The Source Newsletter

…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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Curious to learn more about my upcoming keynote at SourceCon 2010 in DC?

My session will essentially be a follow up to the keynote I presented at SourceCon earlier this year in San Diego. At the very end of my Resume Sourcing: Artificial Intelligence vs. Human Cognition presentation, I briefly covered some “bonus material” which included a quick overview of what I believe to be the 5 levels of Talent Mining.

At the SourceCon event at the International Spy Museum, I will dive more deeply into the concept of Talent Mining and the 5 levels that I have identified.

There are individuals in the HR/recruiting industry who believe that searching databases, the Internet, and social networking sites to source talent is relatively easy and that it can be automated through the use of technology.

On one hand, sourcing candidates is easy because we have more access to more human capital data than we ever have in the history of recruiting (the proverbial haystack is growing by the second!), and there are many solutions available that can automate candidate sourcing.

On the other hand, just because the haystack is growing doesn’t mean it is any easier to find the needles (it actually makes it harder!), and today’s automated solutions have serious limitations in their capabilities and are certainly unable to replicate the performance of a talented and creative sourcer or recruiter.

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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:

• Erica Steffenson, Principal Recruiter at ev3
• Charles Bretz, Sr. Sourcing Specialist at CDW Corporation
• Alaina Rivas, Sourcing Specialist at Administaff
• Irina Shamaeva, Partner at Brain Gain Recruiting
• Andrea Mitchell, Talent Strategist at Peerlo
• Andrea Holtman, Sourcer at Systems Evolution, Inc
• Megan Moore, Recruiting & Sourcing Specialist at Administaff
• Srinivas Gundelli, Sourcing and Talent Acquisition EMEA (freelancer)

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!

Many of you have shared with us that while you would love to attend SourceCon in September, you’re not quite sure how to pitch it to your boss. Perhaps you’re uncertain of how to prove the value to you and your organization as a whole. Whatever the reason may be, we’ve come up with a nice business case for attending SourceCon that you can either forward to your boss, or print off a hard copy to hand to them.

We hope to see you in Washington, D.C., and let us know if we can help you get there!

Click here for a printable PDF

Join the Million Sourcer March on Washington in September! Well…. probably not a million, but there will be a convening of some of the brightest sourcing minds around in Washington, D.C. for SourceCon Fall 2010…will you join us?

The next SourceCon event will take place in Washington, D.C. on September 28-29. The conference will be held at the International Spy Museum. I am pretty sure you will be hard-pressed to find a cooler venue for us to learn and play. Stay tuned for some fun and exciting events taking place in the museum to help satisfy a bunch of cybersleuths.

Led by our chairperson Eric Jaquith, this year’s speaker lineup includes sourcing experts such as Chris Gould & Tim O’Connor from Hewitt, Mike Notaro, Earl Mann, Maureen Sharib, Shally Steckerl, and many others. Stay tuned for updates on the agenda and speaker lineup over the next few weeks.

To register today, follow this link. Space is limited, so please register early. We hope to see you in September!

*editor’s note: I highly recommend bringing some spending cash – there are some sweet spy goodies to be had at the Spy Museum!

I’ve been to all three SourceCon conferences, so you could call me a SourceCon roadie. I was privileged to be asked to speak at the first SourceCon in 2007, and after that conference I was asked to be part of the editing team to run the SourceCon Newsletter, later renamed The Source. I’ve been around the block when it comes to SourceCon and have seen its birth, watched it grow and go through that awkward period in its life, have seen it grow up and begin to mature, and last fall I attended its marriage to ERE. After attending SourceCon 2010 in San Diego last week, I have to say that this was the best I’ve seen SourceCon look. This year’s conference truly felt like a family reunion to me.

