And I admit, phone sourcing isn’t the newest – or sexiest – method for finding and developing talent out there these days. But it still remains one of the most efficient, and most effective, ways to connect with the talent you want for the roles you need.

The fact that so many people think that tools like social media or email automation are more effective ways to target and engage with talent than simply making a phone call (old fashioned though it may be) absolutely blows my mind.

But it also leads me to think we all really need to take a big step back here and really reexamine the nature of this whole sourcing and recruiting thing – and what success really looks like. Trust me, technology has nothing to do with it.

Sometimes, tools can be an inhibitor, not a facilitator, for actually connecting with candidates –  but sometimes, they can be a silver bullet. Want proof? Look no further than your phone.

Phoning It In: A Sourcing Call To Action.

I know what you think when you hear “phone sourcing,” but in fact, what has become the accepted definition for “sourcing” these days looks more and more like what “recruiting” used to do – and the lines between the two disciplines have blurred so much that the distinction has become pedantic and irrelevant, really. Read any job posting for a sourcer today – and there are a whole lot of them out there – and you’ll see some variation on the same theme.

Here’s a real example for a Sourcing Specialist recently posted by a Fortune 50 company:

“This position will be responsible for sourcing internal and external candidates according to relevant job criteria, mining databases, networking, internet recruiting activities, candidate outreach, media and employee referrals. Expertise in Boolean and other advanced search operators required; experience with cold calling highly preferred.”

OK, I get it. This company, like many others, has a distinct sourcing function to support their recruitment activities, and hence, are not considered “recruiters,” even though they sit in recruiting. The good news, though, is that if they try hard, stick around long enough without pissing anyone off and beat their benchmarks, someday, maybe, they’ll have the chance to be real recruiters themselves.

Sounds good, but honey? That’s a whole load of baloney, and you know it.

When you’re:

• Responsible for having enough knowledge and acumen to identify and connect with top performers in highly technical categories like engineering or very niche industries like healthcare or financial services…
• …and serve as the first point of contact for candidates at the beginning of the process while helping them navigate every step of the hiring cycle…
• …and find candidates who are not only successfully placeable, but superstars who can make a real impact really quickly…
• …and build enough of a relationship with that candidate to influence whether or not they accept an offer…

…then sweetheart, you’re not sourcing, you’re recruiting. No matter what your title happens to be.

Keep Sourcing Simple, Stupid.

She’s not internet famous, and only has a few thousand followers, but one of my favorite Twitter bios comes from a smart young millennial based in Boston, Molly Goodman (that’s @MllyGoodman on Twitter – and she’s definitely worth the follow).

Her philosophy, in 140 characters or less:

“Think before you speak, read before you think, and if you can’t explain it simply then you don’t understand it well enough.”

This is good advice for anyone, but if you’re trying to become a badass sourcer, it’s pretty much the key to success. Sounds simple enough, but actually applying this to sourcing is a lesson that many of us spend a lifetime trying to learn. Because no matter what people say, sourcing isn’t easy – and if you think it is, you’re not doing it right. There are a ton of people today whose primary job involves sourcing for a living. But finding the handful of true badasses out there in this business might just be the hardest search in recruiting.

First off, let’s define “badass” – the Urban Dictionary defines this term as “tough, uncompromising, or intimidating.” Personally, I like this definition – and some of the other badass applications of this term listed in this entry. I thought a definition was worth including, since “badass” is a word many of us like to use, but almost none of us seem to really use the right way. Which, in sourcing, I suppose is par for the course…

Now, to get to the basic premise of Molly’s sagacious sourcing advice, I’m going to try to make like Thoreau and “simplify, simplify, simplify.”

Get it. Got it? Good.

Phone sourcing is also a simple game. You make the call, you take the call, you return the call.

And that’s pretty much it.

How to become a badass at sourcing?

The Sourcer’s Guide to Becoming A Badass.

