Category Archives: Sourcing

SourceCon 2012 Atlanta – the Biggest SourceCon Ever!

It’s official.

The SourceCon event at the Georgia Aquarium on Feb 9 & 10 will be the biggest event ever, with more attendees than any other SourceCon!

What that really means, other than proof that Atlanta is the center of the sourcing universe [sorry Seattle ;)], is that attendees will have more opportunity to network with, share best practices, and learn from other sourcers and sourcing leaders than ever before.

As you would expect, SourceCon will treat those in attendance with high-value keynotes and general sessions from industry luminaries such as:

  • Aida La Chaux from Yahoo on sourcing through adversity
  • Adam Lawrence of Alexander Mann Solutions on global sourcing
  • Jim Stroud of Bernard Hodes on social & personalized search
  • Eric Jaquith from SourceRight on how to stack the deck in your favor when it comes to sourcing
  • Conni LaDouceur on phone sourcing best practices (and yes, you’ll hear recorded calls!)

In addition, there are breakout tracks for sourcing leaders and for sourcing practitioners lead by Charles Bretz, Shannon Van Curen, Shannon Myers, Cathy Henesey, Elaine Order, Justin Clem, Anne DeWys, Therese Hightower, Cathy Henesey, and Atlanta’s own Chris Havrilla, covering topics such as ATS/candidate databases and social and mobile sourcing. Continue reading

What is Your Talent Sourcing ROI?

Anything worth doing is worth measuring, and sourcing isn’t exempt from this.

If you want to know which method of sourcing has the highest ROI in terms of enabling a person to find more of the right people more quickly, then you’re in luck – because that’s what this post is about.

Human capital data comes in many forms – resumes, social network profiles, blogs, bios, press resleases, etc. – and I have found that a key and critical aspect of sources of human capital data that many people fail to formally recognize is the depth and completeness of the data that can yield information through review and analysis.

When it comes to leveraging information systems such as the Internet, applicant tracking systems, social networking sites, job board databases, etc. for sourcing and recruiting – the operative word is “information.”

Data is the lowest level of abstraction from which information can be derived. For data to become information, it must be interpreted and take on a meaning.

Generally, the quality and amount of information that can be gleaned from any particular source is directly linked and limited to the quality and amount of data present to be reviewed and analyzed. How useful is an information system supported by only a small amount of limited data?

In this post, I will:

  • Review the major sources of human capital data
  • Examine sourcing return on time invested
  • Explore the potential candidate’s point of view
  • Ask you to take a quick sourcing test

Ready? Continue reading

Talent Sourcing: Man vs. AI/Black Box Semantic Search

Back in March 2010, I had the distinct honor of delivering the keynote presentation at SourceCon on the topic of resume search and match solutions claiming to use artificial intelligence in comparison with people using their natural intelligence for talent discovery and identification.

Now that nearly 2 years has passed, and given that in that time I’ve had even more hands-on experience with a number of the top AI/semantic search applications available (I won’t be naming names, sorry), I decided it was time to revisit the topic which I am very passionate about.

If you’ve ever been curious about semantic search applications that “do the work for you” when it comes to finding potential candidates, you’re in the right place, because I’ve updated the slide deck and published it to Slideshare. Here’s what you’ll find in the 86 slide presentation:

  • A deep dive into the deceptively simple challenge of sourcing talent via human capital data (resumes, social network profiles, etc.)
  • How resume and LinkedIn profile sourcing and matching solutions claiming to use artificial intelligence, semantic search, and NLP actually work and achieve their claims
  • The pros, cons, and limitations of automated/black box matching solutions
  • An insightful (and funny!) video of Dr. Michio Kaku and his thoughts on the limitations of artificial intelligence
  • Examples of what sourcers and recruiters can do that even the most advanced automated search and match algorithms can’t do
  • The concept of Human Capital Data Information Retrieval and Analysis (HCDIR & A)
  • Boolean and extended Boolean
  • Semantic search
  • Dynamic inference
  • Dark Matter resumes and social network profiles
  • What I believe to be the ideal resume search and matching solution
Enjoy, and let me know your thoughts.

Big Data, Data Science and Moneyball Recruiting

With each passing day, an increasing amount of data is being generated and transmitted by and about more people than ever before.

At Google’s 2010 Atmosphere convention, Google CEO Eric Schmidt stated that “There were 5 Exabytes of information created between the dawn of civilization through 2003, but that much information is now created every 2 days.”

In case you were wondering, an Exabyte is 1,000,000,000 gigabytes, or 10,000,000 terabytes. That’s a lot of information.

Interestingly, Google’s CEO may have actually underestimated the amount of data being generated at the time. From their research, RJMetrics believes that a more accurate figure would be approximately 6.6 exabytes every 2 days. One thing is for sure – the number is even bigger today.

What does any of this have to do with recruting? Why should HR, recruiting and sourcing professionals, as well as corporate executives care about big data?

Well, because a chunk of big data is human capital data, and as I have been ranting about for the better part of 3 years, human capital data can be leveraged to identify and hire more great people more quickly.

