I have been asked to list the "Sourcing complexities and pain points" (especially  in IT recruiting, but not just). Here are the 10 points I came up with.

Add yours?

1. Job Descriptions Are Not Enough. Sourcing from a job description alone is difficult, because it never completely defines what to search for. In fact, job descriptions are written for candidates, not for recruiters or sourcers.

There…

My LinkedIn account is having multiple problems with the functionality. It's happening for the second time in the past few months. I can't use my RPS account (it is a variation of LinkedIn Recruiter). I hope they will fix it again.

The nice LinkedIn managers, who support my RPS account, point out…

The End of Sourcing Is Near … is a post by Dr. John Sullivan on ERE that is drawing lots of attention. I am not going to…

... and yet it is a powerful sourcing tool, and it is free to use. (For the basic account it is also free, but you need to know your ways around to view the results. I will explain below.)

I am talking about the LinkedIn Signal. Even if you have the topmost account and all the power of people searching available to you, the Signal is an excellent addition with complementary ways to source. Namely, the…

Here is a clarification on something fellow recruiters have been worried about. This is as of this morning and anything can change at any time, of course.

If you search for LinkedIn profiles on Google or on Bing (EXAMPLE), you might see an incomplete profile for those members who are either your 3rd level connections or are out-of-your-network and a suggestion to upgrade, when you click on the search results in Google. Don't worry;…

If you have a basic or a low-paid account on LinkedIn, you can't see the full names of people who are your third level connections. You can't see the names of people outside your network. In LinkedIn Recruiter, which is the solution for corporations, you can see all names.

I didn't realize up till I was at the #sourceIn event yesterday at the LinkedIn HQ in Mountain View, that agencies with the top solution wouldn't see the names either. Now, LinkedIn has decided to open up…

LinkedIn is “the” top place for many recruiters and for many people I have met “LinkedIn” is almost equals “sourcing”. Everyone we had placed in the last year was initially contacted on LinkedIn.

We all agree on the importance of not spamming candidates and carefully reviewing their profiles before we reach out.

However, LinkedIn's nature is not fully understood by many, I think. Here's what I read on a blog post on ERE today: “Examine the resultant profile summaries…. “Red…

Here are some sample test questions for the People Sourcing Certification Program:

Level One

• How many people currently working at Microsoft have the word Ninja in their current title on LinkedIn?
• There’s a “Racquetball League” site that lists a person who works (or used to work?) at ToysRUs. What is his job title?
• How many members of the site…

I had noisy roadwork outside of my office this morning and somehow this made me think of this list. :) I am interested in what fellow recruiters would think about it.

1. The Yahoo! Search engine
2. Search tools that look through all the sources of data at the same time in a productive way
3. Search strings to find the information that was not posted on the web
4. Search strings that show only relevant results on Google
5. Search strings that can be reused…

I have just come back home to the San Francisco Bay Area from the Sourcing Summit in Australia. The event was flawlessly and skillfully organized by Phillip Tusing.

My top impression from the Australian sourcing…

Q: What do many people do when they start to think about their career? A: They update their LinkedIn profile.

Up till recently tracking, which members update their profiles, was only possible for your first level connections, as an example, by subscribing to Bullhorn Reach.

It is now possible to watch for all the skills and title changes by using the LinkedIn Signal. This is available to all members and is free to…

I love LinkedIn! It has been bringing us more matching candidates and business connections than everything else combined out there. For my own recruiting business LinkedIn accounts for 100% placed candidates in the last twelve months and a large chunk of sourcing information that I submit to others when sourcing.

Yet taking the full advantage of LinkedIn is not straightforward! There are numerous obstacles and misleading marketing messages, blogs, and tutorials. Some LinkedIn members…

Participants of the People Sourcing Certification Program go through 60 questions for the Level 1 and 80 questions for the Level 2 at the end of the Program. We use the tests as an additional opportunity to practice and apply the sourcing skills.

As several participants have pointed out, and as one of them wrote, the Program actually makes you “think” instead of just plugging in some answers…

I believe that everybody who searches for professional people online – recruiters, sourcers, sales, marketing, business development people – need to aim to answer yes to these 20 questions below, to remain competitive and productive. (Do you agree?)

Join us for a Webinar on April 11 

Space is limited. 

Reserve your Webinar seat now at: 

https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/717975874 



Lots has changed in Boolean search syntax and algorithms the last six months or so. Pretty much…

April 5, 2012

March 12, 2012

I am happy to announce our Sourcing Certification program.

Terminology

Instead of using the term “Sourcing” (as we are used to in recruiting), and per a great suggestion I got, I will call the discipline “Peoplesourcing”, which means finding information…

Reasons for Sourcing Certifications

The Boolean Strings Group and Network have become by far the largest community of sourcers online. Together with two other groups…

Recruiters and Sourcers:

Do your potential candidates reply to your introductory messages? I’d like to share our experience on what works and what doesn’t.

• It seems to us that email as a way to initially reach “passive candidates” is quickly dying, if not dead already. In rare cases – and only when when it’s personalized – do we get replies.
• The phone works, of…

Many thanks to Hung Lee, the @…