My Future of Sourcing Keynote at Talent42

I recently attended and thoroughly enjoyed the Talent42 conference in Seattle – John Vlastelica and Carmen Hudson have done a fantastic job, and I was also honored to be asked to present the closing keynote on the current and future state of sourcing. Aside from the stacked speaker lineup, valuable content, sourcing roundtables led by a good portion of who’s … Read More

Why Facebook Graph Search is No Threat to LinkedIn…For Now

  As with all new and bright shiny objects, people are quick and eager to make blind and wild predictions, and Facebook’s Graph Search is an excellent example. Facebook announced Graph Search on January 15th, and there are already 100’s of articles published on the possibilities, including how Graph Search will challenge Google in advertising, Match.com & eHarmony in online … Read More

The Moneyball Recruiting Opportunity: Analytics & Big Data

  Earlier this year, I traveled to Australia to present a keynote at the Australasian Talent Conference on the topic of the Moneyball opportunity that exists for companies when they are sourcing, identifying, assessing, recruiting, and developing talent, and how big data and predictive analytics will be the next major area of competitive advantage in the war for talent. Below you … Read More

My SourceCon Presentation – LinkedIn: Beyond the Basics

  I was honored to be asked to present at the Dallas 2012 SourceCon event – which turned out to be the largest SourceCon event ever! When I was talking with Amybeth Hale back at the end of 2011 about what I’d like to present on, I asked if anyone had ever run a session solely dedicated to LinkedIn. Now, … Read More

Why Boolean Search is Such a Big Deal in Recruiting

In the past, I’ve explained the Boolean Black Belt concept and exposed what I feel is the real “secret” behind learning how to master the art and science of leveraging information systems for talent identification and acquisition. Now I would like to show you precisely WHY Boolean search is such a big deal in recruiting. There are 2 main factors: Candidate … Read More

The Current and Future State of Talent Sourcing

I had the distinct honor and privilege of serving as the conference chair of the biggest-ever SourceCon, held at the Georgia Aquarium in February. Part of my responsibility in that role involved kicking off the event, and I took the opportunity to touch upon my observations and opinions on the current state of sourcing, as well as what I believe will be the … Read More

Top 15 Common Talent Sourcing Mistakes

Practically everything I have learned about sourcing and recruiting didn’t come from a mentor or any formal training. Instead, I learned how to become a top performing recruiter “the hard way.” What that really means is that when it came to finding top talent, I tried a lot of things that didn’t work, and because I refuse to make excuses, … Read More

Is Your ATS a Black Hole or a Diamond Mine?

Most companies and staffing organizations, ranging from executive search sole proprietorships to staffing agencies to Fortune 500 companies, have internal databases filled with rich and actionable information on thousands to literally tens of millions of applicants, candidates, and professionals. You would think that a private internal database of people that an organization has actively and passively, tactically and strategically collected over the years … Read More

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 – … Read More

The Guide to Semantic Search for Sourcing and Recruiting

If you have nearly any tenure in HR, sourcing or recruiting, you’ve probably heard something about “semantic search” and perhaps you would like to learn more. Well – you’ve found the right article. As a follow-up to my recent Slideshare on AI sourcing and matching, I am going to provide an overview of semantic search, the claims that semantic search … Read More

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 … Read More

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, … Read More

All Recruiting Sources Are NOT Created Equal

While there is much written on the subject of how to search the various talent sources available to recruiters and sourcers today, such as the Internet, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Google+, ATS/CRM systems, etc., there does not seem to be much written about their ROI as sources of talent/human capital information. I believe that the value of any source of information is 50% based upon … Read More

The #1 Mistake in Corporate Recruiting

While no company has a flawless recruiting system, process or solution, there is a glaring problem shared by many corporate recruiting functions from which the Fortune 500 and the Big 4 are not immune. As some of the most respected companies in the world invest quite a bit of time, energy and money into social recruiting efforts, interactive recruiting solutions, LinkedIn, Facebook, … Read More

Does LinkedIn Offer Recruiters Any Competitive Advantage?

When I spoke at the LinkedIn Talent Connect event last year, I dropped a big question on the 500+ audience: “What’s your informational and competitive advantage when you all have access to the same people?” Think about it. If you have a LinkedIn Recruiter account (over 55% of the Fortune 100 do!), you have access to view any and all … Read More

Sourcing is Not an Entry Level Function or Role

I recently listened to an interview with DeeDee Doke of Recruiter.co.uk in which she related to Amybeth Hale that the perception in the U.K. is that sourcing is an entry level career in the recruiting industry. Apparently, using information systems for talent discovery and identification is perceived by many as a junior role and skill across the pond. I’m saddened by … Read More

Talent Mining and the Future of Sourcing and Recruiting

Many people equate sourcing candidates with simply creating and running Boolean search strings. In my opinion and experience, Boolean search neither adequately describes nor gives proper credit to what sourcers and recruiters are really doing when they leverage the Internet, resume databases, ATS/CRM applications and social networking sites such as LinkedIn to find candidates, and to what some very talented … Read More

Data and Drive are Paramount in Sourcing and Recruiting

The other day I came across an insightful post on Fistful of Talent by Josh Letourneau in which he addresses the arms race that rages on in the talent acquisition universe – the never-ending attempt of people and companies to achieve some sort of technological advantage over the competition. Josh would rather have a recruiter “with the “will to fight,” in other … Read More

The Future of Recruiting: The More Things Change…

Now that we are on our way into exploring the new year, I’ve seen some articles on what’s coming next for the recruiting industry this year, and even as far out as 10 years from now. When I read one such article written by Kevin Wheeler, I was struck by his comment that although sourcing remains a topic he is interested in, … Read More

Resumes Are Like Wine

In response to my recent post about the deficiencies in the search capability of many Applicant Tracking Systems, a few people commented to the fact that resumes stored in applicant tracking systems become stale and outdated over time, which may explain why ATS resume databases are often the candidate “source of last resort.” While candidate records inevitably age over time and can … Read More