Of course, a lot of phone sourcing – an inordinate amount, in fact – is also the hardest part: picking up the phone and making the damn call. You’d be amazed at how few “recruiters” (much less “sourcers”) can successfully do even this simple first step. If you’re not afraid of actually using the phone, you’ve got a really killer tool for beating the competition – and one that’s way better than, say, tweeting.

To be a true badass, though, to be the sourcing equivalent of Crash Davis, journeyman catcher and high culture raconteur, it takes more than raw talent. It takes experience, and the only way to get that practice required to make perfect (or good enough to make placements) is by making a whole lot of calls.

And I mean a whole lot. Anything under 100 a day wouldn’t even cut it at most agencies back in the day – and still won’t if you truly want to get out of the minors and earn your place in the talent acquisition Big Leagues.

If you’re like one of the many “sourcers” still scared of the phone, don’t worry. I’ve got your back.

Here’s what you do:

1. Pick up the phone.
2. Dial the number.
3. Talk to anyone who answers.
4. Leave a call for anyone who doesn’t.
5. Gather as much information and as many names as possible.

Repeat as necessary.

The first steps here are pretty easy – I’m guessing even the Millennials reading this know how to use a phone – you know, that other side of your text message machine? But it’s steps 3-5 that get a little more complicated. This is why, like Crash Davis, it really helps when you’re bringing the badass.

Don’t be afraid of the phone. It’s your best tool once you get the hang of it. Even if it’s not the easiest or most natural for most of us. Not even me, at first.

Direct Dial: How To Simplify Your Sourcing.

I know, today I’m an outspoken advocate and trainer for phone sourcing – this is my schtick, and my specialty, but it wasn’t always that way. Like most phone sourcers, I am naturally soft-spoken – those of us who have the instincts to find information and the technical proficiency to synthesize complex information into simple sales pitches or search terms generally don’t say much.

We’re people of few words but long looks. And although we can’t “see” people over the telephone, we know that we can hear everything we need to know about a candidate through sense, if not sight.

This requires training, emotional intelligence, perseverance and the knowledge that phone sourcing all comes down to intuition, more so than maybe any other job activity there is in recruiting.

You can’t really teach it, and you can only learn by doing. Phone sourcing is a second nature sort of thing, an unthinking, visceral, spontaneous flow that you have to continually develop and refine – no matter how experienced you are, you can always get better. Phone sourcing isn’t something you can plan, because you never know what ball the gatekeeper is going to hurl at you over the plate.

It takes experience to handle the curves and changeups that gatekeepers like throwing at you, but the great thing is, when you get enough experience with phone sourcing, there’s a good chance you’ll not know the best approach for making contact based on your experience and expertise – and eventually, you’ll be able to swing for the sourcing fences. Because in phone sourcing, once you figure out the power game, there’s no stopping you from scoring every time you reach the plate.

Phone sourcing is like cheating. After all, any gatekeeper has little to no context for you or your style before picking up the phone, but you have the luxury of doing enough scouting and preparation to know what approach is going to work best – and use that knowledge to your advantage. Which, you’ve got to admit, is pretty badass – the fact that, as one well-respected recruiting pundit pointed out, good sourcing is a whole lot like spying. This is not only an excellent nomenclature, but it sounds way cooler, than, say, social recruiting or “big data” or “crowdfunding.”

Learn to love the phone – and embrace it, because really, it’s always been what Twitter is just pretending to be – a comprehensive, first-hand, real-time way to collect meaningful information and insights that require a little spying, a little sweat equity, and the occasional Nuke LaRoche spitball (just to keep them guessing).

Hot off the press: this, honey, is sourcing. It doesn’t get any more simple.

And it sure as hell doesn’t get any more badass.

This post originally appeared on the LinkedIn website and is attributed to Maureen Sharib who is a phone sourcer and owns the firm TechTrack, where she helps companies find and contact candidates for their hard-to-place positions at a fraction of the cost of traditional recruiting channels and sources of hire.

The post How To Become A Badass At Phone Sourcing. appeared first on Hampton Kibel Research.

