The Source Newsletter

THE HISTORY OF SOURCING

55 BC

The first employee referral program

In the collections of the British Museum, there is a decree signed by Julius Caesar in 55 B.C., promising a reward of 300 sestertii to any soldier who brought another to join the Roman army. This is the first known example of an employee-referral program. [ 1 ]

1350

Private Employment Services

Private employment services first begin in Germany [2]

1664

Press Gangs

Impressment (colloquially, “press-ganging”) is the act of conscripting people to serve in the military or navy, usually by force and without notice. It was used by the Royal Navy, beginning in 1664, during the 18th century and early 19th century, in time of war as a means of crewing warships, although legal sanction for the practice goes back to the time of King Edward I. The Royal Navy impressed many British merchant sailors, as well as some sailors from other nations. People liable to impressment were eligible men of seafaring habits between the ages of 18 and 55 years, though very rarely non-seamen were impressed as well. If they believed that they were impressed un- fairly, pressed men were able to submit appeals to the Admiralty, and those appeals were often success- ful. The navy had little interest in impressing people who were not ordinary or able seamen, since they would be of no use on board a ship.
Impressment was strongly criticized by those who be- lieved it contrary to the British constitution, but as it was deemed vital to the strength of the navy and, by extension, to the survival of the realm, it was repeatedly upheld by the courts. The impressment of sea- men from American ships caused serious tensions between Britain and the United States in the years leading up to the War of 1812. After the defeat of Na- poleon in 1814, Britain ended the practice and never resumed. [ 3 ]

1800

Employment Services on the rise

During the Napoleon era of the 1800’s, the British and French used employment services to recruit labour for their empires. Said employment services were paid so much “per head” for delivering workers to their employer. (This is where the term “headcount” originates?) [ 4 ]

1848

The first Search Firm is established

The first American personnel service, known as the “Employment Exchange” was established in Boston Massachusetts in 1848. [ 5 ]

1870

The telephone is invented

In the 1870s, two inventors Elisha Gray and Alexander Graham Bell both independently designed devices that could transmit speech electrically (the telephone). Both men rushed their respective designs to the patent office within hours of each other, Alexander Graham Bell patented his telephone first. Elisha Gray and Alexander Graham Bell entered into a famous legal battle over the invention of the tele- phone, which Bell won. [ 6 ]

1914

The practice of screening candidates begins

During World War One, private employment “agen- cies” screened needed people for positions with war plants. [ 7 ]

1939

USES is created

During World War Two, the Federal Government es- tablished the “United States Employment Service (USES), as well as various state agencies to help un- employed people find work. [ 8 ]

1946

Agencies enter the white-collar market

During the post war “boom,” employment agencies begin to focus on white-collar placements over blue- collar positions. Personnel services begin recruiting beyond clerical roles. [ 9 ]

1957

The internet is invented

The development of what we now call the Internet started in 1957 when the Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1, the first satellite, beating the United States into space. [ 10 ]

1971

Email is invented

In 1971 Ray Tomlinson of ARPANET sent the World’s first e-mail. [ 11 ]

1974

Frank McCarthy

Frank McCarthy was among the first pioneers to create a pure recruiting research firm – Xavier Associates, in 1973. It still exists today as the research division of HR-focused search firm Gatti and Associates.  Frank McCarthy also co-authored the first book on recruitment research, “Search Research: Mastering the Search Research Function” (The Kimberly Organization, 1975). [ 12 ]

1978

Mitre Corporation

“Mitre corporation in Boston posted all their scientific and engineering opportunities on a VAX in 1978 and advertised the fact (as well as an outside line that could be called by another VAX) in the New York Times. In those days a VAX could be bought for 100-200k. ther were NO personal computers beyond what one could make out of parts.” [ 13 ]

1979

Usenet

“USENET was developed in 1979 and I think there was a jobs news group available shortly thereafter. My first exposure was in 1984 when as the Director of Human Resources for Auragen System Corporation (an early UNIX system developer) I communicated our opportunities over USENET and mined for names at other computer companies to direct source. At that time internet recruiting was mostly the exclusive domain of technical managers working at larger host sites (over 400 by that time) and a handful of resourceful corporate recruiters.” [ 14 ]

