I have just been in Atlanta at the global sourcing conference that is known as #SourceCon. The event gathers all of the best sourcers from around the world, and the presenters, participants, drinking partners and general company I kept were full of advice, tips and a few hacks thrown in. I’m better for the experience of having been there.

The second keynote of the day really stood out for me. It was delivered by Donna Quintal of giant retailer Sears, Roebuck and Co. The presentation outlined how Sears have set up an HR data warehouse with feeds from all the HR systems in the business. Quintall uses this data to make decisions in a whole host of areas from job descriptions, succession planning through to market mapping for talent. You can find more detail on the content of the presentation on my post for Dice.Com.

When you think about it, there are lots of ways you can see this data as being really useful to sourcers and recruiters, but what about agency recruiters? This got me thinking about how agency recruiters can use data to make their job easier. The concept of using performance data for performance management, forecasting and training is quite well established. Quintal got me thinking of something a bit bigger though, when it comes to the market at large, and what I see as the changing role of recruiters.

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