A note from the Editor: I will never be younger, nor again be new to this industry. I remember the first few weeks when I started as a naive Sourcer, maladroitly learning with each snafu. By all means, those were not the glory days. Yet, there is something extraordinary about new experiences and beginning a career. This is the most valuable time for a Sourcer. It’s the time to learn and to experiment with your craft. These early lessons will soon become memories and they will help mold an eager apprentice into who they are today. I am pleased to introduce a new series, “The Beginning,” where we have the chance to refurbish our distant rookie memories and follow Jeremy Da Costa as he grows his career as a Sourcer.
Ever since I could remember I was exposed to recruiting in some shape or form. I grew up as the son of a recruiting professional and was a college baseball player, that was scouted for the majors. Because of all of this exposure, I have always had an interest in the field.
I have early memories of my father working from home, and from time to time, I would help him input information into an applicant tracking system. Like my father, I have a love for learning new information about various subjects. This meant I spent an ample amount of time researching.
Looking back, I have always researched anything and everything. Through researching, I became an expert on sharks as well as dinosaurs for both academic purpose and my own desire and passion for researching these subjects. I had learned so much about sharks that when I went to the aquarium, I knew more about sharks than the person who worked there.
Research and sourcing are connected and in many ways are the same thing. Due to this, I felt like the sourcing part of recruiting was an ideal fit. I love being able to find a candidate, who fits a particular skillset, and then find even more information on them. I enjoy learning as much as possible about my candidates. Their experiences are both extremely interesting and challenging for me.
Sourcing isn’t only about finding candidates and learning about their past experiences. You also have the ability to dive deep into their social world and see how they share information on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other social profiles. You can learn valuable information by observing others online.
My quest continued to learn more about the recruitment industry. I was given an opportunity from my dad to go through training, both his training and Social Talent’s Sourcing Ninja certification. During this training, I was fortunate enough to garner a few opportunities to source. The first opportunity was simply researching an industry, a position and even creating Boolean strings for another recruiter.
During my next opportunity, I had to find testers in the Seattle area. I utilized everything I was learning; Boolean, social sourcing, finding contact info, scraping and so much more. When I was done with this project I had found over 200 testers that matched the position we were sourcing for. This was an amazing feeling, I felt so good afterward. I was hooked on sourcing.
Sourcing has always reminded me of some of the video games I play, mostly the detective ones. Because of all this, I fell in love with sourcing and was ready to make it a career. I started the process of seeking entry level recruiting and sourcing positions. My dad put out an “all points bulletin” saying I was looking. I was fortunate and got a great response. After a few interviews, I was lucky to quickly find a position with a great company called David Brown International, and the rest, as they say, is history.