1982

DP Locator/Baseplan Directories

QUOTE: “For your History of Sourcing book, you may want to check into DP Locator/Baseplan directories. I started there in ’90 and it was up and humming for 7 years before I arrived. Before Fortune 500 company Harte-Hanks bought the IRG parent and dissolved the division, DP Locator was a sourcing company. Founded circa ’82, the only product was a collection of regional books of IT staff members (10,000+ people per book) that recruiters would lease and DP Locator would update every month. Image a list of every IT person in every large IT shop in a given market: Chicago, Detroit, Boston, NY, Philly, NNJ, etc. The book ran ~$12,000/market for an annual print subscription. It went online in 2000. I managed the entire telephone research team of 6 people for years and we researched 300 people per day per researcher. The only computer used was by a data entry girl 2 departments over.” [ 15 ]

1984

Cable TV

In 1984 cable tv stations built classified sections scroll- ing across the bottom of the screens, invested in high end graphic workstations to upgrade to more visual ads and then began developing interactive cable tv in ohio and florida- then they were ALL promptly bought out by newspaper syndicates and shut down. [ 16 ]

1985

ExecuQuest

Constance “Conni” C. LaDouceur founded ExecuQuest in 1985 after 5 years with Heidrick & Struggles, Inc. ExecuQuest provides efficient sourcing solutions in all industries and functions, nationwide and abroad, via original telephone identification of qualified individuals and a passion for the hunt. [ 17 ]

1986

The Brentwood Group

Brentwood group is created as a research firm specializing in Namesourcing (over the phone) and later incorporating internet sourcing. [ 18 ]

1987

Professional Research Services

Professional Research Services (PRS) established. (Phone research mostly) [ 19 ]

1989

Drei Tauben

In 1989 I developed a dial-up computer job board called Drei Tauben (Three Pigeons) with 2 other Stevens Alumns. We populated the computer with hundreds of  (The images point the way) engineering postings and partnered with twelve col- lege engineering alumni associations to advertise the service to their alumni through their alumni magazines. At its peak in 1992 we were getting 6000 calls a week into the job board which was hosted on a 287 with 8 300 baud modems connected to 8 phone lines. [ 20 ]

1990—1992

Bill Warren

Bill Warren used CompuServe and Prodigy for communicating job vacancies. Quote: “When I was VP-Industrial Relations for Admiral Division of Rockwell International we had used CompuServe and Prodigy for communicating job vacancies between different Rockwell plants and divisions. When the Internet opened up to commercial use in 1992 I realized it had great potential for recruiting and employment.” [ 21 ]

1991

The Tiburon Group

Carl Kutsmode uses the Internet as a strategic re- cruiting resource. He would later create The Tiburon Group. [ 22 ]

1991

Duffy Research

Duffy Research was founded in 1991 by Kathleen Duffy Ybarra. Research and recruiting firm specializing in sourcing and qualifying candidates, verifying back- ground information and conducting exit interviews. [ 23 ]

1992

Online Career Center (OCC)

Bill Warren founded the Online Career Center (OCC), the first employment site on the internet. [ 24 ]

1994

Online Job Board Revolution

Joyce Lain Kennedy first wrote the Online Job Board Revolution in 1994. It was the first directory of dial up and internet boards. (Drei Tauben was given a very nice write up) I also have copies of several other early books and directories of note including my first…the first edition of CareerXroads in 1996. Eight more editions followed. [ 25 ]

1994 (May 7th)

CareerMosaic

CareerMosaic was founded. It is eventually pur- chased by Careerbuilder. [ 26 ]

Monster

Jeff Taylor contracted Christopher Caldwell of Net Dae- mons Associates to develop a facility in an NDA lab on a Sun Microsystems Sparc 5 where job seekers could search a job database with a web browser. The machine was moved to sit under a router in a phone closet in Adion (a human resources company owned by Taylor) when the site went live in April 1994.  Initially, the site was populated with job descriptions from the newspaper segment of Adion’s business with the permissions of the companies advertising the jobs.
Later in 1994, The Monster Board issued a press release that was picked up and provided needed exposure to drive people to the web site. Monster was the first public job search on the Internet; first public resume database in the world and the first to have job search agents or job alerts. [ 28]

1994

HTC

In Dec 1994 HTC was doing outsourcing work for RW Stearns in San Francisco. Founders Jeff Weidner and Jesse Hahn were working out of a 3 bedroom house in Martinez, CA [ 29 ]

1995

Monster

Monster Board is purchased by TMP and is renamed Monster.com” [ 30 ]

1995 (May 1st)

