Your Funniest Names Sourcing Tactic - Another Contest

Comment by Christine Abrams on May 31, 2007 at 12:47pm

"The Dumb Blonde-New Admin" Routine
Picture Farrah Faucet, twirling her hair, flashing her ultra-white teeth while she flirts with the unsuspecting male at the other end of her phone.
Affecting my best "Geewiz, I hope you can help me..." voice, I ask a senior male in the company (must be a guy; this never works on women. I wonder why - ha!) for as much information as possible. When questioned what this is regarding, I dumbly say that this is my first week on the job, and my boss didn't give me as much information as I had hoped. "I know this sounds dumb, but I want to do a good job. The last person in my job lasted 2 weeks..." Long pause........then, the gentleman spills names, titles, direct phone #s, etc. "Gosh, thank you so much for your help!" Putty in my hands. Hmmm, while you're at it, why don't you tell me the Pentagon's missile silo key codes!

Comment by Noah Roth on May 31, 2007 at 3:07pm

I don't know about you, but I don't want to speak to a guy right after the secretary coughs up a name. I want to Google him. Look him up on LinkedIn. See if someone I know can introduce him to me, instead of making a cold call.

Well since I'll be hanging up anyway...

I dial in a couple of times (unless its a really small company this should work, especially with caller ID blocked) until I find *HER*- she's thrilled to have this gig as a secretary after finishing her associates degree at community college, definately younger than 23, often has a southern drawl, and may be chewing gum while answering the phone.

And then I become someone famous. Sort of.

"Who's calling?"
"Sam Jackson."
"Like the movie star?"
"No. But I do seem to get that a lot. So who heads up your corporate strategy group?"

If you're really good, you can talk to the same girl 2-3 times a day.

My aliases have included:
Jack Clark- Yankee/Cardinals first baseman
Tom Green- Great for the MTV crowd
Sam Jackson- Nuff Said
Max Power- Homer Simpson's Alias from the episode where Bill Clinton hit on Marge
Martin McFly- Back to the Future
Marshall Mathers- Eminem

But it is possible to go over the top. For some reason Jonathan Travolta doesn't seem to get me very far. ;-)

Comment by Jeff Altman on June 1, 2007 at 8:49am

This is not a recent performance but one I used many times for many years called, "I'm at the Airport."

Call main number of big company where people are trained to be helpful.

"Hi, I'm at the airport and I'm supposed to be switching places with someone who is a programmer or programmer-analyzer and . . . NO! Does that look like blue to you? I'm sorry but they lost my luggage with the name of the person whose place I'm supposed to stay at and I know if I heard it I would recognize it . . . I think it starts with an 'S' . . . I SAID BLUE! DOES BEIGE LOOK LIKE BLUE TO YOU? I'm sorry but they keep showing me the wrong colored luggage. Can you help me, PLEASE?"

I have collected over 400 names at a time in IT with this.

Comment by Ginnie Bellville on June 1, 2007 at 1:30pm

Aside from “rusing” and “competitive intelligence,” I refer to some of the telephone techniques I utilize as “Selective Truth-Telling” – and of course, ASKING the right person the right question the right way. More and more, I’ve come across MALE gatekeepers… and, remembering the old adage “sex sells,” and believing it’s still true (isn’t it a known fact that guys think about sex – what is it? / about a MILLION MORE times a day than women?) But, seriously… Here’s my “personal best”:

I had just about “given up” getting the names I needed from a male administrative assistant when he said pompously, "Sorry, I just don't have time for this! You expect me to give you all this information; and, what do I get out of it?!"

So I purred, "Well, yeah, I know... It's sort of like me asking you to pull down your pants, but then I won't show you mine, right?" Then… I giggled! It quickly broke the ice; I got him laughing, and - he gave me everything I needed, and more!

Comment by Steve Levy on June 4, 2007 at 4:35pm

Here come da judge...

I've decided to toss in another prize - in a few months of creative brainstorming with ME!

But let's get some more sourcing stories up here!!! The deadline is midnight on June 4, 2007 EST.

I know more of you want to enter so what are you waiting for? Please, please...ask yourself this very important question...what would Paris Hilton do? I'll bet you she'd be in on this contest so why aren't you???

Comment by Cheryl Johnson on June 5, 2007 at 1:14pm

Some companies have a four day week or close early on Friday. Called after hours and Security answered the phone. Told security I was working with a high level exec with the company and I was suppose to get a department extension list because I was putting together packages to hand out for the company. Exec I was workng with wasn't there and I needed the list for the next morning, I am so sorry I called late, he is going to be so upset and think badly of me. I was frantic and started to cry; please can you fax me the list. I need my job, please. I'll send you a bonus for your trouble. I got the list. I told the secruity guard not to tell anybody because it will make me look bad. I did send the security guard a bonus, (cash) I had someone hand deliver the bonus, ASAP.

Comment by Brenda DePas on June 5, 2007 at 5:07pm

OOPS I just read the fine print... Telephone name sourcing... This isn't done over the telephone so I bet I get disqualified...

Okay Okay -
Anyways, I typed it out so what the heck... I am sharing it!!

Here is my creative sourcing story for the contest...

I am constantly recruiting Mortgage Loan Originators. The only way that I have found that I can get face to face with a bunch of them in an afternoon is by sponsoring a golf hole a Mortgage Lender Association Golf Event. Or a Realtor Association Golf Event.

