2008 SOURCING CONTEST

Results of Sourcing Contest:

1st place winner - Glenn Gutmacher

2nd place winner - Tehra Aldridge

3rd place winner - Mohamed Ali

Please review the top suggestions below - thanks to all that entered the contest.

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1st place winner

How to source manager candidates by their number of direct reports by Glenn Gutmacher

Ever get a requisition to find managers, but the requirements insist on their having managed a certain minimum size organization in the past?  Wouldn't it be great if you could sort out those people even before you screened them?

You can using a unique twist on number range and word-placeholder wildcards, two special commands on Google.  I'll explain using the example of software development managers who have supervised at least

25 direct reports. If you think about what's in a resume or profile of somebody like this, it probably says something like:

"managed virtual team of 25 professionals", "managed cross functional team comprised of 25", "Managed geographically distributed team with 25", "managed and developed the development team of 25", "managed and trained global project team consisting of 25", etc.

Note the pattern (as all good sourcers do!). There are words between "managed" and "team", and again between "team" and the number, which you can manage in one move with the * (wildcard). This represents a placeholder for any other word or words, so assuming you were ok with people up to 100 direct reports, you would use the number range of 25 to 100, which is expressed as 25..100 on Google (low value, two periods, high value). That would yield this string:

"managed * team * 25..100"

which simply and elegantly finds them all! However, if it's "managed team..." (no words in between), then you also need this:

"managed team * 25..100"

But don't try to get too efficient, because

"managed * 25..100"

generates a lot of irrelevant results having nothing to do with one's employees.

Of course, there are other variations like "managed 25 direct reports", "managed multinational 25 person staff", "managed a 25 person organization", etc., so you should account for those if the above doesn't generate enough results for your pipeline, a la "25..100 direct reports" and "managed 25..100 person". However, *don't* try putting them in an OR statement. If you search for something like:

("managed 25..100 person" OR "managed * 25..100 person") "software development"

it basically negates the numrange criterion. You might get a few good results at the beginning (first 5), but after that, it's only searching for "software development". This seems like a bug in Google to me, but it's not hard to tell when there's a problem, because the results count summary atop the first page changes from something like "results 1-100 of 439" to "results 1-100 of 63,700,000". The latter should always trigger your radar that there's something wrong with your search string.

Last but not least, don't expect much from (present tense of the verb)

"manage 25..100 person" "software development"

which generates only a few results. When you're searching within a phrase, realize it's doing an exact search -- don't expect it to find various forms of the root word. Since "managed" appears to be how most people reference it in their resumes/bios, you need to search on the past tense phrasing.

Glenn Gutmacher e-mail glenn.gutmacher@gmail.com

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2nd place winner

I guess my little sourcing trick or technique is to learn how to navigate the target companies’ internal systems. 

I’m only giving you one example below, but this is the one I use most often:

The majority of companies that use Outlook as their internal email system, also use Outlook as their phone directory and to store lists of organizational structures. 

The good thing about this technique is once you find out that they use Outlook, ANYONE in the company can look this information up for you!

So let’s say that you know Sally Sue is the Chief Marketing Officer but you want to know who reports to her.   You’ve already spoken with Sally and her assistant, Laura,  but neither of them will release any information over the phone.  Here’s what you do…find ANYONE in the company (preferably someone that doesn’t get hit up very often…I like Facilities) that would be willing to look something up for you because you haven’t been able to reach Sally Sue in Marketing or her assistant, Laura, all day!  Most of the time they say “I’m in Facilities, not Marketing…I have no idea!”  That’s when you say, “Well, if you’ll do me a favor and find her in Outlook, it should list someone else I can call in her group.”  Half of the time, these individuals didn’t even know they could do this, it’s like you’re teaching them how to use their own system.  Anyway, once you find someone sympathetic, here are the steps:

1)      Ask them to find Sally Sue’s name in Outlook, like they are going to send her an email

2)      Instead of double clicking her name, ask them to right click on her name and then select “properties”

3)      When that screen opens, have them click on the “organization” tab at the top

4)      The next screen that opens will show Sally’s name, her supervisor, and all of her direct reports

 Ask them to read a few names off to you, once you have those names, ask if there is anyone else listed incase you have a hard time reaching them, too.  Hopefully by this point you will have obtained enough names (if not all) to get you to where you need to be. 