Bill Vick

Bill Vick creates “The Recruiters OnLine Network” a virtual community of employment firms worldwide. With over 4,500+ participating companies we are the worlds largest online association of recruiters, search firms, employment agencies and employment professionals.[ 31 ]

1995

HTC

In July 1995 HTC moved into an office space in Martinez, CA. At that time we had access to the internet and were pulling directories, lists, associa- tions, conference attendees off various web sites to support the growing need for our phone name genera- tion and profiling services.
Richard had been in the business of Staffing Research/Sourcing (The images point the way) for 15 years prior to HTC working with him. The partnership between RW Stearns and HTC Research came to an end in August 1996 and HTC began getting additional clients. [ 32 ]

1995 (OCT 31st)

CORS

CORS, Inc. an internet recruitment research firm is established. [ 33 ]

1995 (Dec 15th)

RTA

RTA begins selling Recruiting and Research Services [ 34 ]

1996

Glenn “The Great One” Gutmacher

Glenn Gutmacher develops an interactive seminar which later evolves into Recruiting-Online.com. [ 35 ]

1996

Gerry, HR and The Internet

In June 1996 I spoke at SHRM’s national Conference for the first time to a crowd of more than 1000 on the subject of “HR and the Internet” – which had not been broached before  25% of the room had email. less than 10% had ever seen a page on the internet. AOL bought 500 copies of our first book at the conference. [ 36 ]

1996 (August 12th)

Barbara Ling

Barbara Ling establishes Lingstar Consulting Services. [ 37 ]

1996

Maureen Sharib

Maureen and Bob Sharib co-found TechTrak to provide an efficient and excellent means to find appro- priate job candidates for your hard-to-fill positions. www.techtrak.com [ 38 ]

1997

Bill Warren

Bill Warren was awarded the 1997 Employment Management Association’s prestigious Pericles Pro Meritus Award, an honor presented by EMA in recognition of being the founder of online recruiting on the Internet. [ 39 ]

1997 (Mar 1st)

Jim Stroud

MCI creates the first corporate group dedicated to internet recruiting. Members include: Jim Rock, Carla Cavender, Jim Stroud and Rachel Platt under the leadership of Danny Thomas. [ 40 ]

Headhunter.net

HeadHunter.net is established as a free resume database. [ 41 ]

1997 (August 1st)

Resumax

Jim Stroud creates a short-lived resume marketing and recruitment research firm called “Resumax.” [ 42 ]

1997

AIRS is founded

AIRS is a diversified Human Capital Solutions company providing industry-leading training and certification, executive education and sophisticated Web tools for Talent Acquisition, Performance Development and Career Transition to more than 70 percent of the Fortune 500 as well as market-leading companies in virtually every industry. Founded in 1997, AIRS is headquartered in Wilder, VT. [ 43 ]

1997 (September 1st)

Recruiting-Online.com

Glenn Gutmacher establishes Recruiting-Online.com. [ 44 ]

1998

Mark E. Berger

Mark E. Berger starts writing the Internet Recruiting column for The Fordyce Letter. [ 45 ]

1997 (April 2nd)

1998 (January 1st)

Claybrooke and Associates

Claybrooke and Associates provides recruitment research training. Claybrooke & Associates expertise has been highlighted in national publications such as Business Week, Employment Management Today, The Fordyce Letter, Computer World Magazine, Technical Recruiter Magazine, Weddle’s Newsletter and CareerXRoads 1998,1999, and 2000 Edition. [ 46 ]

1998 (April 16th)

OnlineRecruiter.com

Trainor/Frank registers the domain - OnlineRecruiter.com [ 47 ]

1998 (May 18th)

Judy West

Judy West, Internet Researcher and Trainer, establishes Cyberrecruitingsecrets.com. [ 48 ]

1999

Otis Collier

Otis Collier creates industry buzz with his “Otis Bonus” tips during his tenure as an AIRS trainer. He later goes on to co-write the first edition of the AIRS’ “Find Diversity Candidates” course. [ 49 ]

RISE

Barbara Ling kicks of RISE Recruiter’s Internet Strategic Education seminars in the US and Canada. [ 50 ]

1999

Brett Hollander

Brett Hollander publishes Sourcerors Apprentice, a newsletter for Internet Researchers. It quickly becomes an industry standard for Sourcers world- wide. [ 51 ]