I won’t spend a lot of time reviewing the conference blow-by-blow; you can read all about the sessions and speakers on Mike Notaro, Dave Mendoza, Katharine Robinson, Sharlyn Lauby, Arbita, HR Margo, Jim Stroud, or Glen Cathey’s blogs. (sorry if I missed any!) What I want to talk about is where we go from here…

For anyone who attended at least one of the previous conferences, I’m sure you share my feelings about this conference. It was like seeing long lost friends and family members. Our group as a micro-community within the recruiting community has always been tight and close-knit. We are true family… we don’t always agree or get along, but when push comes to shove, we are always there for each other. We support and defend each other vehemently and stand united in the cause to promote understanding of and respect for our profession. We’ve come a long way in our quest to educate our recruiting brothers and sisters on our role within a recruiting organization. But there is still much work to be done…

Our function has always evolved. Our position is never a stagnant one, and we must constantly learn and improve to stay relevant. For the last several years, our roles have been heavily reliant on the technical aspects of Boolean search and understanding search engine navigation. With the onset of social over the past couple of years, our roles have begun to shift. Semantic search has become a focus, as has mastery of social technologies. In order to stay relevant, we must bend and adjust to the flow of information and the methods of communication that people use. After all, it is the people we are after – not the technology. We must find them where they are at.

Our roles are quickly requiring us to be on the front-line of engagement – having initial discussions that may not even be work- or job-related, and providing a warm-fuzzy feeling for the companies we represent. This researcher certainly hates to admit it – I have spent the greater part of my research career saying “I don’t talk to people”, and I’ve lately found myself striking up conversations via various social tools in order to build relationships. What used to be a skill and function reserved mainly for recruiters has now crept a little into our world. And as much as we may resist, it is a reality.

Have no fear though – for as much conversation around automation as there is, we will still need butts in the driver’s seats for all of the sourcing tools that are out there. Automation can be achieved in many parts of our job, but there there will always be a need for someone to manage. As Bryan Starbuck of TalentSpring shared with me, through the evolution of digging with your hands, to a shovel, to a bulldozer, there has always been a human involved in the work. We will certainly see lots more automation, but our job will never be 100% automate-able.

So where do we go from here, sourcing community? I have five next-steps to task you with:

1. Never stop learning. Continue to remain relevant by educating yourself on as many tools and processes as possible. Don’t resist change, learn to bend and adapt to it. Keep in mind that the best education comes from making mistakes and learning from them. If you’re not green and growing, then you’re red and rotting.
2. Embrace and uplift the community. Encourage each other in all endeavors. Never forget that you were once a sourcing newbie yourself, and show the same kindness that was given to you to the newcomers. Give praise generously and provide positive, constructive feedback when you see areas for improvement. (privately is usually the best way!)
3. Communicate freely with your recruiting teams. If they have questions about your job function, find out what they are and where they come from, and help them to understand the value you bring to the table. Hold regular meetings with your colleagues and teach them about the tools you use to help them do their jobs better. It is easier to dismiss that which we do not understand, so providing understanding to your teammates will help them to appreciate your job function.
4. Get involved with The Source! This newsletter is for all of you, but it’s also BY all of you. We’d love to have an article, video, slideshow, etc. from you to share here. We do have a slate of regular contributors but we certainly want to include postings from lots of other people.
5. Plan to come to SourceCon 2011 and share the successes that you’ll surely have over the next year. There aren’t any dates in place yet, but the learning experience is priceless (ask anyone who has ever attended one!) and the offline discussions are an added bonus. I can’t even begin to describe to you the joy I experienced seeing so many of you in San Diego that I hadn’t seen in a couple of years.

The conference was a success only because you all made it one. From the presenters to the attendees, it is always about the people. Thank you for making SourceCon 2010 a must-attend conference, and I look forward to seeing my family again at our next reunion.

You’ve been waiting for them – here they are! Photos from the SourceCon conference in San Diego. Check ‘em out!

You can also check them out here on Flickr.

Two of our regular contributors wanted to share their experiences from last week’s SourceCon conference. Their experiences were night and day, because one was in attendance at the conference, while the other observed parts of the conference from the livestream that was provided. Here are Marvin’s and Andrea’s reviews of their SourceCon experiences…

Ladies first – Andrea!