Tehra Aldridge Telephone Names Sourcer tehra_aldridge@yahoo.com P:  (832) 661-6081 F:  (832) 284-4887

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3rd place winner 

I am the inventor of passive recruiting search engine www.big5hire.com and mentor of new innovative passive sourcing techniques for Cisco. I am submitting the one which I invented and in which I am very successful in.

Long weekend sourcing technique:

How many recruiters in today’s world are frustrated by not getting results in user groups for those hard to find talents? I have lot of recruiters raising concerns on not being successful on their hunt for people in user groups.

 When using user groups always keep in mind the search doesn’t end by finding the user group for a specific skill set. Successful recruiters know how to utilize them by thinking out of the box. In this blog I am going to share some of the secrets of user group recruiting. I have hired 40% of my candidates from user groups.

There have been days where I will use my entire time during long weekends by going through each and every message thread in a user group to generate leads. I started thinking outside of the routine search strategies. How many people take a day off before the long weekend? 30-40% of the workforces in a company do. All these people set an automated out-of office reply message with 1 or 2 backup contact details. This leads us to more names with contact details and we know that they will have the same skill sets as the employee registered with the user group.

 I adopted a strategy by sending a generic requirement email to the user group mailing lists the day before the long weekend. In less than 2 hrs I will have at least 30-40 out of the office replies with their backup details. That is 30 X 2 = 60 names generated with contact details with no effort.

Here are some of the mails that I got a day before the Martin Luther King long weekend with the names masked for privacy:

From: UXXXX, WXXXXXX [mailto:WXXXX.UXXXX@amd.com]
Sent: Monday, January 21, 2008 6:53 PM
To: Sadakathullah Mohamed Ali (mohamali)
Subject: Out of Office AutoReply: [SI-LIST] Cisco Systems - Sr. Signal Integrity Engineer position

I am currently out of office without any access to my email. I will be back in office on January 24, 2008.  If you need immediate assistance please contact MXXXXX FRXXXXXX at 408-XXX-XXXX or SAXXX SANXXXX at 408-XXX-XXXX

-----Original Message-----

From: fXXXX_gXXXXX@emc.com [mailto:fXXXX_gXXXXX@emc.com]

Sent: Monday, January 21, 2008 7:05 PM

To: Sadakathullah Mohamed Ali (mohamali)

Subject: Out of Office AutoReply: [SI-LIST] Cisco Systems - Sr. Signal Integrity Engineer position

 I will be out of the of office until January 21st and 22nd. If you have any questions or concerns that require immediate attentions please contact MXXXX RoXXXXXXX at mXXXXX_rXXXXX@emc.com.

Imagine 30 out of office mails like these in less than 2 hrs. This is a great way to source by getting quality candidates

 Here is another tip to draft a requirement email for mailing lists:

My message was drafted in a way to entice candidates interest by just writing this line     “ Hi Guru’s, I am sending this email on behalf of the Director of Hardware Engineering at Cisco OR I am sending this email on behalf of Embedded system software manager for Ethernet switch product that Cisco is developing”. I would also notify the represented people in the mail and explain them why I was doing this.

Always note passive candidates do not like recruiters. But by drafting an email in such a way to make the candidates think that this mail is coming directly from the Director of Hardware Engineering at Cisco or Microsoft or Google , the candidates start thinking that the job position looks very appealing and the position comes directly from the technical team and respond immediately.

