It was a packed house at SourceCon this week in surprisingly-good-weathered Seattle. Here are a few things I heard in the hallways, session rooms, at lunch, and at the roundtables. Next up for Sourcecon: Amsterdam and then Atlanta (both here).
- Glen Cathey asked attendees in a show of hands who’s an introvert, and then did the same asking who’s an extrovert. Looked like it came out around 50-50.
- Speaking of Cathey … for Angie Verros, introducing him was a huge honor; Cathey was one of the first people she got to know in the industry, and a long-time favorite of hers.
- Two of Jeremy Langhans’ favorite tools: LightShot and ZAPinfo.
- Tuesday’s salmon-chowder soup: big hit.
- At the Wednesday roundtable on recruiter-sourcer partnerships, one attendee recommended the book “Influence.” At the “pipelines” roundtable, one recruiter said she wanted to tell hiring managers: “They’re passive candidates. Don’t grill ’em.” And, at the candidate engagement roundtable, said one attendee: “The marketing department at our company, we kinda butt heads. Everything we want to do, they want to be polished, bland, and not fun at all.” On Thursday at the candidate-engagement roundtable, one recruiter said she reads a draft of her outreach emails to her husband and a couple friends. Then, she asks them: “How bored are you?”
- Prestige Healthcare has the difficult task of recruiting people for the senior-living area. It’s getting creative, including making videos describing its jobs like for nursing-leadership roles.
- Career development has become a vital part of the value proposition, says Mercer’s Brian Smith. “We must be able to communicate both internally and externally what career development looks like at our organization.”
- There’s a website for finding “tools, apps, and websites for recruiters.”
- Vanessa Rath is working on bringing new tools and methods to South Africa. The main tools in use now in South Africa: “LinkedIn and job boards,” she says.
- In fact, Bret Feig said later Thursday afternoon, “let me you in on a little secret. There are other sites besides LinkedIn.” Feig fondly remembers Jigsaw, now data.com, and is already mourning its May 2019 sunset. But, says Feig, “there are new tools coming on the market every day.”
- Yello, at its booth, streamed three hours of a live feed of the greatest day of the year, including a last-second finish in the Auburn-New Mexico State game. Brilliant!
- A third-party recruiter is contacting candidates in different ways depending on what he perceives to be their personality, based on what he sees online. If they’re “dominant” or “alpha,” for example, he’ll get right to the point; in other cases, he’ll go softer. He says he “loves” Humantelligence and is also looking at DeeperSense and Crystal Knows.
- For those concerned about the future of their jobs, says Langhans, be worried if your role is to “copy and paste from the Internet.”
- On the other hand … Jason Roberts asked this in a live poll: “Are you worried that AI will cause you to lose your job?” No, says 91 percent of attendees. “Will AI have a positive effect on talent acquisition?” Yes, said 81 percent. More in the PDF I’ve embedded here.