Watching SourceCon from afar I couldn’t help but be impressed by how polished the conference looked, almost as much as I was impressed by the quality of the speakers and the depth and breadth of information. The speakers presented a holistic view of sourcing that really reasonated with me as it is something I try to push as much as possible. Starting off with Sheila Greco’s presentation around phone sourcing and process was a great way to set the scene. Sheila said a couple of things that stick in my mind; the main one was “find the tools that work for you”. This is key to the sourcing process and something that I kept thinking about throughout the conference. Sheila also mentioned that “research is a talent”, and both of these statements were reiterated to me when Shally said “even the greatest, most expensive tools do not a sourcer make”. I had expected SourceCon to have a focus around the tools, but was surprised to see it was really balanced. Not that I don’t love tools, I love internet research and discovering cool tools that help me to better find and connect with people. Eric Jaquith’s presentation was jam packed with tools that serve this exact purpose, so much so it was hard to keep up. I have yet to watch Eric’s presentation again but I will, and this time I will be writing down every cool and unusual tool that he highlights.

I liked how Shally gave us the strategic view with statistics from the Recruitment Genome project as well as the more tactical Boolean “goodness” that he is so great at. Speaking of Boolean, Glen Cathey’s presentation showed how we could leverage semantic search applications in conjunction with Boolean and your own intelligence and natural curiosity and to find the right candidates.

Social media was also a focus, both from a tools perspective and for building relationships and communities. This was highlighted by Marvin Smith as well as Terri & Gail from Intuit. Terri and Gail showed that social media can be used to find and place candidates from all levels, and that it is important to have a strategy to “engage the candidates where they’re at”. I think that Marvin’s session was a great way to sum up and to show that with all the technology and cool tools we need to make sure we keep the human element in recruitment.

Marvin

Looking back on SourceCon 2010, one week removed, I have some random thoughts on the experience.

My initial insight is on the weekend that daylight saving time rolls in, do not take an early morning flight.  Even coffee with @researchgoddess did not fully awaken me and prepare me for a very busy Sunday.

I think ERE did a great job of keeping the DNA that Leslie (and Rob aka the sourcing dude) rolled out in the previous two events.  ERE retained the event talents of Kate & Crew, so everything went off without a hitch.

Jim Stroud continues his run as SourceCon Master of Ceremonies.  Between hawking magazines and giving away cash, Jim  kept things light and the agenda moving forward in a timely manner.

Eric Jaquith made a return visit to SourceCon and was insightful and thought provoking as usual.  Honestly, I do not know where he gets some of his techniques.

For me, meeting Glen Cathey was a was a real treat.  He had a great presentation and lived up to his billing a entertaining speaker and a sourcing thought leader.

I also was impressed with Terri Coligan & Gail Houston with Intuit.  As a fellow traveler on the talent community pathway, I enjoyed hearing about their workstream.

There was some new ideas used at SourceCon.  The Firefox Lab with Russ Moon and John Turnberg was very cool.

I thought the sourcing labs sessions were intriguing and seemed to really resonated with the sourcing community.  Interestingly, one of my colleagues went the lab on Sunday and I never saw him again.  I am not certain what went on there, but Glenn, Shally & the rest of the lab presenters seemed to keep people captivated.

I think the streaming the SourceCon and ERE events over the internet is just plain cool.  A big shout out to ERE (and their sponsors) for making that investment.  Personally, being streamed live over the internet is interesting.  It certainly impacts how one answers questions from the audience.

My biggest disappointment at SourceCon was not being able to listen to my friends Kay Kelison & Marie Journey present as we were scheduled at the same time.

I must admit, I had a great time last week.  Next Sourcecon will be my 4th and I look forward to gathering with the sourcing community to catch up on the great work that is being done in global talent identification and the tools and techniques to do our jobs.

It 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?

As 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.