  Mohamed Ali Recruiter, ETG/ DSSTG/ CDO OPS Group Corporate Development, mohamali@cisco.com, Phone :408-853-3523, Mobile :510-402-7625

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Sourcing tricks:

• Display your job posting on the college boards where it's free. From there we will get good jr level candidates for the higher skill sets.
• Always be in contact with your contractors
• While doing a reference check, ask from the manager any candidate or tell them what your are working on
• Give the referral bonus to the person who gives you the candidate.
• Cold Calling into the company
• When you talk to candidate about any position , you can know that the position he is leaving is empty. So call into that company and let them know about you.
• Display on the free job boards.
• Always tell the candidates that you have multiple open positions. So in that case they will refer to their friends.
• Tell the candidate or lead or manager or client about your Niche areas.
• Take to your existing manager , that you have this good candidate in pipeline which is good for your group
• Take the contractors and your client managers to lunch.
• Be a part of good networking group.
• You can also put your business card into Niche book store like Barnes and noble.
• Do Boolean searches
• Use Google , yahoo , MSN etc for sourcing the candidates.
• Make a good pool of candidates
• Always create hot list candidates.
• Use your Company database. People think that its useless but its not.
• Use Link din to find talented people. 

Thanks Amulya   email amulyanidhi27@yahoo.com

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Ok.....I am going to give this a shot.

Its  very easy to get a resource from a thirdy part vendor but like we know that creates unwanted layers and low billings. So now everytime i speak to a consultant that i got from a third party, i put up a question to him..."Are you looking for a Visa transfer" ? Now if this guy hesitates then you know you can get him to join your company and he is unhappy with his old company. It worked several times for me. If he says,  "No, i like to work corp to corp".  then say sure "We want guys who are loyal to their company". Play it well and play it safe.

Kajal Gupta email gupta.kajal@gmail.com

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My name is Maria kench and I am sourcing specialist. I would like to enter the Sourcing Contest.

I just want to preface this by saying .... I know that when some recruiters hear my trick, they're going to hate me, but this is a contest & that's why I am entering. My trick did work...

When I was sourcing for Recruiters, if I was having a difficult time finding enough candidates to source ... I would actually post a confidential resume on monster as a candidate to target the recruiters I was looking for. For example, if I was sourcing for a technical recruiter in Houston, TX I would post a resume for a Contract .net developer and when recruiters would e-mail me about potential openings... (you could change this up to to java, j2ee,

etc.)

I would formulate an excel spreadsheet with all of their info & then contact them about a technical recruiter opportunity with the company I was working for ... and they would have no idea how I had gotten their info.

Thanks, Maria Kench email cowsrule13@yahoo.com

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Hello my name is Jane Roth

I need more job openings not more people
Economy is bad in New York that is where I live and work.

Here goes
I went to a Business Community Web where I found email and phone numbers and I emailed everyone a short effective note.

It went something like this.

People do not read ads when you advertise on line.
Call me and allow me to help you I have years of experience placing people.
I make the process easier by emailing you a few great resumes that meet your needs.It worked and people responded and I got  few new clients that why.

Jane from New York Good luck to all

Cordially Yours, 
Jane Roth/Operations Mgr. email  janeroth7@yahoo.com

The greatest "source of candidates" is your current employees.  Make sure that you have them added to your LinkedIn connections (and other social networking sites) - even if they only have one connection (You), eventually they will add more. For example, I recruit for the Transportation Business Group, so I make sure that all employees in the Transportation Business Group have received an invite from me.  After all, they are the ones that know Transportation Engineers that I am recruiting for.

Ginny McKoy, CIR, ACIR
Sr. Talent Recruiter/Sourcing Lead
CH2M HILL, Inc
Direct: 352-472-2908
ginny.mckoy@ch2m.com

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Two "low tech sourcing ideas" I love:

1. Get the hiring managers to provide you the attendee lists at your industries major conventions& trade shows and cold call the attendees for the purpose of networking...

2. When you have individual contributors come in to interview, before they fill out their application, for references ask them to give their colleagues as references...later you can always get the direct supervisors- this helps build a "pipeline" of names of engineers & technical people who comprise the majority of people I recruit.

3. At industry events...trade shows, etc. run contests posing rather difficult questions & interview people who are successful in answering the questions by providing PRIZES!

4. Provide small gifts to people who interview at your company

5. Create alumni groups-stay in contact with former employees and encourage them to return or if they have no interest...offer small gifts for referrals they give.

6. Create an external recruitment campaign among captive audiences at trade shows & conventions...also use formal programs like H3.com

Regards,

Victor Accattatis  e-mail vicacc@comcast.net