Once I get my company to sponsor a golf hole which ranges anywhere from 125. to 350. depending on the gold event. I will go the day of the event and be at the hole the entire event. I try to have a couple other bubbly assistants to help but in the event I can't this can be done by one person. I have done it by myself.

I have the longest marshmallow drive contest at the hole.

Before each 4some tees off my hole, I get a business card from each player in the 4some. Or have them fill out a little info slip so I can put it in my drawing if they don't have a biz card.

Each player gets a chance to drive their marshmallow down the T-box. I keep track of who does the longest drive of the 4some and who drives the marshmallow the furthest out of everyone. There is a method to this.

The person that hits the marshmallow the furthest out of everyone will win a nice putter or driver, that we have gotten donated from one of the local golf stores.

I put the longest driver from each 4some into a drawing at the end of the event and we pull a name from the hat for a 2nd prize drawing.

Our company has suite boxes so I can usually get a couple suite tickets, with a free parking pass to one of our local baseball or basketball games, depending on whatever the season is.

Depending on the size of the golf event I end up with 60 to 175 business cards of people I want to call.

The secret to this sourcing strategy is NOT RECRUITING AT THE EVENT!! Many times I get asked if I am a Loan Officer, my response is ALWAYS, nope [because I am not] and to stave of any more guessing as to how I am related to the company, I cheerfully say I am the company cheerleader making sure they have the most fun at our sponsored golf hole.

During the event I am full of energy and super fun, ans I get everyone involved.

The golfers have the best time at trying to figure out how they can get their marshmallow to go the furthest. You get to see the ones who tries to cheat [always an interesting thing] to get their marshmallow to go the furthest... They debate what clubs to use... Nobody has not participated or not given me a business card in this sort of situation.

The best thing from this sort of sourcing is I have met each of these people I am going to be calling in the next week or so face to face. I can make quick notes on the back of cards I collect which helps me as I start calling them later to recruit them.

Not everyone is someone I will be able to recruit but over half from each event I attend will be. I make sure I know who the players are going to be or what association they are with before I sponsor a golf hole event. I don't want to do events that don't lend me any recruiting leads after the day is done.

My recruiting style is relationship driven, not a slam dunks one shot hard sell. Many of the people I will call back are not actively interested, but they will talk to me because they remember me. As we talk I find out what would make them interested in an opportunity and I track that info in a database that I am constantly adding candidates too. I always end the call with permission to call them back time from time. Very few say no.

As I attend more and more events, I become a familiar face a few will treat me as their long lost golf event friend.

A couple people have kept in contact with me just because I am not pushy and very friendly. When something happened with their company, I was the first person they called because we had established relationship already.

A great sourcing strategy that ALWAYS works for me as far as getting ALOT of qualified candidates in a single afternoon.

Turning these guys into successful hires is sometimes not as fast as recruiters would want, but I have a great database of the movers and shakers and golf players for my company ;-){Passive candidates}

Comment by Steve Levy on June 5, 2007 at 5:34pm

I once attended a conference for my company, took my shirt of and walked around; I had shaved the company logo on my chest and back - thank God for the fact that I can't grow hair north of my nose.

Received lots of business cards with special messages on the back...

Do you think this counts as a sourcing idea???

[animal doesn't call me diesel for nuthin']

ONLY A FEW MORE HOURS!!!!

Comment by Sucharith Menon on June 6, 2007 at 3:59am

I'd like to share a tactic we used to source IT Programmers.

A few years back I used to work as an IT Consultant with a leading Manpower consulting firm in India. In India, typically its nearly impossible to headhunt within a company and get to your target profile. With hundreds of projects running simultaneously and scattered teams, we devised a strategy to “map” projects rather than individuals which was quite successful for us.

As an typical Consulting company, we did use Job Portals and Job boards and used to find challenging projects with our defined skill set and then try to speak to a coupl of engineers within the team, get few details about the project and also the client location and then (here’s the wicked part) pretend to be calling from the clients location and getting out team members names along with the roles and responsibility within the module / project. In fact, we also run this strategy with couple of Senior Project Managers and were still able to extract information. I find this rather insane but did work quite well for us and later extended this process to get company lists etc…

All’s well that’s done well!!

Think this was a good sourcing idea!!

Comment by Maureen Sharib on June 8, 2007 at 8:01am

WINNER ANNOUNCEMENT!

Jeff Altman is the GRAND PRIZE WINNER with his FUNNIEST TELEPHONE NAMES SOURCING STORY entry to the 2nd RecruitingBlogs Contest Ever! He receives, as the GRAND PRIZE WINNER:

ONE YEAR of the Fordyce Letter, the seminal publications for our industry
ONE YEAR access to the MagicMethod, the online telephone names sourcing training course
An ORIGINAL CARTOON by Jim Stroud, immortalizing him in the Sourcing Hall of Fame

The runner-ups were:
Noah Roth
Cheryl Johnson
Brenda DePas

Each of them will receive the first edition of the Book of Scripticals - a dozen real-time telephone sourcing scripts.

Note: Noah, Cheryl and Brenda, please send your contact info to bob at techtrak.com to receive access to the Book of Scripticals.


Thank you ALL for your participation - each of you submitted clever and entertaining tales!

Maureen Sharib
Telephone Names Sourcer/Trainer
513 899 9628

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