SourceCon 2014 - 5 Habits of Highly Effective Sourcers

1. Five Habits of Highly Effective Sourcers
Kameron Swinton

2. About Me
• Talent Sourcer, Cloud + Enterprise at Microsoft
• 9 years in Recruiting/Sourcing
– Agency + Corporate
– IT, F&A, Engineering, Scientific, Ops
– Trained sourcers from US, Europe, Asia and Africa
– This is my 3rd SourceCon
– 2013 SourceCon GrandMaster

3. Habit #1: Make a List & Check It Twice

4. Make a List & Check It Twice
Why should you build a list?
• Simple and customizable
• Saves time – minimize distractions
• Quick reference
• Easy to maintain
• Sortable and searchable

5. Make a List & Check It Twice
• Start with a list of likely suspects
– Past Employees, Offers, Interns
– Similar Profiles
– Skill Matches
• Search your ATS/CRM first
• Prioritize your list by recruitability

6. Make a List & Check It Twice
Prospect is a potential or likely candidate.
– Experience, education, availability, etc.
Recruitability is the likelihood that the prospect will
respond favorably to being recruited.
– Location, longevity, prior recruiting contact, career
progression
Build and maintain a list throughout your search,
prioritize your leads and don’t call your best people
first!

7. Habit #2: Building Blocks of Research

8. Building Blocks of Research
• In addition to AND/OR/NOT, you must know these 5
commands:
site: Get results from only specific domain Google + Bing
inurl: Searches within the url of the
webpage
Google
filetype: Searches for documents of a specific
type
Google/Bing
* The asterisk takes the place of a word
or multiple words (i.e. NEAR)
Google
- Excludes webpages that contain a
term or phrase
Google/Bing

9. Building Blocks of Research
Add them up!
site:ucsd.edu

10. Building Blocks of Research
site:ucsd.edu inurl:CV

11. Building Blocks of Research
site:ucsd.edu inurl:CV filetype:pdf

12. Building Blocks of Research
site:ucsd.edu inurl:CV filetype:pdf "Computer *
Engineering"

13. Building Blocks of Research
site:ucsd.edu inurl:CV filetype:pdf "Computer *
Engineering" -2016

14. Building Blocks of Research
• Advanced Search – no Boolean
• Google Alerts
• Bing RSS feeds

15. Habit #3: Be a Detective

16. Be a Detective
• Finding contact info can be easy but time
consuming
• Set a limit of 5-10 minutes per prospect
• Look for these clues:
– Company/Title
– Location
– University
– URL/Username
– Unique Identifiers
– Webpages

17. Be a Detective
• Start by finding work email address
– It’s a consistent process
– Usually easiest to find
• Then see if you can find personal email and contact info
• Don’t forget to check your ATS/CRM

18. Be a Detective
Example from Google+:
• Trial and error with G+ search
• Already know the email domain
• Use the info you've gathered and start hacking away

19. Be a Detective
• Phone Numbers
– Zabasearch.com
– WhitePages.com
• Email Addresses
– Personal Websites/Whois
– Social Networks (Facebook, Google+, Twitter, LinkedIn)
• Verification
– Mailtester.com
– Verify-email.org
• Social Search
– Namechk.com
– Tweepz.com

20. Habit #4: Love Your Inbox Again

21. Love Your Inbox Again
• Signatures
• Quick Parts
• Quick Steps
• Outlook Social Connector
• Rapporto

22. Habit #5: Always Follow Up

23. Always Follow Up
• Sales are rarely made on the 1st attempt
• Right place, right time
• Calendar reminders from email (or your CRM)
• LinkedIn projects by date
• Consider a “3 strikes” rule

24. Q&A
• Questions?