If you’re a dinosaur recruiter or sourcer, I don’t recommend you read the rest of this post, because:

  1. I will challenge they way you think and work, and that might make you uncomfortable
  2. You’ll probably think it’s a load of garbage
  3. It might make you aware of your pending extinction (the precise timing of which is debatable)

I have to warn you that this is not a short, quick-hit post – this may be the longest single post I have ever written, which explains why you didn’t see a post from me last week. I wrote this piece to introduce a human capital paradigm shift, to challenge the long-standing conventional wisdom in HR and recruiting, and to (hopefully!) provoke progressive thought from my peers. If that’s not your thing, turn back now.

If you want a glimpse into the future of talent identification and acquisition, you’re always interested in figuring out how your company can gain a competitive advantage, and you’re wondering what the heck my “Moneyball recruiting” reference could possibly be about, then read on.  Continue reading

How to Find and Identify Active Job Seekers on LinkedIn

I’ve received a few inquiries over the past month regarding how to find active job seekers on LinkedIn.

This isn’t something I do, nor have I ever tried to do it, so I didn’t have any read-made search suggestions for these folks.

I don’t recruit people because they are looking to make a move – I recruit people based on their skills, experience and critical intangibles. I could care less if they are looking or if the thought of leaving their current employer is the furthest thing from their mind.

In my opinion and experience, everyone is a candidate and anyone can be recruited if you have a great match between their skills, experience and interests and the opportunity you’re looking to fill.

Having said all that, if you want to search LinkedIn to identify people who are highly likely to be actively seeking employment, you have a few options. Continue reading

How to Search Google Plus to Find People by Location

Would you like to find people on Google+?

How about find people on Google+ that live in a specific area?

If you answered “Yes!” to the above questions, you’ve come to the right place.

I will walk you through the problems with Find People on Plus and Google’s own Google+ search before I show you something I’ve been tinkering with that seems to work well to reliably find people who live in a specific area.

UPDATE: I have a NEW Google Plus search guide updated for 2013.

Find People on Plus

If you’re interested in finding people on Google+, you’ve probably poked around Find People on Plus.

Find People on Plus has a few issues you should be aware of, not the least of which is the fact that it has only indexed a fraction of the total number of Google+ profiles.

Another issue is that you can’t reliably find people based on location, which is kind of important for most people.

For example, let’s take a look at a basic skill/interest and location search: Continue reading

Why Sourcing is Superior to Posting Jobs for Talent

Posting a job online is perhaps the first action most companies take to attract talent when they have an opening.

However, posting jobs in an attempt to attract qualified talent has many intrinsic flaws, and here are the top 4 in my opinion:

  1. Posting jobs a passive strategy
  2. Posting jobs offers no control over candidate qualifications
  3. Job advertisements only attract candidates who are actively looking
  4. Posting jobs isn’t social!

In comparison, sourcing from Internet, LinkedIn, online resume databases, ATS/CRM systems and similar resources to discover and identify qualified candidates is an active strategy which offers significant control over candidate qualifications, can be used to specifically target passive and even non-job seekers, and is 100 times more social!

Read on for a more in-depth analysis of posting jobs vs. sourcing candidates, as well as to have your eyes opened to a new way of looking at the value/ROI of posting jobs. Continue reading

Sourcing is an Investigative and Iterative Process

When I see a strong interest in a “Top 10” or “Top 25” list of Boolean search strings, it becomes clear to me that a disconnect can exist between wanting something that solves a problem (a search string to find candidates) and the ability to create something that solves a problem.

While there is undoubtedly value in a list of pre-constructed search strings, specifically Internet queries designed to target event/conference attendee lists, employee directories, resumes, press releases, patents, white papers, etc., the real “magic” of information retrieval does not lie in Boolean operators and query modifiers.

The real “magic” and work of sourcing talent is via human capital data is the iterative, intelligent, and cognitively challenging process of selecting a combination of words and phrases, and in some cases strategically excluding others, analyzing the results returned, making changes to the query based on observed relevance, and repeating the process until an acceptable quantity of highly qualified and well-matched candidates are identified.

The Answer vs. How to Solve the Riddle

When people ask me for a specific search string, they may not realize it, but in effect, they are asking for the answer to a problem.

In some respects, a specific search string can be compared to the answer to a specific math problem or riddle. Unfortunately, once you change the facts, figures and variables of the problem or riddle, the answer will also change.

Similarly – if you change anything about your hiring need, the most effective queries to find qualified candidates will also change, and rarely are two hiring needs are perfectly identical in every way.

When I started my career in recruiting, perhaps I was fortunate to not have anyone to give me any “answers” (search strings), because I had to figure out how to find top talent in our 80,000 resume Lotus Notes database on my own. Throughout my career, sourcing candidates has never been about the searches themselves, but rather the process of finding the best candidates.

Going back to my math analogy, once you’ve mastered calculus, you can solve any calculus problem. Similarly, once you master the process of sourcing, you can solve any hiring problem.  And I do mean any.

If you are interested in leveraging information systems for talent discovery and identification, you should be more concerned with learning the “why” and “how” of good talent sourcing practices and processes, and less so in specific search strings. Rather than (or at least in addition to) asking for a search string, ask the person providing the search string how and why they specifically arrived upon the search they’re providing you.

Take a fish from someone and you are fed for a day. Learn how to fish and you are fed for a lifetime. Continue reading