Those who are familiar with the retained executive search process know that the first point of contact in an executive search will often be with a firm’s researcher or associate, so it is imperative that executives know how they can stand out to these search professionals in particular. Yesterday, the Association of Executive Search Consultants (AESC) hosted the annual Americas Researchers and Associates Summit in New York City. The Summit provided a full day of thought provoking training sessions and presentations to retained executive search researchers and associates from across the Americas region. Throughout the day, the presenters and the researchers themselves provided valuable information and tips for how executives can increase their visibility.

Executive recruiters are starting to tap into social media and mobile as part of their toolkit for sourcing potential candidates. Laura Stoker, Executive Director of Global Training at AIRS, discussed this topic during her detailed and informative presentation. Researchers are now beginning to realize the value of these sources, so executives must have a presence on social media and mobile if they hope to be found by executive search consultants. Here are some of the valuable tips for executives that were learned from Laura’s presentation:

LinkedIn has a LinkedIn Alumni and LinkedIn Skills section, so make sure you keep your profile as up to date as possible to show up in the searches executive search researchers are doing though these LinkedIn tools. According to Laura Stoker, “Searching for skills on LinkedIn is useful for discovering information on a little-known industry—even dairy pasteurization.”

There are other sources researchers are starting to use besides LinkedIn. Some of these include Google+, Facebook, Twitter and Lanyrd (recently bought by Eventbrite).

Researchers can use Lanyrd to find potential executive candidates by the events they may be attending or even presenting at.

Facebook Graph Search allows researchers to search by company, school and more in a database of over 1 billion. To help researchers find you through Facebook Graph Search, add your title and company to your Facebook profile. If you do not want researchers or headhunters to see everything on your personal profile, then you may want to take advantage of the privacy settings Facebook offers, which allow you to show only certain posts, photos, etc. publicly while only showing others to your current Facebook friends or friends of friends.

Researchers can find executives and source potential candidates through their Twitter bios, so be sure to use appropriate industry and job title keywords.

Meetup has been a useful tool for executives and researchers to connect. Researchers can utilize Meetup to search for candidates within industry groups or attend events.

Create a free About.me page, which will allow your profile to show up in search engine results. Be sure to use relevant industry and job functional keywords!

The way researchers communicate with potential candidates for executive placement is becoming more mobile—texts may be faster than phone calls.

“Assess a candidate on LinkedIn as the whole person. What groups are they in? What is their passion? Don’t forget to make a human connection.” Lori Ruff, “The LinkedIn Diva” and CEO at Integrated Alliances

Later in the day Lori Ruff, “The LinkedIn Diva” and CEO at Integrated Alliances, talked more about how executive search researchers find candidates on social media, while also providing valuable tips for improving your own executive profile.

Here are a few of the excellent tips and words of social media wisdom Lori Ruff provided:

• Your LinkedIn profile summary should be written in first person to invite potential executive recruiters to connect with you as a person.
• You are a brand ambassador for your company and industry because you have a LinkedIn profile.
• If your LinkedIn profile is not getting traffic, you won’t turn up on the first page in search results.
• Build relationships with people before you need something – Tap into LinkedIn on a personal level by building relationships.
• Read recommendations that someone has given to others to find out their values.
• Showing up to network is what matters—Get on to your preferred social media site for a few min each day to comment, like and interact!
• LinkedIn is a place for keeping it professional, but also a place for what you talk about around the water cooler.
• Be a thought leader in your industry by sharing your thoughts via social media.
• Profiles are 40 times more likely to be selected if you have a visible profile picture.
• Create a template for your LinkedIn profile or your team. In the summary—Start with something about you.

This article was written by Julia Salem, Senior Manager, Digital Marketing at the Association of Executive Search Consultants (AESC).

The post Getting Discovered by Executive Search Researchers Through Social Media appeared first on Hampton Kibel Research.

While a good technology system has always supported this process, many Search firms have also used independent researchers to support the identification and research of candidates on an ad-hoc basis.  The growth of in-house search teams has led to a new market for researchers and – worldwide – more and more individuals and firms are now offering this service.

