of-the-box thinker.

So is James Bromley of MailOnline, a UK web news source. Earlier this week, John Zappe wrote a great article on ERE.net about a source code ‘job posting’ that appeared in the robot.txt file of www.dailymail.co.uk – seen here:

Talk about targeted marketing! Any of you sourcers recognize this concept? Using source code to hide a secret message? If you need a hint…. think about Rob’s Dog. And Jim’s Dog. Contests put on by two sourcing masterminds to see who can think outside the box to solve a problem and prove their professional skills. And in the case of MailOnline, to hopefully find an excellent SEO Manager. Brilliant!

Set up your sourcing campaigns where your target audience is sure to see them. You’ll have better luck ‘catching’ what you’re after!

By the way – we’re currently running a contest here on sourcecon.com – the prize will be a complimentary pass to SourceCon Fall 2010 in D.C. As of the time of this post, you’ve only got three hours left to get in on the action and qualify for the first round. The catch: finding the contest is actually part of the contest. I suggest you scan the website carefully…good luck!

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SourceCon

I Am #SourceCon

by on Mar. 12, 2010

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IamSourcecon1It started three years ago… the mystery of who was behind SourceCon. Who brainstormed the conference? Who was behind those crazy challenges? Leslie O’Connor was finally outted as the originator of SourceCon, and Rob McIntosh revealed himself as the original “SourceCon Dude” – the man who crafted the challenges and baffled us all. But now the torch has been passed to David Manaster and ERE. So, is that who is truly behind SourceCon? Who, exactly, IS, SourceCon now?

IamSourceCon2As with any rumor in this very close-knit community of ours, things have gotten out of hand. Speculations abound that the mastermind behind the challenges is none other than the conference emcee Jim Stroud. Others murmurings are that it must be Shally Steckerl and the team at Arbita who are indeed #SourceCon, and others still have anonymously dropped hints that they are the ones creating the challenges. Recently, a handful of people have also come forth, proclaiming publicly that they themselves are #SourceCon – including James Mayes, David Manaster, Marie Journey (she even has video evidence??), and even our own Chief Editor, Amybeth Hale. With so many possibilities, how are we to determine who indeed is the real #SourceCon?

The fact is that SourceCon isn’t about one, two, or even a small handful of people behind the challenges. It’s about the community that has developed over the years out of a common bond. Our camaraderie is due to our desire to be seen as different from our recruiting colleagues – not one and the same, but a separate  and vitally important piece of the entire talent acquisition machine. We longed to be given the proper respect for the work we do, and as a result we have banded together to help our brothers and sisters in the same struggle. Our support of each other led to the development of communities: listservs, discussion groups, social networks, blogging communities, etc. This resulted in many of our community members establishing training agendas and offering ongoing support as their entire line of work. We have so many unbelievably talented individuals in our sourcing community, each with a special skill to share with everyone, and all so incredibly willing to share these skills with his or her colleagues. This is a family, in the truest sense.

The culmination of this ‘family’ mentality is the development of an educational conference that was designed specifically for those of us in research roles. We finally have a system that is uniquely ours, created by us, for us. And so, taking that into consideration, we can safely conclude that no individual person is #SourceCon. In fact, we are all #SourceCon, because each and every one of us has a stake in this community. We wanted it, we created it, and we all continue to grow and nurture it. With all of us standing together to say “I am #SourceCon”, our collective voices proclaim instead that We Are #SourceCon.

Please share this message with your fellow researchers and let them know that you are #SourceCon when you do so. You are all #SourceCon and we are looking forward to seeing you this weekend.

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