1999

Chandra Bodapati

“I started shipping some of the lead sourcing and candidate capturing tools under the eGrabber brand, and incorporated eGrabber in 1999. Many people will be surprised to hear that I filed for a couple of patents in 1999 in the field of automatic capture, parsing and transferring of leads, candidate info, schedules etc. from unformatted and free-form documents such as websites into a database. (Check US patent # 6339795 & 6711624). eGrabber and I have other pat- ents pending too. So we can legitimately claim to be a real pioneer in developing the technology that enables sourcing for leads and candidates on the Internet.“ [ 52 ]

1999 (June 30th)

Catherine Pringle

Recruitment Research Associates (RRA) is founded by Catherine Pringle. [ 53 ]

1999

1999 (October 13th)

Shally Steckerl

Shally Steckerl establishes JobMachine. [ 54 ]

Marc Hutto launches a centralized sourcing team at First Union National Bank (later to become Wachovia)in February 2000 with six people and grew it to 55 by March 2006. [ 55 ]

2000

Handler.com

Handler.com advertises its internet recruiting service [56]

2001

DuranHCP

James Duran and Frank Goudaillier founded DuranHCP and offer Internet Recruitment Training. [ 57 ]

2002

AG Research

AG Research, a contract research organization founded. [ 58 ] The images point the way

2002 (June 26, 2002)

Amybeth Hale

Amybeth Hale – “Research Goddess” and prolific blogger, begins her research career at JSI (Jonathan Scott International) [ 59 ]

2004

Jobster

Jobster is the online recruiting service that leverages what is being called Web 2.0 technology to provide a more relevant job search experience for jobseekers and effective tools for employers to reach beyond typical job boards. The end goal is to target, engage and hire the right candidates. Jobster helps jobseekers search the web and proactively get noticed for the right career opportunities (The images point the way) through one-stop access to more job list- ings than traditional job boards. Once jobseekers find the right opportunity, Jobster helps them use their contacts to get noticed amidst the sea of resumes.  For employers, Jobster helps proactively target and engage the right candidates by reaching the people who are not typically applying or actively looking for jobs. Targeted job marketing tools combined with referral networking technology lets recruiters market jobs, as well as the company, to the right people wherever they are. Built-in relationship management tools help recruiters efficiently manage the entire sourcing pro- cess, and identify and build relationships with the best prospects before requisitions are even opened. [ 60 ]

2004 (April 30th)

Barry Geiman

Barry Geiman created SOURCING Techniques and Methodologies Group started on ERE [ 62 ]

2004

Gretchen and Zoe

Gretchen Ledgard (pictured left) and Zoe Goldring create the first Corporate Recruiting Blog – “Technical Careers at Microsoft.” [ 61 ]

2004 (October 19th)

ASK Maureen

ASK Maureen (Sourcing/Research HELP) Group started on ERE [ 63 ]

2004 (November 16th)

Cybersleuthing

Shally’s Elite “Cybersleuthing” group started on ERE [ 64 ]

2005 (January 14th)

Searchologist

The word “Searchologist” is introduced to the industry. [ 65 ]

2005 (February 4th)

Rob McIntosh

An industry wide frenzy begins with the infamous “Rob’s Dog Challenge.” Two people solve the puzzle before one of the contestants exposes the answer online thereby ending the challenge. [ 66 ]

Sourcers Unleashed

Sourcers Unleashed Yahoo! group forms1 to discuss the front-end and little-understood activity called names sourcing – the finding of people who hold specific titles (usually) within (usually) specific organizations so that you may offer them your opportunity. [ 67 ]

2006 (July 11th)

Dave Mendoza

Dave Mendoza creates the influential blog—Six Degrees from Dave. [ 68]

2006 (October 13th)

Ritesh Nair

Ritesh Nair creates the sourcing blog “Researcher Secrets” [ 69 ]

2006 (November 1st)

Rob’s Dog 2

Jim Stroud blatantly rips off Rob McIntosh’s idea and creates a sequel to the “Find Rob’s Dog” challenge. 13 people solve it before the contest is ended a month later. [ 70 ]

2007 (September 11th)

SourceCon 2007

SourceCon – the premier conference for the Sourcing industry debuts in Atlanta, GA. Michael Notaro, Jeremy Langhans and Suzy Tonini compete for the Grandmaster Title. Michael Notaro takes the crown.

In 2008, SourceCon returned with an even larger attendance. Joshua Kahn, Julia Stone and Shannon Myers competed against the returning champion Michael Notaro for the title of Grandmaster. . To date, Michael Notaro retains his title.

It was recently announced that SourceCon will return in 2010. [71]