And yet…. How the service is offered has changed little over the last decade.  Typically, the Search firm sends the researcher a spreadsheet.  The researcher identifies and researches potential candidates, completes the spreadsheet and returns it to the Search firm.  The search firm then imports the information – or, in some cases, retypes it into the main Search database.

It’s spectacularly inefficient, but it has always been accepted as the norm.  Why?  A couple of reasons.  Firstly, technology – many legacy database systems have problems with access from outside the building.  A remote researcher in another part of the country – or the World – may be unable to access the database.  Even if remote access is possible, complicated software downloads and installations ensure it is not easy.

And, frankly, technology is the easy bit.  Security is a much bigger issue.  Search firms want to allow external researchers to work on specific projects.  They do not want to allow researchers to have free access to the firm’s database.  There are a host of data protection and competitive reasons for this.

Modern technology resolves both of these issues.  Browser based access to cloud database allows a Search firm to give instant access to external researchers.  It can be taken away just as quickly.  No software, no download, no headaches.

In addition, the ability to implement a security model that allows information to be hidden within the database ensures that Researchers may be limited to accessing just the information associated with a specific project.  Everything else – all other projects, all other people and company information – is hidden.

Allowing researchers to access the database live is a big efficiency gain.  The Search firm can review and act on information as it is added.  No time is wasted importing data and duplication is far less of an issue.  Quality control is improved and the project is closed off more quickly.

Clients using our FileFinder Anywhere product can do all this today.  But we want to help them find researchers who can facilitate this process.  That’s why, we are launching the “Certified for FileFinder Browser” program for Researchers.  It’s free, and we believe it will make independent researchers more competitive while making our clients more efficient.

We’ve written a white paper about it, and it’s available at http://www.dillistone.com/en/page/FileFinder_External_Researcher_Program.  We are also running free training sessions – the first is next week.  If your firm uses FileFinder Anywhere and you use third party researchers, tell them to join us – it’s free;  if you don’t use FileFinder Anywhere…. Maybe ask your vendor how they solve this problem, and contact us if they can’t!

This article was authored by Jason Starr, CEO of Dillistone Group, Plc.

The post How technology is revolutionizing how 3rd party researchers support Executive Search… appeared first on Hampton Kibel Research.

With digital disruption impacting our clients’ businesses every day, we decided to focus our Sydney Forum on the way in which technology is challenging and enhancing the executive search business.

During our keynote session we were fortunate enough to be joined by a panel of search consultants from both large, global firms and local, boutique firms, and representing different career routes: Korn Ferry’s Michael Keevy, for instance, has spent much of his career in industry, de Jager’s Anne Stuckey spent five years heading up a research team before becoming an executive search consultant, while Gita Gopalan spent more than a decade as an in-house researcher and now runs her own research consultancy.

When asked about how executive search firms can ride this wave of technology to their benefit, there was consensus that in order to succeed, firms must be adaptable to change and innovation (echoing the words of McKinsey’s Richard Dobbs, who spoke earlier this year at AESC’s Global Conference). As it stands, the largest opportunity that the panelists identified was adding value to clients by evaluating the cultural fit of potential candidates and then proposing ways in which their role could be optimized for maximum success.

While it is important to go beyond candidate identification, it is also essential that the process of candidate identification continues to evolve. Laura Stoker, Executive Director of AIRS, provided some extremely useful tips on new websites and techniques to use to identify executives. Two of her top tips included checking Google Images and YouTube for candidate backgrounds. If you see that they have regularly been asked to speak at conferences and participate in panels, it bodes well. Secondly, she recommended using an x-ray search on emerging sites such as AirBNB and About.Me to find out more about an individual. This demonstrates the extent to which our personal and professional lives are being blurred together.

We were fortunate to also be joined by speakers from Invenias, who discussed Cloud technology and its impact on the profession, and LinkedIn, who shared some insight into their future direction. The event was well attended by more than 40 researchers and associates from member firms in Australia.

This blog post has been republished from The Association of Executive Search and Leadership Consultants with their permission.

The post Surfing the Technology Wave: Highlights From AESC’s Sydney Forum appeared first on Hampton Kibel Research.